The Winter of 1704
A fortnight, and what came of it · 7 stops
In about two weeks in December 1704, Guru Gobind Singh lost a fortified city, four sons and his mother. This path follows that fortnight in order, then the two things he did afterwards — one with a pen, one with forty men who had left him — and where it finally led six years later.
The siege ends on terms sworn on the Qur'an. The column is attacked hours later at the flooded Sirsa, and the family is scattered in the water.
After a siege of months, Guru Gobind Singh accepted terms sworn on the Qur'an and left Anandpur. The column was attacked at the flooded Sirsa river within hours, and his family was scattered — three generations of it did not survive the fortnight.
Forty Sikhs in a mud house. His two elder sons are killed. He leaves alive because the surviving Sikhs order him to as the Khalsa — and he obeys them.
Guru Gobind Singh and around forty Sikhs held a mud-walled house against a Mughal army. His two elder sons were killed in the fighting. He left alive because the surviving Sikhs ordered him to — and he obeyed them.
At Sirhind, the two youngest — about nine and seven — are offered their lives for conversion and refuse. Their grandmother dies the same day.
Guru Gobind Singh's two youngest sons, roughly nine and seven, were held at Sirhind, offered their lives in exchange for conversion, and executed when they refused. Their grandmother Mata Gujri died in custody the same day.
Mata Gujri
?–1705She had already lost a husband to the same demand in 1675. Read her entry here, between the tower and what answered it.
Wife of the ninth Guru and mother of the tenth, who held the community together through her husband's execution in 1675, and died in Mughal custody at Sirhind in December 1705 alongside her two youngest grandsons.
A year later: the forty who had signed a disclaimer come back, shamed into it by Mai Bhago, and die covering him. He tears the paper up over the dying.
The forty Sikhs who had abandoned the Guru at Anandpur were shamed back into the field by Mai Bhago, and died covering his position at a water reservoir in the Malwa. He tore up their disclaimer over the dying.
The woman who put them back in the field, and the only one of them to survive it.
The woman who shamed forty Sikhs who had abandoned Guru Gobind Singh back into the field, led them at Khidrana in 1705, and was the only one of them to survive the battle. She afterwards served as a bodyguard to the Guru.
1710. Banda Singh Bahadur breaks Sirhind's army and takes the town. The first Sikh state begins as an answer to that December.
Banda Singh Bahadur broke a Mughal provincial army at Chappar Chiri and took Sirhind — the first time the Khalsa held territory, and the first Sikh state.