Guru Hargobind

Hargobind was born in 1595 at Guru ki Wadali near Amritsar, the only son of Guru Arjan and Mata Ganga. As a child he survived several attempts on his life, which the Sikhs attributed to his uncle Prithi Chand. He was eleven when his father was martyred, and the lesson he drew from it changed the Sikh path for ever.

At his installation in 1606 he refused the old seli, the woollen cord of the ascetic, and asked Baba Buddha to gird him with two swords: one of miri, temporal power, and one of piri, spiritual authority. Facing the Harmandir Sahib he built a raised platform, the Akal Takht, the Throne of the Timeless, where he held court, heard disputes and received gifts of horses and weapons, while the Harmandir remained the place of worship. He raised a small army, kept falcons and hunted, and asked his Sikhs to bring arms instead of money.

Jahangir had him imprisoned in the fort of Gwalior, for some months or perhaps years. When he was released, he refused to leave unless the fifty-two Rajput chiefs held with him were freed too, and walked out with all of them holding the tassels of his cloak; he is remembered as Bandi Chhor, the liberator. His return to Amritsar at Diwali is celebrated as Bandi Chhor Divas.

Under Shah Jahan relations broke down, and the Guru fought four battles against Mughal forces between 1628 and 1635: at Amritsar, at Lahira near Bathinda, at Kartarpur and at Phagwara. The Sikhs won each time, and the Guru himself fought with the sword. The bandit-turned-devotee Bhai Bidhi Chand, who stole back the Guru's horses from the Lahore fort, became the hero of a hundred stories.

In 1635 he withdrew to Kiratpur in the Shivalik foothills, beyond direct Mughal reach, where he spent his last years. He had six children; he chose as his successor his grandson Har Rai, the gentle son of his late son Gurditta. He died at Kiratpur in 1644. He wrote no hymns, but he gave the Sikhs the sword and the throne, and made them a people who would not be martyred without resistance.