Gurudwara Sri Guru Baag Sahib stands on Guru Nanak Dev Ji Road in the old city of Varanasi (Banaras), long known as one of Hinduism’s holiest centres and home, in earlier centuries, to Bhagat Kabir Ji and Bhagat Ravidas Ji, both of whom challenged the ritualism of the city’s religious establishment. Guru Nanak Dev Ji, arriving here during his first Udasi from Sultanpur Lodhi via Kurukshetra, Haridwar, Delhi, Aligarh, Kanpur and Lucknow, reached this garden on the eve of Shivratri and began singing hymns as Bhai Mardana Ji played the rabab.

Pandit Gopal Das, an idol-worshipper devoted to ritual observance, was so moved by what he heard that he invited Guru Sahib to discourse and, in time, set aside his ritualistic practices to follow Guru Sahib’s teaching. Later, a proud scholar named Pandit Chatur Das came intending to defeat Guru Sahib in debate, but arrived instead to find his hostility dissolving in Guru Sahib’s presence. According to the tradition preserved at this site, when Chatur Das pressed for answers, Guru Sahib pointed him to a dog nearby — once, Guru Sahib said, a proud pandit of this very city named Ganga Ram, who had scorned every wandering sadhu until his arrogance cost him his human birth, and who had begged only that Guru Nanak Dev Ji come to release him one day. On Guru Sahib’s glance, the dog was restored to human form, and the assembled pandits, hearing his account, bowed before Guru Sahib — who released Pandit Ganga Ram from the cycle of birth and death, and taught Chatur Das the same right path.