Authority from the saint, not the state: Shrines, URS, and shared festivity in eighteenth-century Punjab

Abstract

This study examines the shrine, the urs, and the seasonal festival as the lived spatial infrastructure of religious harmony in eighteenth-century Punjab. Political power continued to weaken during the decline of the Mughal empire, marked by Afghan invasions led by Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali, the Marathas' involvement, and the rise of the Sikh misls. The sacred geography associated with the saints and the agricultural calendar of the villages brought the three communities, Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, together in shared rituals and observances. Drawing exclusively on the historiography of the period, the paper argues that the mazar of the Sufi saint, the gurdwara networks of Guru Nanak, and the great seasonal melas of Vaisakhi, Basant, Lohri, and Maghi constituted a non-state institution whose authority derived from the saint and the soil rather than from the throne. At shrines such as those of Baba Farid at Pakpattan, Madho Lal Hussain at Lahore, Bulleh Shah at Kasur, and Haider Sheikh at Malerkotla, hereditary khadim and sajjada nashin families sustained cross-communal practice—shared langar, qawwali, dhamal, and pilgrimage—across successive regimes. Professional performers, artisans, and a common world of folk belief bound these gatherings together. The study concludes that the mela served as the practical guardian of interfaith coexistence precisely where formal governance failed.