Bhai Lakhi Rai Banjara (fl. 17th century), also known as Lakhi Shah, was a contractor of Delhi who was a follower of the Sikh gurus. He is remembered for assisting with the cremation of Guru Tegh Bahadur's remains after the execution of the guru.[2] He accomplished this by cremating the guru's headless body by burning down his house on the outskirts of the city of Delhi with the corpse inside it.[3]
Bhai Lakhi Rai Banjara was of a Lubana and Banjara background.[4][5][6] Lakhi Shah was a cotton-merchant of Delhi.[7]
Guru Tegh Bahadur's body was mutilated and left in Chandni Chowk after his execution by the Mughals.[8] During the night, there was a storm in Delhi.[8] When Lakhi Shah was told that the guru had been executed by Bhai Uda of Ladwa, Lakhi Shah devised a plan with Uda to obtain the headless corpse of the guru using Lakhi Shah's familiarity to the Mughal officials since he was a contractor.[2] Lakhi Shah emptied his carts laden with lime near the Red Fort and retired to his native village of Rakabganj.[2] In the night, Lakhi Shah and his sons Nagahia, Hema, Harhi and another figure named Duma (son of Kanha) got ahold of the corpse of the guru and transported it away using the cart that was left earlier near the fort on 12 November 1675.[2]Bhai Jaita got ahold of the severed head of the guru.[8] The body was taken to the house of Lakhi Shah, who then burnt the house down to cremate the remains.[2] The house, which was a dwelling-hut, was located on Raisina Hill.[7] Back then, it was a colony of stirrup-makers.[9] The inhabitants of the house wept like their house had actually burnt down unintentionally, which did not arouse the suspicions of Mughal police who were investigating the disappearance of the guru's body.[2] Afterwards, some of the cremated remains were put into a gagar (metal-vessel) and transported to Anandpur whilst other parts of the remains were buried at the site of the burnt-down residence.[2] At Anandpur, Guru Gobind Das received the remains that had been put into the metal-vessel.[2] As per the Guru Kian Sakhian, he then embraced Lakhi Shah, who narrated the preceding events at Delhi involving his father to the guru.[2]
Legacy
Lakhi Shah's daughter, Sito Bai, would marry Bhai Mani Singh.[10][11] However, other sources state Sito Bai was the daughter of Lakhi Rai Jadhaun. Gurdwara Rakabganj Sahib would later be constructed on the spot of the former hut of Lakhi Rai which had been burnt-down intentionally to cremate Guru Tegh Bahadur's headless corpse.[7]
↑Yamunanagar, Shiv Kumar Sharma In (20 October 2017). "Fort Lohgarh to rise from ashes". Tribuneindia News Service. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
123456789Gandhi, Surjit Singh (2007). History of Sikh Gurus Retold: 1606–1708 C.E. Vol.2. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. pp.665–666. ISBN9788126908585.
↑Singh, Patwant (2007). The Sikhs. PRH Christian Publishing. ISBN9780307429339. In faraway Delhi too, a man called Lakhi Shah Lubana and his companions had taken his body out of the walled city in the dead of night-during the same storm -to a place called Rakabganj, on the city's outskirts. Since a formal cremation was fraught with danger, Lakhi Shah reverently placed the Guru's body in his house, then set the house on fire to avoid detection: a fitting farewell by his devotees to a man who had stirred their imagination by his unique sacrifice.
↑Singh, Pashaura; Mandair, Arvind-Pal Singh, eds. (2023). The Sikh World. Taylor & Francis. ISBN9780429848384. The tribal Sikhs - Sikligars and Banjaras are distributed all over the country except in the northeastern states. ... The Banjaras are known as Lambada, Lamani, Guar Banjara, Vanzara in different regions. Their ancestors were traders carrying merchandise and weapons on bullock carts. There are numerous prominent Sikhs amongst them most notably Makhan Shah Labana and Lakhi Shah Banjara.
↑Singh, Harbans (1966). Guru Gobind Singh. Guru Gobind Singh Foundation. p.27.
↑Singh, Birinder Pal (2012). 'Criminal' Tribes of Punjab. Routledge. p.42. ISBN9781136517877. They had been trading since ancient times (adi kaal ton) and also practiced the barter system. Lakhi Shah Banjara and Makhan Shah Labana, whose names appear in Sikh religious history, were the most prominent traders of the community during their times.
123Singh, Gobind (2015). Zafarnama. Translated by Sarna, Navtej. Penguin UK. ISBN9788184755954. The body was similarly smuggled away by another follower-Lakhi Rai, a cotton merchant-to his own hut on Raisina hill and the hut was set afire to cremate the body. Gurdwara Rakabganj in Delhi is the solemn memorial in white marble built on this site.
123Singh, Nikky-Guninder Kaur (2012). The Birth of the Khalsa: A Feminist Re-Memory of Sikh Identity. State University of New York Press. p.24. ISBN9780791482667.
↑Singha, H. S. (2000). The Encyclopedia of Sikhism (Over 1000 Entries). Hemkunt Press. p.187. ISBN9788170103011.
History of the Punjab Hill States (J. Hutchison and J.Ph Vogel) ISBN81-206-0942-5 and 81-206-0943-3
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