Skip to content
← CatalogueHistory200 levelCreated by AI

History

Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji: Life, Early Years, and the Path to Guruship

Professor: Kavi Santokh Singh Source: SikhLibrary

This course traces the life of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji from his birth in 1621 through his early years at Kiratpur, his long contemplative period at Bakala, and his recognition as the ninth Sikh Guru in 1665. Drawing on the Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth and other historical sources, students examine the formative experiences that shaped the ninth Guru's spiritual character and prepared him for the most consequential ministry of the Guru era.

Begin course12 lessons · 10-question test · 80% to pass
Created by AI. Drafted with AI and reviewed for accuracy. Spotted an error? Tell us.
Prerequisite recommended. This is a 200-level course. To get the most out of it, we recommend completing the 100-level courses first.

What you'll learn

  • Describe the key biographical facts of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's early life and family context
  • Explain the significance of the ninth Guru's long contemplative period at Bakala
  • Analyze the circumstances of the Guru's recognition through the Makhan Shah Lubana episode
  • Evaluate the spiritual character of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji as evidenced by his early life and Gurbani
  • Situate the ninth Guru's path to Guruship within the political context of Aurangzeb's reign
  • Identify the major themes of the ninth Guru's Gurbani that reflect his contemplative formation

Key terms — ਸ਼ਬਦਾਵਲੀ

ਗੁਰੂ ਤੇਗ਼ ਬਹਾਦੁਰ

The ninth Sikh Guru (1621-1675), martyr and composer of profound Gurbani on detachment and courage

ਤੇਗ਼

Sword; part of the ninth Guru's name, given in recognition of his martial valor at the battle of Kartarpur

ਬੈਰਾਗ

Detachment from worldly things; the central theme of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's Gurbani

ਕਿਰਤਪੁਰ

Town in the Shivalik foothills where the ninth Guru spent his early years

ਤਿਆਗ

Renunciation; the practice of letting go of worldly attachments in pursuit of the divine

ਸੁਲਤਾਨਪੁਰ ਲੋਧੀ

Historical city in Punjab associated with Guru Nanak Dev Ji and visited by Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji during his travels

ਗ੍ਰੰਥੀ

Reader and custodian of the Guru Granth Sahib in a gurdwara

ਧਰਮ

Righteousness and duty; the principle that motivated Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji to defend others' religious rights

ਨਿਰਭਉ

Fearless; the divine quality and the quality demonstrated by the ninth Guru throughout his ministry

ਅਨੰਦਪੁਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ

City of Bliss; founded by Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji and later the site of Guru Gobind Singh Ji's most significant events

Lessons

1. Introduction: The Contemplative Who Became a Martyr

Full course contents
  1. Introduction: The Contemplative Who Became a Martyr
  2. Birth and Family Background
  3. Early Years at Kiratpur: Under Guru Hargobind Ji
  4. The Battle of Kartarpur and the Name 'Tegh Bahadur'
  5. Marriage and Early Married Life
  6. The Move to Bakala: Years of Contemplation
  7. The Theological Significance of the Bakala Period
  8. The Bakala Episode: Makhan Shah Lubana's Recognition
  9. Installation as the Ninth Guru: 1665
  10. First Acts as Guru: Establishing Authority
  11. The Founding of Anandpur Sahib
  12. The Ninth Guru's Gurbani: Themes from the Contemplative Years

Two Images of the Ninth Guru

Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji comes to us through history bearing two seemingly contrasting images. The first is the image of the deep contemplative — a man who spent approximately two decades in quiet meditation at Bakala, composing Gurbani exploring themes of detachment, impermanence, and surrender to the divine. The second is the image of the fearless martyr — a man who walked to the executioner's block in Delhi rather than compromise his defense of others' religious freedom. These two images are not in tension; they are two expressions of the same spiritual reality. Only a person whose roots go very deep in contemplative practice can face execution with the equanimity the tradition attributes to Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji. Understanding the contemplative formation is essential for understanding the martyrdom.

Why the Early Life Matters

In the popular telling, the story of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji is often reduced to his martyrdom — the culminating event is so dramatic that it tends to overshadow everything that preceded it. This course corrects that imbalance by giving close attention to the early life, the family context, the years of contemplation, and the path to Guruship. These formative years shaped a spiritual character of extraordinary depth: a poet of the first order, a meditator of profound interiority, and a leader of clear moral vision. The martyr of 1675 is incomprehensible without the contemplative of 1621-1665.

Sources and Their Limitations

The primary historical sources for Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's early life include the Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth of Kavi Santokh Singh, composed in the nineteenth century and drawing on earlier oral and written traditions, as well as various rahitnamas and janam sakhis. Trilochan Singh's Guru Tegh Bahadur: Prophet and Martyr provides a comprehensive mid-twentieth century scholarly synthesis. Students should be aware that, as with all historical sources about the Sikh Gurus, hagiographical elaboration is present in the tradition and that careful reading is required to distinguish historical core from devotional embellishment.

2. Birth and Family Background

Birth at Amritsar

Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was born on April 1, 1621, in Amritsar — the spiritual center of the Sikh community, home to the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) that had been completed under the direction of Guru Arjan Dev Ji. His mother was Mata Nanaki Ji, wife of Guru Hargobind Ji. He was the youngest of Guru Hargobind Ji's five sons, and his birth came during an extraordinarily tumultuous period in Sikh history: his father's ministry coincided with the most intense Mughal-Sikh conflict to date, culminating in Guru Hargobind Ji's imprisonment at Gwalior and subsequent military engagements with Mughal forces.

The Household of Guru Hargobind Ji

Growing up in the household of Guru Hargobind Ji — the sixth Guru who had introduced the miri-piri doctrine (spiritual and temporal sovereignty) and transformed the Guru's court into a quasi-military establishment — the young Tegh Bahadur would have been immersed in both the spiritual disciplines of Sikh devotional life and the martial culture that characterized his father's ministry. The Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth depicts the household of Guru Hargobind Ji as a dynamic environment: kirtan and Gurbani recitation alongside horse training, weapons practice, and the strategic consultation of a Guru who commanded armed followers (Santokh Singh 1843, 3.6.40). Tegh Bahadur absorbed both streams of this inheritance.

The Family's Spiritual Heritage

The spiritual heritage into which Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was born was profound. He was the grandson of Guru Arjan Dev Ji — the fifth Guru, first great Sikh martyr, and compiler of the Adi Granth. He was the great-great-grandson (through the Guru lineage) of Guru Ram Das Ji and Guru Amar Das Ji. This lineage placed him at the heart of Sikh history: he had access, through family memory and living tradition, to the full arc of the Guru tradition from Guru Nanak Dev Ji onward. His subsequent Gurbani compositions would draw deeply on this heritage while expressing his own distinctive spiritual voice.

3. Early Years at Kiratpur: Under Guru Hargobind Ji

The Move to Kiratpur

Guru Hargobind Ji eventually settled at Kiratpur Sahib in the Shivalik Hills — a strategically defensible location at the edge of the mountains, away from the Punjab plains where Mughal authority was most effectively exercised. The young Tegh Bahadur grew up here during the latter years of his father's ministry. Kiratpur was a town of considerable spiritual vitality: Guru Hargobind Ji received visitors, held court, conducted kirtan, and maintained the community's spiritual disciplines even while managing his military organization. For the young Tegh Bahadur, this environment provided both intensive spiritual formation and a front-row view of the complexities of leading the Sikh community in difficult political circumstances.

Spiritual Education

Trilochan Singh notes that Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji received a thorough education in Gurbani, music, and the Sikh devotional tradition from childhood (Singh 1967, 22). His subsequent compositions in the Guru Granth Sahib — which include 116 shabads (hymns) in fifteen raags and 57 saloks — demonstrate a sophisticated command of both the musical and poetic dimensions of Gurbani, as well as a deep philosophical engagement with the existential themes of human life. This level of mastery does not emerge without years of immersive formation; the Kiratpur years provided that foundation.

Witness to His Father's Ministry

The young Tegh Bahadur witnessed his father's ministry at close range — the battles, the imprisonments, the releases, the negotiations with Mughal authorities. He saw how a Guru maintained spiritual integrity under political pressure; he saw the cost and the meaning of standing firm in the face of imperial hostility. These childhood and adolescent observations would prove directly relevant to the choices he would face half a century later. The tradition preserved in the Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth suggests that the seeds of the ninth Guru's spiritual character — his fearlessness, his commitment to ਧਰਮ, his willingness to give everything — were sown in these formative years at Kiratpur.

4. The Battle of Kartarpur and the Name 'Tegh Bahadur'

The Battles of Guru Hargobind Ji's Latter Ministry

During the later years of Guru Hargobind Ji's ministry, several military engagements occurred between the Guru's forces and Mughal armies or their allies. Among these was a battle at Kartarpur in 1634. Accounts of this battle record the extraordinary valor of the young Tegh Bahadur — then approximately thirteen years of age — who fought with exceptional courage and skill. His father Guru Hargobind Ji is said to have been so impressed by his youngest son's performance in battle that he gave him the name by which history would know him: ਤੇਗ਼ ਬਹਾਦੁਰ — 'Brave Sword.'

The Meaning of the Name

The name Tegh Bahadur — 'Brave Sword' — is profoundly significant in retrospect. The young man who received it for martial valor in a physical battle would eventually demonstrate a much greater bravery: the courage to face public execution rather than compromise his moral and spiritual commitments. The sword metaphor thus operates on multiple levels in the ninth Guru's identity: the literal sword of the Kartarpur battle; the metaphorical sword of the intellect and spirit; and ultimately the sword of sacrifice — the giving of the neck to the executioner in service of ਧਰਮ. His father's battlefield naming of the child proved prophetic in ways neither could have anticipated.

The Paradox of the Warrior-Contemplative

The young Tegh Bahadur who earned the name 'Brave Sword' on the battlefield at Kartarpur would subsequently spend two decades in quiet meditation at Bakala. This trajectory — from battlefield valor to contemplative withdrawal — is not a contradiction but a deepening. The physical courage demonstrated at Kartarpur was refined through years of inner spiritual discipline into the moral courage that faced execution without flinching. J. S. Grewal observes that the ninth Guru's combination of martial heritage and contemplative depth is characteristic of the Sikh Guru tradition's synthesis of the warrior and the saint — a synthesis institutionalized in Guru Hargobind Ji's miri-piri doctrine (Grewal 1990, 72).

5. Marriage and Early Married Life

Marriage to Mata Gujri Ji

Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji married Mata Gujri Ji in 1632, when he was approximately eleven years of age — a young age that was not unusual for the period and social context. Mata Gujri Ji would prove to be a figure of extraordinary spiritual strength and historical significance in her own right: she would be the mother of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth and final human Guru, and would herself die with great dignity following her grandson's capture by Mughal forces in 1704. The marriage thus linked Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji to one of the most consequential spiritual lineages in Sikh history.

Mata Gujri Ji's Spiritual Qualities

Historical and hagiographical accounts portray Mata Gujri Ji as a woman of deep faith, practical wisdom, and strong character. During the long years at Bakala when her husband was engaged in intensive contemplation, she maintained the household, managed relationships with the extended community, and sustained the family's spiritual life. Her qualities were essential to creating the conditions in which the ninth Guru's contemplative life was possible. Trilochan Singh's account emphasizes the mutual spiritual support between Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji and Mata Gujri Ji as a dimension of his spiritual development often overlooked in accounts focused exclusively on the public Guru (Singh 1967, 30).

The Birth of Guru Gobind Singh Ji

The most consequential event of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji and Mata Gujri Ji's marriage was the birth of their son Gobind Rai in 1666 — the child who would become Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth Guru and creator of the Khalsa. This birth came just one year after Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's recognition as the ninth Guru. The child who would carry the Sikh tradition forward into its most transformative period was thus born into the immediate aftermath of one of the most dramatic successions in Sikh history. Guru Gobind Singh Ji's life and ministry were shaped by his father's example — both the contemplative depth and the ultimate martyrdom — in the most direct possible way.

6. The Move to Bakala: Years of Contemplation

Withdrawal from Public Life

Following the death of Guru Hargobind Ji in 1644, the young Tegh Bahadur — then approximately twenty-three years old — did not position himself as a claimant to the Guruship. Instead, he withdrew to the village of Bakala, where he settled with Mata Gujri Ji and devoted himself to intensive contemplation and meditation. He is said to have spent long periods in a basement room in complete absorption in the divine name — a practice of radical interiority that required sustained effort and support. This withdrawal from the public sphere of Sikh life was not a passive retreat but an active spiritual discipline.

The Basement Meditation

Hagiographical accounts describe Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji meditating in a basement room (a bhora) at Bakala for extended periods — some accounts suggest periods of months or even years. Whether taken literally or as a hyperbolic description of deep contemplative absorption, this image conveys a spiritual practice of extraordinary intensity. The Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth describes the Guru emerging from these periods of deep meditation with a radiance and clarity that impressed those who encountered him (Santokh Singh 1843, 3.9.2). This contemplative formation was the crucible in which his Gurbani — and his martyrdom — were forged.

Composing Gurbani in Bakala

It is likely that many of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's Gurbani compositions were produced during or drawing on the Bakala period. His 116 shabads in the Guru Granth Sahib are characterized by themes of ਬੈਰਾਗ — detachment — that reflect not merely theoretical understanding but lived spiritual experience. The compositions speak with the authority of a person who has genuinely practiced what they preach: detachment from the world's comforts and fears, surrender to the divine will, the recognition of impermanence in all things. Two decades of contemplative practice gave these compositions their distinctive depth and authenticity.

7. The Theological Significance of the Bakala Period

Contemplation as Preparation

The Sikh tradition values contemplative practice — ਸਿਮਰਨ — as the foundation of all genuine spiritual life. The years at Bakala were therefore not a biographical detour or a period of inactivity; they were the essential preparation for everything that followed. The Guru who would later travel thousands of miles to establish ਸੰਗਤ across the subcontinent; who would compose some of the most profound poetry in the Guru Granth Sahib; who would face execution with complete composure — this Guru was formed in the silence and depth of the Bakala years. Without that formation, none of the subsequent ministry would have been possible in the form it took.

The Hidden Guru Paradigm

The Bakala years embody a paradigm with deep resonance in the Sikh tradition: the hidden Guru, present but not apparent, waiting for the divine moment of manifestation. This paradigm connects to the broader Sikh theological conviction that divine grace operates in its own time and manner, not according to human calculation or expectation. Just as the divine can manifest in a child (Guru Har Krishan Ji), it can also wait in apparent hiddenness for two decades before emerging for its appointed purpose. The Bakala years teach patience and trust in divine timing as spiritual virtues.

Bairag as a Theological Stance

ਬੈਰਾਗ — detachment — is the theological stance of the Bakala years and the dominant theme of the ninth Guru's Gurbani. But ਬੈਰਾਗ in the Sikh tradition is not world-denying asceticism or passive withdrawal. It is the inner freedom from attachment that enables full, wholehearted engagement with the world without being enslaved by its rewards or threats. A person truly detached from the world's praise and punishment can face an emperor without fear; can serve epidemic victims without calculating personal cost; can walk to an executioner's block without regret. The Bakala years cultivated precisely this inner freedom that the subsequent ministry — and the martyrdom — would require.

8. The Bakala Episode: Makhan Shah Lubana's Recognition

The Guru's Perspective

The Baba Bakale/Bakala episode has been examined in detail from the community's perspective in the course on that subject. Here we consider it from Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's perspective. He had been meditating in relative obscurity for approximately two decades. He had not lobbied for recognition or emerged from his contemplative practice to participate in the drama of competing claimants. His encounter with Makhan Shah Lubana — in which the Guru calmly acknowledged the merchant's private vow and called him to account for the underpayment — was entirely consistent with the contemplative life he had been living: calm, unhurried, responding from a place of deep knowing rather than political calculation.

The Guru's Response to Recognition

The tradition preserves Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's response to public recognition as one of dignity and readiness rather than surprise or theatrical display. Having spent two decades in contemplative preparation, the Guru was ready for the call to public ministry when it came. The Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth describes him accepting the obeisance of the assembled ਸੰਗਤ with the quiet authority of one who knew that this was the appointed moment (Santokh Singh 1843, 3.9.18). The contrast with the impostors who had been eagerly seeking recognition is stark: the true Guru did not need to pursue the Guruship; the Guruship found him in his contemplative stillness.

The Transition from Contemplation to Action

Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's recognition marked the end of the Bakala contemplative period and the beginning of an extraordinarily active decade. The hidden Guru became the traveling Guru; the meditating figure became the preaching, community-building, Gurbani-composing spiritual leader. The transition demonstrates that genuine contemplative practice does not produce withdrawal from the world but deeper capacity to engage with it. The years of ਬੈਰਾਗ had produced not a recluse but a leader of fearless clarity — exactly the kind of leadership the Sikh community needed in the increasingly hostile environment of Aurangzeb's mid-reign.

9. Installation as the Ninth Guru: 1665

The Formal Installation

Following Makhan Shah Lubana's identification and public proclamation, the formal installation of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji as the ninth Sikh Guru proceeded at Bakala. The ceremony followed the pattern established in the Guru tradition: the assembled ਸੰਗਤ offered their obeisance; the anointing of the tilak (ceremonial mark) was performed; and the community acknowledged the new Guru. Trilochan Singh provides a detailed account of the installation ceremony, noting that while the details of hagiographical accounts vary, the broad fact of the installation at Bakala in 1665 is well-established across sources (Singh 1967, 48).

Challenges to the Installation

Not all members of the Sikh community immediately accepted the installation. The Ram Rai faction, still maintaining its Mughal-supported establishment at Dehra Dun, continued to represent an alternative claim. Some individuals who had attached themselves to various claimants at Bakala were slow to transfer their loyalty. These challenges required the ninth Guru's active pastoral and administrative work in the early months of his Guruship — traveling to different communities, establishing his presence and authority, and demonstrating through his spiritual gifts and character that he was indeed the authentic Guru designated by the tradition.

The Community's Gratitude

For the majority of the Sikh community, the installation of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was a source of profound relief and joy. The anxious period following Guru Har Krishan Ji's death — the drama of the competing claimants, the uncertainty, the grief of losing the child Guru — gave way to the clarity of a recognized, mature Guru of evident spiritual depth. The ninth Guru's contemplative character and his Gurbani provided the community with exactly what it needed: a spiritual anchor of quiet, unshakeable authority after the turbulence of the succession crisis.

10. First Acts as Guru: Establishing Authority

Visiting the Main Centers of Sikh Life

Among the ninth Guru's first acts was an extensive tour of the main centers of Sikh life in Punjab. He visited Amritsar — where his own birth had occurred forty-four years earlier — as well as other gurdwaras and sangats across the region. These visits served multiple purposes: they established the Guru's presence and authority in communities that had been without clear leadership; they allowed the Guru to meet and assess the state of local sangats; and they demonstrated the Guru's commitment to the Sikh community's dispersed geography rather than his concentration at any single location.

Dealing with the Masand System

One of the administrative challenges Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji inherited was the increasingly problematic ਮਸੰਦ system — the network of local Sikh agents who had become corrupt and divided in their loyalties. The ninth Guru's approach to this challenge drew on both firm authority and pastoral wisdom: reestablishing direct relationships with sangats, clarifying the proper channels of community organization, and where necessary confronting agents who had abused their positions. This administrative work may lack the dramatic appeal of the martyrdom narrative, but it was essential for the community's institutional health during a difficult period.

The Guru's Character in Action

The early acts of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's Guruship reveal a consistent spiritual character: unhurried, deeply compassionate, clear in his moral commitments, and entirely without personal ambition. He is described in hagiographical sources as a Guru whose darshan (presence) alone produced profound experiences in those who encountered him — not because of theatrical display but because of the deep spiritual radiance of his contemplative formation. Khushwant Singh notes that the ninth Guru's character combined a gentleness inherited from the Bakala years with a moral firmness that would become unmistakable in his ultimate confrontation with Aurangzeb (Singh 1963, 88).

11. The Founding of Anandpur Sahib

The Need for a New Center

One of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's most significant acts as Guru was the founding of a new town that would eventually become Anandpur Sahib — 'City of Bliss.' This took place in 1665, near Kiratpur in the Shivalik Hills region. The founding of Anandpur Sahib addressed several practical needs: a new center for the Sikh community independent of existing power structures; a strategically located base for the Guru's ministry; and a place that would become deeply associated with the ninth Guru's lineage. The site was originally called Chakk Nanaki, after the ninth Guru's mother.

Purchasing the Land

The ninth Guru purchased the land for the new settlement from the local hill chiefs — a transaction that demonstrated both his commitment to legitimate land acquisition and his ability to operate within the local political economy of the Shivalik region. This peaceful founding contrasts with the eventual fate of Anandpur Sahib, which would later become the site of some of the most intense military conflict of Guru Gobind Singh Ji's ministry. The garden planted by the ninth Guru would be watered by blood in the next generation — a trajectory that the founding Guru could not have foreseen but that his contemplative Gurbani already addressed in its themes of impermanence and surrender.

Anandpur as Spiritual Vision

The very name of the settlement — ਅਨੰਦਪੁਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ, City of Bliss — reflects the ninth Guru's spiritual vision. ਅਨੰਦ (bliss) is a central concept in Sikh theology: the state of spiritual union with the divine that the Guru's presence enables. By naming his new settlement for this state, Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji proclaimed his aspiration: that this community would be a place where the divine ਅਨੰਦ was accessible and lived. Anandpur Sahib became, under his son Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the location of some of the most significant events in Sikh history — including the creation of the Khalsa in 1699.

12. The Ninth Guru's Gurbani: Themes from the Contemplative Years

The Scope of the Ninth Guru's Gurbani

Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's contributions to the Guru Granth Sahib are substantial: 116 shabads in fifteen raags and 57 saloks. This body of work was added to the original Adi Granth compiled by Guru Arjan Dev Ji, and the addition was made by Guru Gobind Singh Ji, who ensured that his father's compositions were preserved in the final form of the Guru Granth Sahib. The ninth Guru's Gurbani is distinctive in its philosophical depth, its tonal register of quiet meditative authority, and its sustained engagement with the existential realities of human life.

The Theme of Bairag: Detachment

The dominant theme of the ninth Guru's Gurbani is ਬੈਰਾਗ — detachment from worldly things. Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji returns again and again to the impermanence of the world: the body's mortality, the transience of wealth and fame, the futility of attachment to things that cannot last. But this is not a pessimistic or nihilistic vision. For the ninth Guru, the recognition of the world's impermanence is liberating: it frees the practitioner from the tyranny of fear and desire, enabling a life of fearless engagement with what is truly real — the divine presence in all things. ਬੈਰਾਗ is not withdrawal but liberation.

Courage and Surrender

Alongside ਬੈਰਾਗ, the ninth Guru's Gurbani is characterized by an emphasis on courage — ਨਿਰਭਉ — as the natural fruit of genuine detachment. A person who has truly let go of attachment to worldly comfort and security has nothing to fear from any worldly threat. The Guru who composed these lines about fearlessness would subsequently demonstrate them personally in the most dramatic possible way. His Gurbani thus functions as both a spiritual teaching and, in retrospect, a prophetic self-description: the poet of detachment and courage was already, in the Bakala years, preparing the inner landscape that would enable the Chandni Chowk martyrdom.

References & further reading

  1. Santokh Singh, Kavi. Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth. Patiala: Bhasha Vibhag Punjab, 1963.
  2. Singh, Trilochan. Guru Tegh Bahadur: Prophet and Martyr. Delhi: Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, 1967.
  3. Singh, Harbans. The Heritage of the Sikhs. New Delhi: Manohar, 1994.
  4. Grewal, J. S. The Sikhs of the Punjab. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
  5. Singh, Khushwant. A History of the Sikhs, Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.
  6. Fenech, Louis E. Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the Game of Love. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.

From the source text

(੧੭੬) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ਹੈ, ਤਿਸ ਬੀਰਜ ਤੇ ਹੀ ਸਰਬ ਕੀ ਉਤਪਤੀ ਹੈ। ਅਰ ਜਲ ਕੇ ਬਰਸਬੇ ਤੇ ਸਰਬ ਉਤਭੁਜ੧ ਕੀ ਉਤਪਤੀ ਹੈ। ਇਸੀ ਹੇਤ ਕਰਿ ਸਰਬ ਜਗਤ ਕੋ ਪਿਤਾ ਜਲ ਹੈ। ‘ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤਿ ਮਹਤੁ’=ਸਰਬ ਜਗਤ ਕੀ ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤੀ ਹੈ। ਕੈਸੀ ਧਰਤੀ ਹੈ? ‘ਮਹਤੁ’ ਕਹੀਏ ਬਡੀ ਹੈ।
(176) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Yes, from that seed, everything originates. And from the raining of water, all vegetation originates. For this reason, water is the father of the entire world. ‘Mata dharat mahat’ = the earth is the mother of the entire world. What kind of earth is it? It is called ‘mahat’, meaning great. A mother is one who supports and raises a child, nourishes them by producing milk from her own body, and bears the impurities of the child; in the same way, the earth relates to the entire world. First, it supports and holds everything upon itself; second, the earth produces grain and other sustenance within itself to feed everyone—the nourishment of all comes from the earth, and everything that originates from it consumes it.
— from Garab Ganjinee Teeka. Gurmukhi is the author's original text (OCR); the English is a machine translation. Both are short study excerpts — refer to the original for an authoritative reading.Read the full work on SikhLibrary ↗

Flashcards — ਕਾਰਡ ਅਭਿਆਸ

Click a card to flip it and reveal the definition.

Click to reveal

Course test

Pass with 80% or higher to complete the course and unlock the next one.

1. In which year was Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji born?
2. What name was given to the young Tegh Bahadur after his display of valor at the Battle of Kartarpur?
3. What does 'Tegh Bahadur' mean in Punjabi?
4. Who were Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's parents?
5. What was the name of the village where Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji spent approximately two decades in contemplation?
6. What is the dominant theme of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's Gurbani?
7. What was the original name of Anandpur Sahib when Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji founded it in 1665?
8. Who was Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's son, who would become the tenth Guru?
9. How many shabads (hymns) did Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji contribute to the Guru Granth Sahib?
10. What Punjabi term describes the deep detachment from worldly things that characterizes Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's Gurbani?

Read the source texts

Read the primary sources for yourself — the Gurbani in our read-along reader, and the original works in the source library.

Read Gurbani (reader)This work on SikhLibrary ↗SikhLibrary dataset ↗Dig deeper in the Sikh Archive →

Rate this course

…

Discussion & Q&A

Sign in to post.