Delhi's largest gurdwara · Guru Har Krishan's shrine
Gurdwara Bangla Sahib
Connaught Place, New Delhi, India
Where a child Guru gave his own life for a city's healing.
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Coming up: Guru Har Krishan's Prakash Purab · 23 JulEntry tended 24 May 2026
Connaught Place, New Delhi Open 24 hours Langar: tens of thousands fed daily Guru Har Krishan's Prakash Purab · 23 Jul 2026 Entry free, always Gurdwara raised 1783, marble complex post-1947
You step off the marble at dawn, feet already washed at the channel by the gate, and Baba Kharak Singh Marg falls quiet behind you. Ahead, a golden dome catches the first light over a wide reflecting pool, and somewhere unseen the kitchen has been going since before you woke. There is no image to bow before here, only the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, sung to without pause. Devotees kneel at the sarovar's edge and cup its water in their hands. A child once gave his own life for this water. That is why you have come.
This ground remembers Guru Har Krishan Sahib Ji, the eighth Guru, who as a child gave water from this site's well to Delhi's smallpox-stricken in 1664, then gave his own life in that same service. No other Sikh shrine holds quite this story.
The sarovar that grew up around that well is held by devotees to carry a healing born of the Guru's own compassion. Pilgrims still draw its water and carry it home as amrit, much as the sick of seventeenth-century Delhi once did.
Guru Ka Langar here feeds tens of thousands of people on an ordinary day, and during the worst of the pandemic the kitchen's volunteers packed and delivered meals to the doors of the housebound, free, as it always has been.
The healing of a stricken city
Guru Har Krishan Sahib Ji became the eighth Guru at five years old in 1661, when his father Guru Har Rai Sahib Ji passed the succession to him. In 1664 the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb summoned the young Guru to Delhi, and Raja Jai Singh I of Amber hosted him at his own bungalow, a bangla, on the edge of the city. Delhi that year lay in the grip of an epidemic of smallpox and cholera, and tradition holds the Guru went out among the sick rather than keep to the shelter of the household, drawing water from the bungalow's well for those who came to him.
Many who took that water are remembered to have recovered, and Delhi's Muslim residents are said to have named the boy Guru Bala Pir, the child prophet. In the course of that service he contracted smallpox himself, and passed into Sachkhand at the bungalow on 30 March 1664, not yet eight years old, having spoken only the words 'Baba Bakale' to point the Panth toward his successor, words that led the community to Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib Ji in the village of Bakala.
The bungalow stayed a place of quiet pilgrimage until 1783, when Sardar Baghel Singh restored nine historic Sikh sites across Delhi and raised a shrine here over the well. The tank that grew around it became the sarovar. The white marble complex standing today, with its golden dome, was largely built up after 1947 to serve a sangat that has never stopped growing.
What you'll actually see
1
The golden dome and the marble façade
The approach along Baba Kharak Singh Marg opens onto a wide white marble forecourt, and the building rises in tiers of arched windows and chhatris to a single gilded dome and a tall Nishan Sahib. The architecture reads as neither wholly Sikh nor wholly Mughal but both at once, domes and pointed arches worked in the same white stone.
2
The sarovar and its parikrama
The sacred pool, roughly 225 by 235 feet, sits behind a covered marble walkway lined with pointed arches. Devotees move along it slowly, some pausing to bathe at the ghats, others simply to sit at the water's edge, and the golden dome lies doubled in its still surface by evening.
3
Guru Ka Langar
Below and beside the main hall, an open kitchen runs without pause: sacks of flour and lentils, steel cauldrons taller than a person, volunteers rolling rotis by the thousand. The dining hall itself is plain, floor seating in long rows, and the meal is the same for everyone who sits down.
Photos: Ken Wieland (CC BY-SA 2.0), Jasleen Kaur (CC BY-SA 2.0), Ji-Elle (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons
THE KITCHEN THAT KEPT GOING
Guru Ka Langar, and the meals that reached shut doors
On an ordinary day the langar at Bangla Sahib feeds somewhere in the range of 25,000 to 35,000 people, a figure that itself varies by who is counting and when, and climbs far higher on weekends and Gurpurabs. Sacks of atta and rice, hundreds of kilograms of dal and vegetables, and tens of thousands of hand-rolled rotis move through the kitchen in a single day, cooked and served by volunteers who take no wage for it. During the worst weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Delhi's hospitals and homes alike ran short of almost everything, the gurdwara's kitchen staff and DSGMC volunteers packed meals and carried them to the doors of COVID patients who could not leave their homes to eat, continuing a service that, by the kitchen's own account, has never turned a hungry person away.
Sit for the meal itself if you can; the hall refills every few minutes, and there is always room for one more.
Plan your visit
By air
Indira Gandhi International Airport is about 20 km away; the Airport Express Line runs to Shivaji Stadium station, a short walk or auto ride from the gurdwara.
By rail and metro
New Delhi Railway Station is about 3 km away. The nearest metro stations are Shivaji Stadium (Airport Express Line) and Patel Chowk (Yellow Line), both under 1 km from the gate.
Timings
The complex is open 24 hours. Langar is served roughly 9 am to 3 pm and again 7 pm to 10 pm, though the kitchen itself keeps working through the day.
Best time
Early morning or after dark, when the marble is cool and the crowds are thinner. Midday sun on the open forecourt is intense for much of the year.
Dress
Cover your head at all times inside the complex; scarves are provided free at the entrance. Shoes come off at the free shoe counter, and feet are washed at the water channel before entry.
The queue
There is no paid or fast-track queue. Movement is generally brisk compared with larger pilgrimage gurdwaras; weekends and Gurpurab days are busiest.
Entry
Free, always, for everyone, and the langar meal is free as well.
Bangla Sahib takes its name from the bangla, the bungalow, of Raja Jai Singh I that once stood on this ground.
Photography and phone use are asked to stop inside the Darbar Sahib itself and near the Guru Granth Sahib Ji; the sarovar courtyard and forecourt are generally fine for photographs.
Tobacco, alcohol, and other intoxicants are not permitted anywhere in the complex.
Since 2019 the DSGMC has added ramps, chairlifts, and a fleet of wheelchairs for elderly and disabled visitors; staff at the entrance can help arrange one.
Questions pilgrims ask
Is there a murti or idol inside?
No. Sikhi does not worship images. Inside the Darbar Sahib the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, the scripture the Sikhs revere as their living Guru, is seated under a canopy while ragis sing its hymns through the day.
Is the sarovar's water actually healing?
Devotees hold it to be so, a belief rooted directly in the account of Guru Har Krishan Sahib Ji giving water from this well to the sick in 1664. Mandala does not make medical claims about the water; this is what the tradition holds and what pilgrims come to receive.
Can anyone visit and eat in the langar, or only Sikhs?
Anyone may come. Cover your head, remove your shoes at the free counter, and wash your feet at the entrance channel. The langar is open to all, regardless of faith, free of charge and without question.
What actually happened here in 1664?
Guru Har Krishan Sahib Ji, the eighth Guru, stayed at what was then Raja Jai Singh's bungalow during a smallpox and cholera epidemic in Delhi. He gave water from the site's well to those who were sick, contracted smallpox himself while doing so, and died at the bungalow on 30 March 1664, not yet eight years old.
Is the gurdwara open at night?
Yes. The complex does not close. The Darbar Sahib holds kirtan through the day, and the sarovar and forecourt remain open around the clock; only the langar keeps to its own daytime and evening serving hours.
Darshan from afar
From the temple's own channels. Nothing loads until you press play.
Dharamshalas and guest houses near this Sthan, shared by devotees. Adisthan takes no bookings and no money; contact each stay directly.
No stays are listed here yet. Know one that serves pilgrims well?
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