Bhai Joga Singh

The account is that Bhai Joga Singh was summoned by Guru Gobind Singh Ji from Peshawar during his own wedding, left immediately, and on the journey stopped at Hoshiarpur where he was tempted and did not go through with it.

He arrived and found that the Guru had known.

The story is told as a warning about pride: it is the fact that he thought well of himself for coming that is the failure, not the temptation.

There are a set of these in the tradition, sakhis about Sikhs who did the right thing for the wrong reason, and they are told more often to adults than to children.

Gurdwara Bhai Joga Singh at Peshawar existed before 1947. Its condition is not documented.

The Sikh community of Peshawar was old, was Pashto-speaking, and largely left after 2009 rather than in 1947.

The sakhi is set at his own wedding. He was summoned, left, and on the road stopped at a place where he was tempted and was turned back from it by a stranger who was the Guru.

The point of the telling is that the resolve was not his. It is a story against self-congratulation, told in a tradition that produces a great many stories of extraordinary constancy.

Sakhis of this kind are the teaching literature of the tradition. They circulate orally and in cheap printed collections, their historical value is low, and history is not their function.

What we don't know

  • The condition of the Peshawar gurdwaras.

Where to check this

Named but not linked. These are real, findable documents. This project has not consulted them for this page.

  • Standard sakhi tradition.

This page has not yet been read through by the editor. Treat it with more caution than the rest.

How this page was written. The text is compiled from the standard published histories and reference works, not from a document held in hand. Nobody from this project has visited the place or read the archive. The list above is where a reader can go to check it, not a record of what was consulted line by line. Dates and figures are the received account. If you hold something better, write in and it will be corrected.

This is one of 130 accounts in The Ten, the chapter of this site covering the Gurus, from 1469 to 1708.