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Guru Gobind Singh

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  • Guru Gobind Singh was born on the 22nd of December 1666 in Patna, Bihar, while his father was away visiting Bengal and Assam. He would grow up to become the tenth and final human Guru of the Sikhs, a warrior, a poet, and a philosopher whose decisions still shape the faith of millions today. He became the leader of his people at nine years old, under the worst possible circumstances. His father had just been publicly beheaded in Delhi. His own four sons would not survive him. And a vast empire was determined to destroy everything he stood for. How does a child inherit that weight? And what kind of man does he become?

  • On the 11th of November 1675, Guru Tegh Bahadur was publicly beheaded in Delhi on the orders of Emperor Aurangzeb, for refusing to convert to Islam. He had gone to the capital knowing the risk. Kashmiri Pandits had petitioned him for protection from the Mughal governor's persecution, and he had tried to seek a peaceful resolution. His advisors warned him his life was in danger. His son, the young Gobind Das, told him that no one was more worthy to lead and make a sacrifice. Tegh Bahadur went anyway. Before his execution, he wrote a letter to his son, a letter later called Mahalla Dasven, which is preserved in the Guru Granth Sahib. It was a test of Gobind Das's readiness to lead. The boy's reply, written from Anandpur, confirmed he was prepared. After reading it, Tegh Bahadur sent back a final message: "Guru Gobind's glory shall ever remain." On Vaisakhi on the 29th of March 1676, the nine-year-old Gobind Das was formally installed as the tenth Sikh Guru. His education continued under this new weight, covering Persian, which he learned in a year at age seven, as well as martial training that had begun at age six, including horse riding and archery.

  • In 1699, Guru Gobind Singh called the Sikhs to gather at Anandpur for Vaisakhi, the annual spring harvest festival. What happened next became one of the most retold moments in Sikh memory. He asked for a volunteer willing to give his life. One man came forward. The Guru led him into a tent, then emerged alone holding a sword covered in blood. He asked again. Four more times, the same scene repeated. After the fifth volunteer entered, the Guru returned with all five men unharmed. He called them the Panj Pyare, the beloved five, and declared them the first Khalsa. He mixed water and sugar in an iron bowl, stirred with a double-edged sword, and administered this Amrit to the five, accompanied by recitations from the Adi Granth. Then he did something without precedent in the Sikh tradition: he asked the five to baptize him in return. That act made him the sixth Khalsa, and his name changed from Guru Gobind Das to Guru Gobind Singh. He gave each Khalsa the surname Singh, meaning lion. He also introduced the Five Ks: Kesh, uncut hair; Kangha, a wooden comb; Kara, an iron bracelet; Kirpan, a sword; and Kacchera, short breeches. The new Khalsa also replaced the older Masand system of local appointed leaders, which Gobind Singh had concluded had grown corrupt. A more centralized order, under his direct supervision, took its place.

  • Guru Gobind Singh fought 21 battles against the Mughal Empire and the kings of the Siwalik Hills. He called this kind of fighting a Dharamyudh, a war in defence of righteousness, fought only as a last resort, never for revenge, never for greed. He took no captives. He damaged no one's place of worship. The battles ran across decades and landscapes. At the Battle of Bhangani in 1688, described in chapter 8 of his own text Bachittar Natak, he was attacked by forces including mercenary commanders Hayat Khan and Najabat Khan. He was aided by his maternal uncle Kripal and a Brahmin named Daya Ram, both of whom he praised as heroes in his writing. His cousin Sango Shah was killed. At Nadaun in 1691, he joined with Bhim Chand and other Hindu kings to defeat the forces of Mian Khan and his son Alif Khan. The siege of Anandpur that began in May 1704 lasted until December, with the Mughal generals Wazir Khan and Zaberdast Khan cutting off all food and supplies. Some Sikh men deserted. According to the tradition, their own wives shamed them, and they returned to fight and died in 1705. Aurangzeb had personally ordered the extermination of the Guru and his family. After the siege collapsed, the Guru's two youngest sons, Zorawar Singh aged nine and Fateh Singh aged six, were captured by Wazir Khan and offered safe passage if they converted to Islam. They refused. Both were bricked alive into a wall, on around the 26th and the 27th of December 1704. Their grandmother Mata Gujri died on hearing the news.

  • After all four of his sons had been killed and the Battle of Muktsar was over, Guru Gobind Singh wrote a letter in Persian to Aurangzeb. He titled it the Zafarnama, meaning epistle of victory. His elder sons, Sahibzada Ajit Singh aged 17 and Jujhar Singh aged 13, had been killed at Chamkaur in December 1704, fighting a Mughal army far larger and better equipped than their own. The letter to the emperor was stern and conciliatory at once. It indicted Aurangzeb and his commanders in spiritual terms. It accused them of lacking morality in both governance and the conduct of war, particularly for breaking their promise of safe passage. The letter predicted that the Mughal Empire would end because it persecutes, and is full of abuse, falsehood, and immorality. Gobind Singh also wrote, in response to the news of his younger sons' deaths: "What use is it to put out a few sparks when you raise a mighty flame instead?" The place where the last battle occurred, called Khidrana-ki-Dhab, was later renamed by Ranjit Singh roughly a hundred years later to Muktsar, meaning lake of liberation, in honour of the forty Sikh fighters who died there.

  • Piara Singh Padam, writing in Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji de Darbari Ratan, observed that Guru Gobind Singh gave as much regard to the pen as to the sword. At its height, the Anandpur Darbar included over a hundred poets. Gobind Singh finalized the Kartarpur Pothi, the manuscript of the Guru Granth Sahib, rejecting extraneous hymns from other versions and including the compositions of his father Guru Tegh Bahadur. He then declared the text the eternal Guru for Sikhs, meaning no further human Guru would follow him. He is also credited with the Dasam Granth, a second religious text of 1,428 pages, 17,293 verses, and 18 sections, containing hymns, mythological tales, an autobiography, letters to the Mughal emperor, and fables of varying kinds. The text is considered sacred by many Sikhs and disputed by others. When Sikhs asked Gobind Singh to merge it with the Guru Granth Sahib, he replied, according to the Bansavlinama written by Kesar Singh Chibber in 1769: "This is the Adi Guru Granth; The root book. That one is only for my diversion." In his own writings, Gobind Singh used a range of pen names, including Shyam, Raam, Kaal, Gobind Das, and Nanak. A single rhyming couplet near the end of the Guru Granth Sahib on page 1429, the Dohra Mahalla Dasvan, is attributed by many 17th and 18th century manuscripts to the tenth Guru, though the SGPC chose not to ascribe it to him when it standardized the text.

  • Aurangzeb died in 1707, and a succession war broke out among his sons. Guru Gobind Singh sided with Bahadur Shah I, sending 200-300 Sikhs under Bhai Dharam Singh and joining the Battle of Jajau himself. Bahadur Shah then invited the Guru south to the Deccan for a meeting of reconciliation. Gobind Singh hoped to recover his former stronghold of Anandpur. Those appeals came to nothing, as Bahadur Shah postponed any restoration indefinitely, unwilling to offend either the Guru or the hill rajas. Wazir Khan, the Nawab of Sirhind, who had ordered the execution of the Guru's younger sons, commissioned two Afghans, Jamshed Khan and Wasil Beg, to follow the Guru's army and kill him. The two tracked him to the camp near the river Godavari and gained access to the Guru. Jamshed Khan stabbed him twice. According to Senapati's Sri Gur Sobha, an early 18th-century account, the fatal wound was just below the heart. Gobind Singh fought back and killed the assassin; the second attacker was killed by Sikh guards. Gobind Singh died of his wounds on the 7th of October 1708 at Nanded. His recorded last words, as preserved in the Bansavalinama by Kesar Singh Chibber written in 1769, instructed his followers: "The Granth is the Guru and it will bring you to Akal. Follow the words of the Granth." The Khalsa he founded would go on to withstand the nine invasions of Punjab by Ahmad Shah Abdali from Afghanistan between 1747 and 1769, fulfilling the protective purpose for which it had been built.

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Common questions

When and where was Guru Gobind Singh born?

Guru Gobind Singh was born on the 22nd of December 1666 in Patna, Bihar. His birth name was Gobind Das, and a shrine named Takht Sri Patna Harimandar Sahib marks the site of the house where he was born.

What is the Khalsa and when did Guru Gobind Singh found it?

The Khalsa is the Sikh warrior community founded by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 at Anandpur during Vaisakhi. He initiated the first five members, called the Panj Pyare, through a ceremony using Amrit, a mixture of water and sugar stirred with a double-edged sword, accompanied by recitations from the Adi Granth.

What are the Five Ks introduced by Guru Gobind Singh?

Guru Gobind Singh introduced five articles of faith for Khalsa Sikhs: Kesh (uncut hair), Kangha (a wooden comb), Kara (an iron or steel bracelet), Kirpan (a sword), and Kacchera (short breeches). These are worn at all times by initiated Khalsa Sikhs.

How did Guru Gobind Singh's sons die?

All four of Guru Gobind Singh's sons died during his lifetime. His elder sons, Ajit Singh aged 17 and Jujhar Singh aged 13, were killed in the Battle of Chamkaur in December 1704. His younger sons, Zorawar Singh aged nine and Fateh Singh aged six, were captured by the Mughal governor Wazir Khan and bricked alive into a wall around the 26th and the 27th of December 1704 after refusing to convert to Islam.

What is the Zafarnama written by Guru Gobind Singh?

The Zafarnama, meaning epistle of victory, is a letter Guru Gobind Singh wrote in Persian to Emperor Aurangzeb after all four of his sons had been killed. The letter accused the emperor and his commanders of lacking morality, breaking promises of safe passage, and conducting war unjustly. It predicted that the Mughal Empire would collapse because of its persecution and falsehood.

How did Guru Gobind Singh die?

Guru Gobind Singh was assassinated at Nanded by Jamshed Khan, an Afghan commissioned by Wazir Khan, the Nawab of Sirhind. Jamshed Khan stabbed him twice near the heart. Gobind Singh fought back and killed the assassin, but died of his wounds on the 7th of October 1708.

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All sources

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