Alif Khan’s force was beaten and he fled in the night.
01Tribute and resistance
The rajas of the Shivalik hills paid tribute to the Mughals, and in the late 1680s many had fallen behind. The Mughal commander in Jammu sent Alif Khan to collect it. Raja Kirpal Chand of Kangra and Raja Dayal of Bijharwal joined him. Bhim Chand of Kahlur, whose capital was Bilaspur, refused to pay and called on his neighbours and on Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur, though the two had fought each other at Bhangani only a few years before. The Guru came with his Sikhs. Alif Khan had dug in on a hill above the Beas at Nadaun.
02The Guru’s own account
In the ninth chapter of the Bachittar Natak, Guru Gobind Singh describes the fight in vivid Braj verse: the arrows, the charge of Bhim Chand’s men up the slope, Raja Dayal fighting hard on the Mughal side, and Alif Khan’s camp breaking at last. The Mughal commander fled across the river by night. The Guru stayed some days at Nadaun before going back to Anandpur. Soon after, the rajas made their own terms with the Mughals, which the Guru notes without much warmth. Gurdwara Patshahi Dasvin at Nadaun marks his stay.
Nadaun was the first open clash between the tenth Guru and Mughal troops, and the Bachittar Natak makes it one of the few Indian battles of its age described by a commander who fought in it.