The Mughal force was beaten and Painde Khan was killed by the Guru’s own hand; the Guru then withdrew to Kiratpur in the Shivaliks.
01The Guru who wore two swords
After the martyrdom of Guru Arjan in 1606, his son Guru Hargobind wore two swords, miri and piri, worldly power and spiritual authority, and kept armed men around him. His Sikhs fought Mughal troops at Amritsar in 1634 and again soon after. Painde Khan, a strong young Pathan who had grown up in the Guru’s service, quarrelled with him, left, and went over to the Mughal officers at Jalandhar. In 1635 he came against the Guru’s town of Kartarpur, founded by Guru Arjan, with a force under Kale Khan.
02Single combat and the move to Kiratpur
The Sikh accounts say the fighting went on for two days around the town. Painde Khan sought out the Guru, struck first and missed, and was cut down by him; the Guru is remembered as shading the dying man’s face with his shield. Kale Khan fell too, and the Mughal troops broke. The Guru’s youngest son, then about fourteen, fought so well that the name Tegh Bahadur, brave of the sword, is said to date from this day. Knowing a larger army would follow, Guru Hargobind left the plains and settled at Kiratpur in the Shivalik hills, where he spent the rest of his life.
Kartarpur closed the first age of Sikh armed resistance; the move to Kiratpur set the Gurus’ seat in the hills, where Anandpur would later rise.