Bandi Chhor Divas

In more detail

The Mughal emperor Jahangir imprisoned Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji (1595 to 1644), the sixth Sikh Guru, in Gwalior Fort. The Dabistan-i-Mazahib, written in the Guru’s own century by a man who knew him, records that his Masands and Sikhs went to the fort and prostrated themselves before its wall. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism puts it as Sikhs coming in batches who, “when disallowed to enter the Fort, … proffered obeisance from outside its walls and returned.” At last the emperor ordered his release; the Sufi saint Mian Mir spoke for him.

Sikh tradition, which the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism calls unanimous on this point, remembers that he would not leave alone. Fifty-two kings were held in the fort with him. The emperor said only those who could hold the Guru’s robe could come out, so the Guru had a robe made with fifty-two strings attached; each king held one, and all fifty-two walked out with him. He came home to Amritsar at Diwali, and the Sikhs lit the town. He is remembered to this day as Bandi Chhor, the releaser of prisoners, and for Sikhs Diwali is also Bandi Chhor Divas (ਬੰਦੀ ਛੋੜ ਦਿਵਸ). In 2026 it falls on Sunday 8 November, by the SGPC calendar, the same day as Diwali; gurdwaras outside India may keep a nearby date. Each year the Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib) in Amritsar is lit for it.

Diwali is kept all over India, and for Sikhs it also carries this memory. The film does not set one Diwali against another.

Notes and caveats

• How long, and when. No one knows for certain. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism: “From forty days to twelve years …, several different periods of time are mentioned.” The Dabistan says twelve years. SGPC gives about three years, 1609 to 1612, as “the most acceptable” view. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism thinks it was “a few months sometime between 1617 and 1619”. The historian Jasbir Singh Sarna, from a well inscription and the Bhatt Vahi, gives 1613 to 26 October 1619; BBC Teach and others give a release in 1619, Sahapedia 1620. The film shows the SGPC and Encyclopaedia rows side by side under SOURCES DIFFER and speaks no year.
• Where he was at Diwali. SGPC, the BBC and the Ministry of Tourism say he reached Amritsar at Diwali. Sarna, from the Bhatt Vahi, places him in Gwalior on Diwali 1619, at the house of Nayak Haridas. The film says “returned to Amritsar at Diwali” inside the tradition it marks on screen.
• The fifty-two, and the robe. The number and the robe are tradition. Sources name the 52 as strings (Encyclopaedia of Sikhism), tassels (BBC), kalis or panels (Punjabi tellings), buds, or corners. The film says strings. Who the kings were also varies: “chiefs and princes” (Encyclopaedia of Sikhism), Hindu princes or kings (SGPC, BBC and others); the film says “kings” and leaves the rest open. A robe kept at Ghudani Kalan, near Amritsar, is venerated as the Guru’s 52-cornered chola; a historian quoted by the Hindustan Times (2014) said historians do not know if it is authentic. The film draws no garment: the robe appears only as a flat key, a band with 52 lines, and the release as 52 squares turning kesri and a wall opening.
• Why he was held, and who freed him. The Dabistan says an unpaid fine imposed on his father; the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism adds the splendid style he kept; SGPC speaks of slander at court. SGPC names Wazir Khan, governor of Lahore, beside Mian Mir; Sarna credits the fort’s keeper. The film gives no cause and names only Mian Mir.
• The lamps. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says the Sikhs illuminated the town; that the lamps were earthen lamps lit through the city, and that Baba Budha Ji lit them, is SGPC’s “it is said”. That the edge of the Golden Temple’s pool is ringed with lamps each year rests on one source, the Ministry of Tourism’s Utsav listing; the reference works say the temple is lit, with lights and fireworks. The film credits it on screen as REPORTED.
• The plan of the Golden Temple is a diagram after SGPC’s own figures (a 67 ft square platform in the centre of the pool and a 202 ft causeway), not to scale, and not a picture of 1619.

Phulkari. The film is stitched in the manner of phulkari and its garden form, the bagh: darned floss silk worked from the back of handwoven khaddar, from the centre outward, each stitch direction catching the light as its own flat shade. Phulkari is the craft of Punjab’s women, made across what is now India and Pakistan for their own families, as shawls, veils, hangings and covers, and for weddings and festivals (Philadelphia Museum of Art; V&A; HALI). It is a regional craft, not a religious one, and the film’s geometric patterns are its own choice, not a rule of Sikh embroidery. No source ties phulkari to Bandi Chhor or to the Guru’s robe, and the film does not claim one. Indigo and undyed grounds are both traditional.

What the film leaves out

the execution of the Guru’s father, Guru Arjan, behind the fine; Bhai Mani Singh, later put to death for trying to hold a Diwali gathering at Amritsar; Bhai Gurdas’s verse on the lamps of Diwali as a sign of how transitory the world is; and the Gurdwara Data Bandi Chhor Sahib at Gwalior Fort, which marks the place today.