Founding of the Khalsa

01The call

Twenty-four years after his father’s martyrdom, the tenth Guru called the Sikhs to Anandpur for Vaisakhi. Sikh tradition tells that he asked the gathering for a head. Five men rose one after another: Daya Ram, Dharam Das, Himmat Rai, Mohkam Chand and Sahib Chand, from Lahore, Delhi, Jagannath Puri, Dwarka and Bidar. Tradition tells that the Guru took each one into a tent and came out with a bloodied sword, and that at the end all five came out alive, dressed alike.

02Amrit and the five Ks

The Guru stirred water and sugar-puffs in an iron bowl with a double-edged khanda while reciting bani, and gave this amrit to the five, who took the name Singh. He then knelt and asked them to initiate him, becoming Gobind Singh. The initiated were to keep kesh, kangha, kara, kachhera and kirpan, and to give up the old divisions of caste among themselves. Women took the name Kaur.

03What it made

The hill rajas and the Mughal governors saw the new order as a threat, and the sieges of Anandpur, the battle of Chamkaur and the killing of the Guru’s sons followed within six years. After the Guru’s death Banda Singh Bahadur led the Khalsa to take Sirhind in 1710, and in the 18th century the misls grew into the Sikh Empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Takht Sri Kesgarh Sahib stands where the amrit was first given.