Tarn Taran Sahib
Founded by Guru Arjan in 1590, with one of the largest sarovars of any gurdwara. The Guru also set up a home for people with leprosy here.
Tarn Taran, south of Amritsar, was founded by Guru Arjan in 1590 on land bought from the villages of Khara and Palasaur. The name means 'the boat that carries across'. Its sarovar is one of the largest of any gurdwara, and its water was believed to cure leprosy.
Guru Arjan built a leper asylum here, the first in the Punjab. The Darbar Sahib, a three-storeyed building with a gilded upper storey, was built by Ranjit Singh, who also began a tower, of which one of the minarets was completed later.
Tarn Taran became the heart of the Majha, the region of the Sikh heartland, and in the 1980s and 1990s it was at the centre of the armed struggle and the police counter-insurgency, with some of the worst disappearances.
People
Fifth Guru. Built the Harmandir Sahib, compiled the Adi Granth in 1604 and became the first Sikh martyr, tortured to death in Lahore in 1606.
Two Sikhs who, to show that Sikhs had not been wiped out as the governor claimed, set up a toll post on the Grand Trunk Road and fought the troops sent against them to the death.
