Guru Arjan Dev Ji Shaheedi Divas 2028: Date, History & Significance

The Guru was made to sit on a red-hot iron plate while burning sand was poured over him, for five days, and refused to renounce his faith or alter the Granth; he was finally let into the Ravi river, from which he did not emerge. He met it, the janamsakhis say, with the words 'Tera kiya meetha lage' — 'Sweet is Your will'.

Sikhs keep the day with kirtan, katha of the martyrdom, and Ardas, and — because it falls in peak summer — with chhabeel: roadside stalls giving out free chilled sweet water, milk and sharbat to passers-by, a service of remembrance especially widespread in Punjab and Delhi.

Guru Arjan completed the Harmandir Sahib with its four doors open to all directions and castes, dug the Amritsar sarovar, founded Tarn Taran and Kartarpur, and compiled the Adi Granth. Jahangir, in his own memoir, records ordering his death — nominally for blessing the rebel prince Khusrau, but the deeper cause was the growing strength and independence of the Sikh community. His son Hargobind, the sixth Guru, took up the two swords of miri and piri in response.

Source: Sikh historical sources and the janamsakhi tradition

The martyrdom is dated to 30 May 1606 at Lahore; it is recorded in Jahangir's Tuzuk and in Sikh sources, and is kept as a Shaheedi Gurpurab following the Bikrami date in Jyeshtha, with the Nanakshahi calendar assigning it 16 June.

• SGPC and Sikh historical scholarship
• Nanakshahi and Bikrami calendar reckonings

1. The fifth Guru, who compiled the Adi Granth, was tortured to death in Lahore in 1606; he is remembered as the first Sikh martyr.
2. Gurdwaras hold kirtan of his compositions, including the Sukhmani Sahib, and katha on his martyrdom.
3. Because he was made to sit on a burning iron plate in the June heat, Sikhs set up chhabeel stalls in the streets to serve cold sweetened milk-water to every passer-by.

• Punjab, Delhi, worldwide. Kirtan and martyrdom katha at gurdwaras; chhabeel stalls giving out chilled sweet water and milk in the summer heat.
• Lahore (Gurdwara Dera Sahib). The site of the martyrdom, on the bank of the Ravi; visited by Indian jathas.

• Chhabeel — Chilled sweetened water with milk and rose, served free in the streets.
• Langar — Served at gurdwaras through the day.

Guru Arjan Dev Shaheedi falls on Friday, 16 June 2028. The martyrdom of Guru Arjan, the fifth Guru.

at sunrise

Guru Arjan Dev Ji Shaheedi Divas follows the Jyeshtha Shukla Chaturthi (Bikrami); 1606 CE, at Lahore. Most Gurpurabs use the lunar Bikrami calendar, so the Gregorian date shifts each year; the Nanakshahi calendar (2003, revised) assigns several of them fixed solar dates, and both reckonings are in use in different quarters of the Panth.

The date is set by the Hindu lunisolar calendar and shifts against the Gregorian year.