Place · udasi-route gurdwara · India
Nanakmatā
The Terai town in Udham Singh Nagar district, Uttarakhand, where tradition places Guru Nanak's meeting with the Nath yogi community during his eastern udasi — the site, previously a major Nath centre associated with Gorakhnath himself, is said to have been handed over to the Sikh tradition after Nanak's debate with the Nath Siddhas. The Peepal tree under which Nanak sat still stands beside the modern gurdwara. The sacred-ground transfer between two heterodox orders — Nath to Sikh — is a textbook case of how pilgrimage geography moves between traditions through recorded encounters rather than by conquest.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Janamsakhi tradition; Nath yogi memory
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 28.999, 79.750
Connections (1)
- Life routeGuru Nanak
Nanakmatā in the Terai had been a Nāth centre called Gorakhmatā before it became a gurdwara, and the janamsākhis set a dispute with the yogis there on the first journey. The Nāths are the udāsis' standing opponents, and the site's change of name records who the tradition thinks won. The Nāths held that liberation required leaving the world; Nanak's answer, repeated across five journeys, was that it required staying in it and working, which is the Sikh position entire.
On these journeys
Sources
Gurdwara Nanakmata Sahib
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