Jamshedpur : The jagriti yatra, which was flagged off by the Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar on October 14 from the Takht Shri Harmandir Sahib reached the Steel City today.
The yatra was accorded a grand welcome in the city. The idea is to create awareness and invite people to the 350th Prakash Parv or birth anniversary celebrations of the 10th Sikh guru, Gobind Singh being celebrated at Patna.
Senior functionaries of Central Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee led by president Inderjeet Singh and BJP leader Amarpreet Singh Kale accorded a grand welcome.
The yatra comprises a hand-written Guru Grant Sahib belonging to the time of Guru Gobind Singh (AD 1666 to 1708), 16 different types of weapons used by him – including sword, spear, arrow and dagger – are also being carried along with the yatra and will be exhibited en route.
As per the plans the yatra will move through 16 states and return to Patna by December 13. The yatra will move through Jharkhand, Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh before returning to Patna. The procession will also visit Nanded in Maharashtra, the place where the Guru was assassinated.
Guru Govind Singh, the 10th guru of the Sikhs, was born in Patna to Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh guru, and Mata Gujri on December 22, 1666. His birthday is celebrated on the seventh day of Poush in the Hindi calendar.
The place where he was born is now marked as Takht Shri Harmandir Sahib or Patna Sahib. The Bihar government will spend Rs 100 crore on the arrangements and the celebrations.
The guru has mentioned Patna in his autobiography ( Bachitra Natak). In memory of the Sikh Guru, Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) – the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire – built the Takht Sri Harmandir Sahib at Patna City between 1837 and 1839.
