Guru Gobind Singh explained that he desired the Panj Piare to be the beginning of a new order, the Khalsa (“the Pure,” from the Persian khalisah, also meaning “pure”). The masands (many of whom had become quarrelsome or corrupt) would be eliminated, and all Sikhs, through their initiation into the Khalsa, would owe allegiance directly to the Guru. Gobind Singh then commenced the amrit sanskar (“nectar ceremony”), the service of initiation for the Panj Piare. When the rite was concluded, the Guru himself was initiated by the Panj Piare. The order was then opened to anyone wishing to join, and Sikh tradition reports that enormous crowds responded.
It should be noted that, contrary to the belief of many Sikhs, some central features of the present-day Khalsa did not exist in Gobind Singh’s time. For example, although the Guru required that those initiated into the Khalsa carry arms and never cut their hair (so that at least the men would never be able to deny their identity as Khalsa Sikhs), the wearing of the “Five Ks”—kes or kesh (uncut hair), kangha (comb), kachha (short trousers), kara (steel bracelet), and kirpan (ceremonial sword)—did not become an obligation of all Sikhs until the establishment of the Singh Sabha, a religious and educational reform movement of the late 19th and the early 20th century. The Sikh wedding ceremony, in which the bride and groom walk around the Guru Granth Sahib, is also a modern development, having replaced the essentially Hindu rite, in which the bride and groom walk around a sacred fire, by the Anand Marriage Act of 1909. The names Singh (“Lion”) for Sikh males and Kaur (“Princess”) for Sikh females, formerly adopted upon initiation into the Khalsa, are now bestowed to all Sikhs in a birth and naming ceremony (see below Rites and festivals). All of these changes have been incorporated into the Rahit, the Sikh code of belief and conduct, which reached nearly its final form in the early 20th century.
Guru Gobind Singh believed that the forces of good and evil in the world sometimes fall out of balance. When the forces of evil become too great, Akal Purakh intervenes in human history to correct the balance, using particular human individuals as his agents. In Gobind Singh’s time the forces of evil, represented by the Mughals under Aurangzeb, had gained the ascendance, and it was Gobind Singh’s task, he believed, to right the balance. In the service of this mission, the Sikhs were justified in drawing the sword. He expressed this conviction in Zafar-nama (“Epistle of Victory”), a letter that he addressed late in life to Augangzeb.
Soon after the creation of the Khalsa, the Guru was attacked by other Shiwalik chieftains in league with the Mughal governor of the town of Sirhind. In 1704 he was compelled to withdraw from Anandpur, losing two of his four sons in the battle that followed. The two remaining sons were taken prisoner and delivered to the governor of Sirhind, who cruelly executed them by bricking them up alive. The fate of these two children has remained an agonizing tale for Sikhs ever since.
From Anandpur Gobind Singh escaped to southern Punjab, where he inflicted a defeat on his pursuers at Muktsar. He then moved on to Damdama, remaining there until 1706 and, according to tradition, occupying himself with the final revision of the Adi Granth. When Aurangzeb died in 1707, Gobind Singh agreed to accompany Aurangzeb’s successor, Bahādur Shāh, to southern India. Arriving at Nanded on the banks of the Godavari River in 1708, he was assassinated by agents of the governor of Sirhind.
Guru Gobind Singh is without doubt the beau ideal of the Sikhs. Illustrations of him and of Guru Nanak are commonly found in Sikh homes. He is regarded as the supreme exemplar of all that a Sikh of the Khalsa (a Gursikh) should be. His bravery is admired, his nobility esteemed, his goodness profoundly revered. The duty of every Khalsa member, therefore, is to follow his path and to perform works that would be worthy of him. The 18th and 19th centuries
The most significant figure in Sikh history of the 18th century is Lacchman Dev, who was probably born in Punch in Kashmir and had become a Vaishnava ascetic known as Madho Das. He journeyed to the south and was in the vicinity of Nanded at the time of Guru Gobind Singh’s arrival. The two met shortly before the Guru’s death, and Madho Das was instantly converted to the Sikh faith and renamed Banda (“the Slave”). The Guru also conferred on him the title of Bahadur (“the Brave”); he has been known as Banda Bahadur ever since.
According to tradition, Banda Bahadur was commissioned by Gobind Singh to mount a campaign in the Punjab against the governor of Sirhind. A hukam-nama, or letter of command, from the Guru was entrusted to him certifying that he was the Guru’s servant and encouraging all Sikhs to join him. Arriving in the Punjab with a group of 25 Sikhs, Banda issued a call to join him, and, partly because the peasants were struggling against the excessive land tax of the Mughals, he had considerable success. The fact that he had been commissioned by the 10th Guru also counted for much. The process evidently took some time, and it was not until late 1709 that Banda and his army of peasants were able to mount an attack, sacking the towns of Samana and Sadhaura.
Banda then turned his attention to the town of Sirhind and its governor, who had bricked up the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh. For this and many other crimes, the Sikhs believed that he merited death. Banda’s army, fighting with great determination, attacked and overwhelmed Sirhind, and the governor was put to the sword. Thereafter much of the Punjab was plunged into turmoil, though Banda’s army clearly was the dominant force in the early years of the rebellion. Many of the peasants had rallied to Banda, and the Mughals were exceedingly hard-pressed to maintain control. Finally, after six years of fighting, Banda was cornered in the village of Gurdas Nangal, where he chose to construct a defense by flooding a surrounding canal. This proved to be a mistake, since the Mughals only had to wait until hunger drove Banda’s army to surrender. Banda was put in chains and carried to Delhi in a cage, and in June 1716 he was tortured and barbarously executed.
Although Banda is greatly admired by Sikhs for his bravery and his loyalty to the 10th Guru, he has never commanded the complete approval of the Panth. This is presumably because he introduced changes to the Khalsa, including a new greeting, “Fateh darshan” (“Facing victory!”), in place of the traditional “Fateh Vahi Guruji” (“Victory to the Guru!”). He also required his followers to be vegetarians and to wear red garments instead of the traditional blue. Those who accepted these changes were called Bandai Sikhs, while those opposed to them—led by Mata Sundari, one of Guru Gobind Singh’s widows—called themselves the Tat Khalsa (the “True” Khalsa or “Pure” Khalsa), which should not be confused with the Tat Khalsa segment of the Singh Sabha, discussed below.
After the execution of Banda, the Sikhs endured several decades of persecution by the Mughals, though there were occasional periods of peace. Only the Sikhs of the Khalsa—whose identity could be easily recognized by their uncut hair and flowing beards—were persecuted; other Sikhs were seldom affected. This period, nonetheless, is remembered by Sikhs as one of great suffering, accompanied by acts of great bravery by many Khalsa Sikhs in their struggle against the Mughal authorities in Lahore.
Beginning in 1747, the ruler of Afghanistan, Aḥmad Shāh Durrānī, led a series of nine invasions of the Punjab that eventually brought Mughal power in the region to an end. In rural areas, the Sikhs took advantage of the weakening of Mughal control to form several groups later known as misls or misals. Beginning as warrior bands, the emergent misls and their sardars (chieftains) gradually established their authority over quite extensive areas.