Guru Hargobind

01Miri and piri

Hargobind was born at Guru ki Wadali near Amritsar. In 1606 Jahangir had Guru Arjan arrested and put to death at Lahore. At his installation the boy Guru asked not for the seli, the woollen cord of the earlier Gurus, but for two swords: one for miri, temporal power, one for piri, spiritual authority. Facing the Harmandir Sahib he raised a platform, the Akal Takht, the throne of Akal, the Eternal, where he held court, heard disputes and received offerings of horses and weapons. The sangat began to train as soldiers.

02Gwalior and the battles

Jahangir held the Guru for a time in Gwalior fort. Sikh tradition says that when he was released he refused to leave unless fifty-two rajas held with him were freed too, and he walked out with all of them holding the hem of his robe. Sikhs remember this on Bandi Chhor Divas, at Diwali. Under Shah Jahan the clashes turned to open war: at Amritsar in 1634, then at Lahira and at Kartarpur in 1635. The Guru withdrew to Kiratpur in the Shivalik foothills, where he died in 1644, naming his grandson Har Rai as Guru.

Place · Founded by Guru Ram Das, c. 1577AmritsarThe city of the pool of nectar, founded by the fourth Sikh Guru around the tank in which the Harmandir Sahib stands. Twice blown up by Ahmad Shah Abdali and twice rebuilt, it is the heart of the Sikh faith, the Dharmic sibling of the Hindus.Read →