Battle of Chamkaur

01Sahibzada Ajit Singh and Jujhar Singh

The family had been scattered at the flooded Sarsa river. At Chamkaur the Guru, his two elder sons and a small band were surrounded. The Singhs went out from the garhi in small parties, five at a time. Sahibzada Ajit Singh, about seventeen, asked to go and was killed fighting. His brother Jujhar Singh, about fourteen, followed him. In the Zafarnama, written soon after to Aurangzeb, the Guru speaks of his forty hungry men set upon by a vast army.

02Leaving by night

When night fell the remaining Singhs, speaking as the Panth, told the Guru to leave so that the Khalsa would live. He went out with three companions. Days later at Sirhind, Wazir Khan had the two younger Sahibzade, Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh, bricked into a wall and killed. Gurdwara Qatalgarh Sahib and Gurdwara Garhi Sahib now mark the ground at Chamkaur.

Person · 1666–1708 CEGuru Gobind SinghGuru Gobind Singh became Guru at nine after his father’s martyrdom, created the Khalsa at Anandpur on Vaisakhi 1699, and lost all four sons in the war with the Mughals. Before he died at Nanded in 1708 he declared the Granth the eternal Guru.Read →