Who shaped it

People

The Gurus, generals, rulers, and figures who shaped Sikh history. Each life links to the events they appear in — the same events you can see on the map and in the timeline.

The Ten Gurus

In order of succession, 1469–1708.

Martyrs

Baba Deep Singh
1682–1757

Scholar-soldier; founder of the Shahid Misl

A scholar who prepared copies of the Guru Granth Sahib and a soldier who died at seventy-five retaking Amritsar after Afghan forces desecrated the Harmandir Sahib in 1757.
Bhai Mani Singh
?–1738

Scholar and granthi of the Harmandir Sahib

The scholar who took charge of the Harmandir Sahib on Mata Sundari's authority, held the Panth's scriptural work together through the years of proscription, and was executed at Lahore in 1738 for a gathering the authorities had licensed and then moved against.
Mata Gujri
?–1705

Wife of Guru Tegh Bahadur; mother of Guru Gobind Singh

Wife of the ninth Guru and mother of the tenth, who held the community together through her husband's execution in 1675, and died in Mughal custody at Sirhind in December 1705 alongside her two youngest grandsons.

Generals & Commanders

Banda Singh Bahadur
1670–1716

Military commander, first Sikh sovereign

The commander who, on Guru Gobind Singh's authority, established the first sovereign Sikh rule in the Punjab, defeated the Mughal governor of Sirhind in 1710, and was executed in Delhi in 1716.
Nawab Kapur Singh
1697–1753

Organiser of the Dal Khalsa

The commander who took a Mughal title on the Panth's behalf in 1733, used the truce that came with it to organise the Sikhs into two standing armies, and built the structure that became the Dal Khalsa and the misls.
Jassa Singh Ahluwalia
1718–1783

Supreme commander of the Dal Khalsa

Commander of the Dal Khalsa for thirty-five years, from the massacre at Kahnuwan to the occupation of Delhi. The Panth gave him the title Sultan-ul-Qaum — king of the nation — when the Sikhs took Lahore.
Hari Singh Nalwa
1791–1837

Commander-in-chief of the Sikh Empire's north-western frontier

The Sikh Empire's foremost general, who took Kashmir, Peshawar and the Khyber frontier for Ranjit Singh and died holding the fort at Jamrud in 1837 — reversing, for the first time in centuries, the direction armies had travelled through the Khyber Pass.
Mai Bhago

Warrior; commander at Khidrana, 1705

The woman who shamed forty Sikhs who had abandoned Guru Gobind Singh back into the field, led them at Khidrana in 1705, and was the only one of them to survive the battle. She afterwards served as a bodyguard to the Guru.

Rulers

Maharaja Ranjit Singh
1780–1839

Founder and Maharaja of the Sikh Empire

The 'Lion of Punjab', who unified the Sikh misls into a single powerful kingdom centred on Lahore, ruling a famously secular administration from 1799 until his death in 1839.
Maharaja Duleep Singh
1838–1893

Last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire

The youngest son of Ranjit Singh, placed on the throne at five, deposed at ten when Britain annexed the Punjab in 1849, separated from his mother and his religion, and exiled to England — where he spent his later life attempting, without success, to return.

Scholars

Bhai Gurdas
1551–1636

Scribe of the Adi Granth; first Sikh theologian

The scribe who wrote out the Adi Granth at Guru Arjan's dictation in 1604, and the first systematic interpreter of Sikh teaching. His own writings are not scripture, but are the only ones a Guru authorised as the key to it.

Saints

Bhai Ghanaiya
1648–1718

Sikh of Guru Gobind Singh; remembered as founder of the Sevapanthi order

The Sikh whom tradition remembers carrying water to the wounded of both sides during the siege of Anandpur, and who answered the complaint against him by saying he saw only the Guru in everyone. His followers became the Sevapanthis, an order of service.

Modern Figures

Bhagat Singh Thind
1892–1967

US Army veteran and plaintiff in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923)

A Sikh from Punjab whom the United States made a citizen three times and twice took it back. His 1923 Supreme Court case decided that Indians were not 'white persons' under the naturalisation law; he regained citizenship as a veteran in 1936.
Bhagat Puran Singh
1904–1992

Founder of Pingalwara; environmentalist

The man who spent sixty years carrying and caring for the abandoned sick of Amritsar, founded the Pingalwara home from camps, footpaths and a banyan tree, and campaigned on soil erosion and pollution decades before either was a mainstream concern in India.

Others

Bhai Mardana
1459–1534

Companion and musician to Guru Nanak

The musician from a Muslim family who accompanied Guru Nanak on nearly all of his journeys, playing the rabab to the Guru's compositions until his death. His name heads three verses in the Guru Granth Sahib, though scholars differ on who wrote them.
Bibi Nanaki
1464–1518

Elder sister of Guru Nanak; his first follower

The elder sister of Guru Nanak, remembered in the tradition as the first person to recognise what her brother was — his first follower, five years his senior, who supported him materially and gave him the household at Sultanpur Lodhi from which the faith began.
Mata Sundari
?–1747

Wife of Guru Gobind Singh; leader of the Panth after 1708

Wife of Guru Gobind Singh who, from Delhi and for nearly forty years after his death in 1708, held the scattered Sikh community together through its most dangerous period — issuing letters of authority, adjudicating disputes, and refusing every claim to personal Guruship.