An open hand-written pothi, a khanda and a lit diya on saffron and navy cloth

History

Baba Deep Singh Ji: the scholar who kept his word

1682 to 1757

In November 1757 a Sikh scholar in his seventies set out from Damdama Sahib with a promise: he would reach Sri Harmandir Sahib, which had been defiled, or give his life on the way. Baba Deep Singh Ji kept that promise, and the Sikh world remembers him for it every November.

A boy from Pahuwind

Deep Singh was born in 1682 in Pahuwind, a village in the Amritsar district of Panjab. Sikh tradition gives his birthday as 26 January, though some records say 20 January. His father was Bhai Bhagtu. While still a boy he travelled with his family to Anandpur Sahib to see Guru Gobind Singh Ji, and when his parents went home, he stayed on in the Guru’s service.

At Anandpur he learned to read and write Gurmukhi and to understand Gurbani under Bhai Mani Singh, and he trained with horse and weapons alongside the Guru’s Sikhs. Around the time the Khalsa was created, he took Khande di Pahul: a Sikh committed both to learning and to standing up for those who could not defend themselves.

The scribe of Damdama Sahib

After some years back home, he rejoined Guru Gobind Singh Ji at Talwandi Sabo, now known as Damdama Sahib, in 1706. When the Guru left for the south, Baba Deep Singh Ji stayed on to look after the shrine. It grew into a centre of Sikh learning, where students came to study the correct reading and meaning of Gurbani.

His great service there was to the scripture itself. Bhai Mani Singh had written out the complete Guru Granth Sahib at Damdama Sahib under the Guru’s supervision. In 1726, the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism records, Baba Deep Singh Ji had four copies made from that text, so that Sikhs in distant places could have an accurate Guru Granth Sahib. The tower where he lived still stands beside Takht Sri Damdama Sahib and is called Burj Baba Deep Singh.

Leader of the Shahid misl

The eighteenth century was a hard time for Sikhs in Panjab, and the Khalsa organised itself into bands called jathas. When those bands were regrouped into twelve misls at the Vaisakhi gathering of 1748, Baba Deep Singh Ji was given command of one of them. It came to be called the Shahid misl, the misl of martyrs. Its area lay south of the Sutlej, and his base remained Damdama Sahib.

1757: the promise

In the winter of 1756 and 1757, Ahmad Shah Durrani invaded India for the fourth time and made Panjab part of his empire. He left his son Taimur as viceroy at Lahore, with the general Jahan Khan as his deputy. In May 1757 Jahan Khan’s forces took Amritsar, pulled down the Sikh fort of Ram Rauni and filled in the sacred pool around Sri Harmandir Sahib.

When the news reached Damdama Sahib, Baba Deep Singh Ji, by then about 75, resolved to go to Amritsar and free the shrine, telling the sangat that Diwali that year would be celebrated there. He prayed that his head would fall at Sri Harmandir Sahib. Sikhs joined his jatha along the way, and by the time it reached Tarn Taran it numbered about five thousand.

At Tarn Taran, tradition says, he drew a line on the ground with his khanda and asked only those ready to give their lives to cross it. The place is remembered today by Gurdwara Lakeer Sahib. The Guru’s words described the choice they made:

ਜਉ ਤਉ ਪ੍ਰੇਮ ਖੇਲਣ ਕਾ ਚਾਉ ॥ ਸਿਰੁ ਧਰਿ ਤਲੀ ਗਲੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਆਉ ॥

Jau tau prem khelaṇ kā chāu. Sir dhar talī galī merī āu.

“If you long to play the game of love, come to my lane with your head on your palm.”

— Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 1412

Head on his palm

Jahan Khan’s army barred the way near the village of Gohalwar, between Tarn Taran and Amritsar, on 11 November 1757. The Sikhs drove the first force back, but fresh Afghan troops arrived and the fighting grew fierce. Near the village of Chabba, Baba Deep Singh Ji received a terrible wound to the neck.

The accounts handed down differ in detail. In the best-known telling his head was severed; a Sikh reminded him of his vow, and he fought on, holding his head on the palm of one hand and his khanda in the other, until he reached the parikarma of Sri Harmandir Sahib and laid down his head there. Other accounts say he was mortally wounded and fought his way into the holy city before he fell. All agree on what matters: he kept his word and gave his life at the Harmandir. His shahidi is remembered on 13 November 1757, and the Sikhs celebrated Diwali at Amritsar that year.

Where he is remembered

A gurdwara on the parikarma of Sri Harmandir Sahib marks the place where he fell, and pilgrims pause there on their way to the Darbar Sahib. Gurdwara Shahidganj Baba Deep Singh, near Gurdwara Ramsar, stands where he and his companions were cremated. Gurdwara Tahla Sahib at Chabba marks the place of the battle, Gurdwara Lakeer Sahib at Tarn Taran marks his line, and his tower still stands at Damdama Sahib.

What he asks of us

Baba Deep Singh Ji is often pictured only as a warrior, but he was first a scholar who spent decades copying and teaching Gurbani. His life shows that learning and courage belong together: to know what is right, and to stand up for it when it counts.

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