Background
Guru Gobind Singh was born as Gobind Rai in Patna, Bihar in India. His father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was the ninth Sikh Guru.
Guru Gobind Singh was born as Gobind Rai in Patna, Bihar in India. His father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was the ninth Sikh Guru.
Gobind Rai's early education included study of languages and training as a Soldier. He had started studying Hindi and Sanskrit while at Patna. At Anandpur Sahib, he started studying Punjabi under Sahib Chand, and Persian under Qazi Pir Mohammad.
In March, 1699, Guru Gobind Singh laid the foundation of the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib. He offered amrit to the Panj Piaras (five beloved ones). In fact, thousands of people took the amrit that day prepared by stirring a dagger in a steel vessel containing water. In one moment he finished the distinction of caste and creed. He gave a new identity to the followers, and told them to live a morally dean life. It was a great miracle. A new organisation was born with the holy duty of protecting the poor and the repressed. These were fearless soldiers in the cause of righteousness Ute victims of the Mughal cruelties became self-respecting and confident. They joined the fold of the Khalsa.
A result of the Guru's actions is arguably that the strength of Sikhi in the 18th and 19th centuries was based on the third, fourth, and fifth orders of Indian society, even though some of its leaders still came from the Kshatriya varna.
Much of Guru Gobind Singh's creative literary work was done at Paonta he had founded on the banks of the River Yamuna and to which site he had temporarily shifted in April 1685. Poetry as such was, however, not his aim. For him it was a means of revealing the divine principle and concretizing a personal vision of the Supreme Being that had been vouchsafed to him. His Japu and the composition known as Akal Ustati are in this tenor. Through his poetry he preached love and equality and a strictly ethical and moral code of conduct. He preached the worship of the One Supreme Being, deprecating idolatry and superstitious beliefs and observances.
Gobind Singh is considered to be a philosopher of just war theory.
Quotations: "I wear arms not to kill, but to make the cowardly kings love all. I need no kingdoms on this earth."
Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib Ji (1621 – 1675) became the 9th Guru of Sikhs on 20 March 1665.
He had founded the city of Anandpur Sahib in 1665. He fought for the religious freedom of the harassed Kashmir Pandits who were being forcibly converted to Islam by the Mughal rulers.
Mata Gujri (1624–1705) is considered to be one of the prominent figures in history of Sikhism.
Mātā Sundarī was the daughter of Ram Saran of Lahore.
The couple had four children together: Ajit Singh, Zorawar Singh, Jujhar Singh and Fateh Singh.
She holds a special place in Sikhism for the role she played in leading Sikhs after the ascension of Guru Gobind Singh Ji.
Mata Sahib Kaur was a follower of the tenth Sikh guru Gobind Singh.
