Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and last human Guru of the Sikhs, was born Gobind Rai in Patna in 1666 and came to the Guruship as a child of nine, after his father gave his life for the freedom of others to worship. Over a life of barely forty-two years he became a poet, a scholar of many languages, and a warrior, and he reshaped the Sikh community into the Khalsa, a brotherhood and sisterhood of saint-soldiers bound by faith, discipline, and a fierce sense of equality. His decisions still define how Sikhs live, dress, and pray today.

Early life in Patna

The future Guru was born in Patna, in present-day Bihar, on 22 December 1666, while his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was travelling in the east. The boy spent his earliest years in the city before the family settled at Anandpur Sahib in the foothills of the Punjab. From a young age he was given training in reading, in the martial arts, and in horsemanship, and he grew up fluent in Punjabi, Braj, Persian, and Sanskrit. These gifts would later feed both his writing and his leadership.

A child becomes Guru

In 1675 a delegation of Kashmiri Pandits came to Anandpur seeking protection from forced conversion. According to Sikh tradition, the young Gobind Rai counselled his father that a person of great spiritual standing must offer themselves. Guru Tegh Bahadur travelled to Delhi and was executed for refusing to abandon his faith and for defending the right of others to keep theirs. At the age of nine the boy succeeded him as Guru, carrying both a heavy loss and a clear sense of purpose. He is remembered among the Ten Gurus as the one who completed their long work.

Founding the Khalsa

On the spring festival of Vaisakhi in 1699, at Anandpur Sahib, the Guru called a great gathering and asked who among them would give their head for their faith. One by one, five men rose and offered themselves. These five, the Panj Pyare or Five Beloved Ones, were initiated with Amrit, sweetened water stirred with a double-edged sword, in a ceremony that bound them into a new order. The Guru then asked the Five to initiate him in turn, placing himself as their equal. This founding moment is still honoured every Vaisakhi.

"Where there are five, there am I." The Guru placed the authority of the community above any single person, even himself.

The Five Ks and new names

Through the Khalsa the Guru gave his followers a shared identity that could be seen and lived. He asked the initiated to keep the Five Ks: kes, uncut hair; kangha, a wooden comb; kara, a steel bracelet; kachhera, a cotton undergarment; and kirpan, a sword. He gave the men the name Singh, meaning lion, and the women the name Kaur, meaning princess, so that all stood on level ground regardless of birth or caste. The Khalsa was to be devoted in prayer and ready to defend the weak, an ideal often called the saint-soldier.

Years of battle

Much of the Guru's later life was spent in defensive struggle against the armies of the Mughal empire and of neighbouring hill rajas who feared the growing community. He fought at Anandpur over several long sieges, at Chamkaur, where a small band held out against a vast force, and at Muktsar, where a group of returning Sikhs gave their lives in his cause. Through these years he urged courage without hatred, and he framed warfare as a last resort taken only when peaceful means had failed.

The loss of the Sahibzade

The cost of those years fell most heavily on the Guru's own family. All four of his sons, known as the Sahibzade, died young. The two elder boys, Ajit Singh and Jujhar Singh, fell in battle at Chamkaur in 1704. The two younger boys, Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh, still children, were captured and put to death at Sirhind for refusing to abandon their faith. The Guru bore these losses with a calm that Sikhs have remembered ever since as a model of acceptance of the divine will. The sacrifice of the Sahibzade is mourned and honoured across the Sikh world.

Writings and a defiant letter

The Guru was a prolific writer, and works associated with him are gathered in the Dasam Granth, a collection of devotional poetry, narrative, and reflection. Among his best-known compositions is the Zafarnama, the Epistle of Victory, a letter written in Persian verse to the emperor Aurangzeb. In it the Guru answered injustice with moral force, reminding the emperor of his broken promises while affirming his own unshaken faith. His pen carried as much weight as his sword.

Eternal Guru and final blessing

In his last years the Guru travelled south to the Deccan and reached Nanded. There, in 1708, he ended the line of human Gurus and declared that the scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, would be the eternal Guru of the Sikhs, the living word to be honoured for all time. Before his death on 7 October 1708 he also blessed Banda Singh Bahadur and sent him north to lead the struggle in the Punjab. In ending one form of leadership and beginning another, Guru Gobind Singh left the Sikhs a guide that endures to this day.