Battle of Kartarpur
Painde Khan, once the Guru's own commander, led a Mughal army against him and was killed. The young Tyag Mal fought so well he was renamed Tegh Bahadur.
Painde Khan was a Pathan whom Guru Hargobind had raised from childhood and made a commander of his troops. He grew arrogant, quarrelled with the Guru over a hawk and a robe, and was dismissed. He went to the Mughals and offered to lead an army against the Guru.
In April 1635 a Mughal force under Kale Khan, with Painde Khan, attacked the Guru at Kartarpur in the Jalandhar Doab. The Guru's son Tyag Mal fought so bravely that the Guru renamed him Tegh Bahadur, 'brave of the sword'. In the battle the Guru met Painde Khan in single combat and killed him; as he lay dying, the Guru shaded his face with his shield.
Kale Khan too was killed, and the Mughal army withdrew. The Guru then withdrew to the hills at Kiratpur, fighting a last action at Phagwara on the way.
Same era
Mughal Punjab, 1526 – 1705
Babur's field guns and cavalry tactics destroyed a much larger Lodi army. Guru Nanak's hymns of the same years speak of the suffering of Babur's invasions.
Battle of MachhiwaraMay 1555 · Mughal victory; Humayun regains HindustanOn the Sutlej at Machhiwara the returning Mughals beat the Afghans of the Sur dynasty, and a month later won again at Sirhind.
Hemu, a Hindu general who had taken Delhi, was winning until an arrow struck his eye; his army broke and the boy Akbar's throne was saved.
The first armed clash of Guru Hargobind's time, fought over the founding of Sri Hargobindpur on the Beas.
Began over a hawk of Shah Jahan's that the Guru's Sikhs would not give back. A Mughal detachment attacked during a wedding in the Guru's family and was beaten off.
Fought in the Malwa over horses the Sikh Bidhi Chand had recovered from imperial stables, which had originally been gifts for the Guru.
A skirmish as the Guru withdrew from Kartarpur towards Kiratpur.
The Guru's first battle, aged about twenty-two. Pir Budhu Shah of Sadhaura fought for him with his followers and lost two sons.