Guru Hargobind Ji

Two swords at the succession

Eleven years old at his father’s death under torture, Hargobind came to the Guruship in 1606 wearing two swords — miri for temporal authority, piri for spiritual: the doctrine of miri-piri that reset the community’s course. He kept an armed retinue, hunted, and raised the Akal Takht facing the Harmandir Sahib — sanctity and sovereignty in one compound.^1,2

Prison and the fifty-two kings

The new posture brought imperial suspicion, and the Guru was imprisoned in Gwalior Fort under Jahangir. The sources do not agree on when or for how long. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says the length cannot be stated with certainty, with accounts running from forty days to twelve years, and that he seems to have been in the fort for a few months sometime between 1617 and 1619; the SGPC gives about three years, from 1609 to 1612.^3,4

Sikhs remember that he would not leave alone. In the tradition, the emperor allowed only those holding the Guru’s robe to leave; the Guru had a robe made with fifty-two strings attached, and fifty-two imprisoned kings walked out holding them. Retellings differ on the details.³ Tradition has him reaching Amritsar at Diwali, where the Sikhs lit the town with lamps; the historian Jasbir Singh Sarna instead places him still at Gwalior on Diwali in 1619.^3,4,6 For Sikhs, Diwali is also Bandi Chhor Divas,⁴ when the Golden Temple is lit in remembrance of the Guru as bandi chhor, the releaser of prisoners.^3,5

First battles, and a move to the hills

Under Shah Jahan, friction became fighting: Mughal detachments engaged the Guru’s men near Amritsar in 1634 and at Kartarpur in 1635, and the Sikhs — for the first time under arms — held their own. The Guru withdrew to Kiratpur in the Shivalik foothills, where he died in 1644, having chosen his young grandson Har Rai to succeed him. The martial tradition he founded never again left the faith.^1,2