The Panj Pyare
The Five Beloved: Daya Singh, Dharam Singh, Himmat Singh, Mohkam Singh and Sahib Singh, who answered the Guru's call for a head at Vaisakhi 1699.
On Vaisakhi 1699 at Anandpur, Guru Gobind Singh came before the gathered Sikhs with a drawn sword and asked for a head. Daya Ram, a Khatri from Lahore, stood up first and followed the Guru into a tent; the Guru came out with a bloody sword and asked for another. Dharam Das, a Jat from Hastinapur near Delhi, went next; then Himmat Rai, a water-carrier from Jagannath Puri; Mohkam Chand, a washerman from Dwarka; and Sahib Chand, a barber from Bidar in the Deccan.
The Guru brought all five out alive, dressed in saffron, and initiated them with amrit stirred with a khanda, a double-edged sword, while the five banis were recited. They became Daya Singh, Dharam Singh, Himmat Singh, Mohkam Singh and Sahib Singh, the Panj Pyare, the Five Beloved. Then the Guru asked them to initiate him, and he became Gobind Singh: the Guru as disciple of his disciples.
Their origins, from every corner of India and from castes high and low, were themselves the message. Three of them died with the Guru's sons at Chamkaur in 1704; two went with the Guru to the Deccan. To this day every amrit ceremony is conducted by five initiated Sikhs representing them, and they lead every Sikh procession.
