Bhai Mani Singh
Scribe of the final Guru Granth Sahib at Damdama and later head granthi of the Harmandir Sahib, cut apart joint by joint in Lahore.
Mani Ram was born in 1644 at Alipur in the Muzaffargarh district and was brought to Guru Har Rai as a boy. He grew up with the young Gobind Das at Anandpur and was among the first to take amrit in 1699, becoming Mani Singh.
He was the Guru's scribe. At Damdama Sahib in 1706 Guru Gobind Singh dictated to him the final recension of the Guru Granth Sahib. Later he compiled the Guru's own writings into the Dasam Granth and gave discourses on the scripture that founded the tradition of Sikh exegesis. In 1721 Mata Sundari sent him to Amritsar as head granthi of the Harmandir Sahib, at a time when the Sikhs were being hunted.
In 1738 he asked the governor of Lahore, Zakariya Khan, for permission to hold the Diwali gathering at Amritsar, agreeing to pay a tax of five thousand rupees. The governor sent troops to attack the gathering; the Sikhs scattered, and no tax could be paid. Bhai Mani Singh was arrested and, refusing to convert, was executed in Lahore by being cut apart joint by joint. He is said to have told the executioner to cut at the joints, as he had been ordered, without skipping any.
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Tenth Guru, warrior and poet. Created the Khalsa in 1699, fought a long war with the Mughals and hill rajas, lost his four sons and mother, and named the Guru Granth Sahib as the final Guru.
The scripture of the Sikhs and their eternal, living Guru: 1,430 pages of hymns by six Gurus and some thirty other saints, set in 31 ragas.
Mughal governor of Lahore who put a price on Sikh heads, executed Bhai Mani Singh and Bhai Taru Singh, and in 1733 tried to buy peace by offering the Sikhs a jagir and the title of Nawab.