PĀIL, village (now in ruins) near Gaṅgūvāl, 5 km north of Anandpur along Anandpur-Gurū kā Lahore road, has a shrine commemorating Gurū Hargobind's visit in 1635. Here one of his favourite stallions, Jān Bhāī, wounded in the battle of Kartārpur, finally collapsed and died. The Gurdwārā established during the 20th century is wrongly named Gurdwārā Suhelā Ghoṛā after another horse which, according to Gurbilas Chhevīṅ Pātshāhī and Srī Gur Pratāp Sūraj Granth, had been killed in an earlier battle at Mehrāj. The two horses, Jān Bhāī and Suhelā (originally Dilbāgh and Gulbāgh, respectively), were being brought by a devotee from Afghanistan for Gurū Hargobind, when they were snatched on the way by the governor of Lahore. Bhāī Bidhī Chand, a devoted Sikh, had recovered them one by one through strategem and brought them to Gurū Hargobind. There are now two gurdwārās at what used to be the village of Pāil.

        GURDWĀRĀ SUHELĀ GHOṚĀ comprises a small room constructed in 1965, with a slightly bigger one added in 1982.

        GURDWĀRĀ KHŪH SĀHIB, about 200 metres to the east of Gurdwārā Suhelā Sāhib, is close to an old well (khūh, in Punjabi) got sunk by Gurū Hargobind. The Shiromaṇī Gurdwārā Parbandhak Committee, which administers both the Gurdwārās, got the present building, a single square room, constructed in 1984.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Sohan Kavī, Gurbilās Chhevīṅ Pātshāhī. Amritsar,1968
  2. Santokh Siṅgh, Bhāī, Srī Gur Pratāp Sūraj Granth. Amritsar, 1927- 35
  3. Macauliffe, Max Arthur, The Sikh Religion. Oxford, 1909

Gurnek Siṅgh