Historical Sikh Temple / Gurdwara Guru Nanak, Gharuka / GhadukaHistorical Gurdwara ID HG-788Historical Sikh Temple / Gurdwara Guru Nanak, Gharuka / Ghaduka

The Phase 3 threshold requires a physical historical institution, not merely a claimed travel stop. In Travels of Guru Nanak, Surindar Singh Kohli states that Guru Nanak Dev Ji reached Gharuka hill, named for the resident saint Gharuka, and that a Sikh temple existed at Gharuka in honour of the Guru’s visit. This supplies the institutional anchor that was missing when Gharuka remained on HOLD in earlier batches.

Kohli places Gharuka after the Guru’s Kabul episode in his reconstruction of the western journey. He describes the hill as approximately twenty-five kos from Kabul and says it was named after a saint from Hissar called Gharuka. In the narrative, the saint had taken a vow of silence and declared that the person who could make him speak would become his religious preceptor. Guru Nanak rested under a tree and sang; the saint responded and received instruction. The account then preserves later devotional motifs concerning signs by which the Guru’s presence could be remembered.

For Pothi, the most important sentence is not the miracle narrative but the institutional statement: Kohli records a Sikh temple at Gharuka commemorating the Guru’s visit. A later Sikh historical synthesis independently repeats that Gharuka had a Sikh temple in honour of Guru Nanak Ji and describes it as part of Afghanistan’s network of Guru Nanak dharamsals. This corroborates the existence of a stable memorial tradition, although the synthesis ultimately relies on older Sikh travel literature rather than new archaeological fieldwork.

The location requires caution. Kohli’s text says about twenty-five kos from Kabul. Several later web summaries state twenty-five kilometres. A kos is a historical distance unit whose value varied by period and region, so those statements cannot be merged into a precise modern radius. No cadastral record, archaeological survey, historic map pin or current community photograph identifying the temple parcel has yet been recovered. The permanent record therefore preserves the historical site without inventing a coordinate.

According to the Guru Nanak travel tradition recorded by Kohli, Guru Nanak Dev Ji met and instructed the saint Gharuka at the hill that bore his name. A Sikh temple was subsequently maintained there in memory of the Guru’s visit. The dialogue and supernatural motifs remain devotional/traditional layers; the temple identity is the stronger database anchor.

Guru Nanak Dev Ji; Bhai Mardana Ji in the wider western-journey tradition; the saint or faqir Gharuka; later Sikh custodians and sangat who maintained the memorial temple tradition; Surindar Singh Kohli as the twentieth-century scholar whose published work preserves the site description.

• A Sikh temple at Gharuka is explicitly recorded in Kohli’s published travel study as commemorating Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s visit.

• The associated landscape anchor is Gharuka hill rather than a securely recovered modern street address.

• The narrative identifies a tree-resting place, but no surviving historic tree should be claimed without direct field evidence.

• No verified photograph, plan, inscription, land deed or surviving building fabric for the historical temple has yet been recovered in this audit.

No current building is verified. HG-788 must therefore be presented as a historical-site/institution record, not as an active gurdwara destination. Pothi must not attach a generic Afghan gurdwara image, a Kabul-area map pin or a similarly named modern locality unless documentary or field evidence proves continuity with Gharuka.

• Early 16th century, tradition: Guru Nanak Dev Ji is remembered as reaching Gharuka hill during the Afghanistan portion of the western journey and meeting saint Gharuka. • Later historical period: A Sikh temple / gurdwara develops or is maintained at Gharuka in commemoration of the Guru’s visit. • 1969: Surindar Singh Kohli’s Panjab University publication records Gharuka hill, the Guru tradition, and an existing Sikh temple in honour of the visit. • Later secondary literature: Afghanistan Sikh-heritage summaries repeat the Gharuka / Ghaduka temple tradition, sometimes converting Kohli’s approximately 25 kos into 25 km. • 2026 research state: Historical memorial institution passes Phase 3; exact modern locality, parcel, surviving fabric, ownership and access remain Pending.

• HG-780 Gurdwara Guru Nanak historical site, Jad Mewan, Kabul - separate lost urban Kabul gurdwara; never merge with HG-788.

• HG-783 Dharamsaal Siri Guru Nanak Sahib, Kabuli Bazaar, Kandahar - separate historical institution.

• HG-785 Tashkurgan / Kholm Sikh temple - separate northern Afghan historical site.

• HG-776 Guru Nanak Darbar, Jalalabad and HG-777 Chashma Sahib - separate Nangarhar physical sites.

• Haibak / Aibak and Kaza dharamsal references remain HOLD with no permanent HG numbers.

• Bukhara, Samarkand and disputed Central Asian route extensions belong to Phase 4 unless a separate qualifying gurdwara property is established.

No portable Guru-period relic, manuscript, weapon, inscription or authenticated object is assigned to HG-788. The tree and landscape motifs in the travel narrative are not treated as verified surviving relics.

Current access, management and ownership are unknown because the historical locality and temple parcel are not yet securely georeferenced. Pothi should not offer turn-by-turn directions, opening hours or visitor assurances for HG-788.

There is currently no defensible basis for promising a visible surviving gurdwara at Gharuka / Ghaduka. Until the historical locality is recovered through Afghan gazetteers, archival maps, Sikh community memory, cadastral material or field documentation, the app should present HG-788 as Lost / Status Unknown Heritage.

• PHYSICAL-SITE CONTROL: admission rests on an explicitly recorded Sikh temple at Gharuka, not on the route narrative alone.

• DISTANCE CONTROL: primary published wording reviewed here is approximately 25 kos from Kabul. Later 25-km retellings are retained as secondary variants, not silently substituted.

• PLACE-NAME CONTROL: Gharuka and Ghaduka are treated as historical spelling variants provisionally. A future geographic recovery may require normalization, but no second HG record should be created from spelling alone.

• GURU-VISIT CONTROL: the Guru’s visit and conversation with saint Gharuka are later Sikh travel tradition, not contemporary documentary evidence. Narrative confidence remains Moderate.

• PARCEL CONTROL: exact hill, temple parcel and current administrative jurisdiction are Pending. No guessed coordinate.

• STATUS CONTROL: absence of current evidence is not proof of destruction. Use Lost / Status Unknown, not Demolished, unless later evidence establishes the fate of the building.