Gugga, called Gugga Pir, Zahir Pir or Gugga Chauhan, is a snake deity and a saint, a Chauhan Rajput of Rajasthan by tradition, worshipped across Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan by Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims together.
His shrines are small mud or brick structures called maris, often with a snake carved or painted on them, and there is one at the edge of a great many villages.
The Chhapar mela near Ludhiana in September is the largest gathering associated with him and draws several lakh people, who circle the mound and take earth from it.
The bharti, the singers who go from village to village in his month with a chhadi, a decorated staff, and sing his story, are a distinct performing group.
He is a clear case of the pre-sectarian religious layer of Punjab. Nobody attending the Chhapar mela is doing anything their formal religion prescribes, and everybody goes.
The story is a Rajput one: a birth granted by a saint, a quarrel with cousins over land, a killing, and a descent into the earth alive. Which of the Muslim and the Hindu elements in it came first is not answerable now, and the shrines carry a grave shape, a flag, a snake and a lamp all at the same time.
The Chhapar mela in Ludhiana district is the largest of his fairs, drawing lakhs over three days in September, with the distinctive practice of crawling through the snake hole.
The observance crosses religion completely. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims all attend, and in many villages the shrine keeper is a Muslim, which is one of very few such continuities left in Indian Punjab.