Vaisakhi, 1699

The Founding of the Khalsa

At the Vaisakhi gathering at Anandpur, Guru Gobind Singh initiates the "Five Beloved Ones" and creates the Khalsa, the order of initiated Sikhs with a shared name and visible identity.

Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799 — Purnima Dhavan, Oxford University Press (2011)
Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edition) — Eleanor Nesbitt, Oxford University Press (2016)
The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition — Harjot Oberoi, University of Chicago Press (1994)

Traditional account faithidentitywar

The crowd at Anandpur

By the 1690s Guru Gobind Singh, still in his early thirties, led a community that had lost two Gurus to Mughal executions and was squeezed between the Mughal governors of the plains and the Hindu rajas of the Punjab hills, who resented a Guru who refused to bow to them. He also faced a problem inside the community: regional agents, the masands, who collected offerings in the Guru’s name, had grown corrupt and independent.

The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799 — Purnima Dhavan, Oxford University Press (2011)

For the spring harvest festival of Vaisakhi, Sikhs were summoned to Anandpur in large numbers. The tradition every Sikh child learns goes like this. The Guru came out before the crowd with a drawn sword and asked who was ready to give his head. There was silence, then one man, Daya Ram, stepped forward. The Guru took him into a tent, came out with his sword dripping, and asked again. Four more men answered: Dharam Das, Mohkam Chand, Himmat Rai and Sahib Chand. Then the Guru brought all five out alive, dressed alike in saffron.

Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edition) — Eleanor Nesbitt, Oxford University Press (2016)
A History of the Sikhs (2 vols, 2nd edition) — Khushwant Singh, Oxford University Press (2004)

In some versions goats were killed in the tent; in many retellings the point is simply that the men were tested and found ready. The five came, tradition stresses, from different castes, including a Khatri, a Jat, and men from the barber, washerman and water-carrier castes, and from Lahore, Delhi, Dwarka, Jagannath Puri and Bidar.

Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edition) — Eleanor Nesbitt, Oxford University Press (2016)
Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)

Amrit, a new name, a new family

The Guru stirred water in an iron bowl with a double-edged sword, the khanda, while reciting prayers; his wife, Mata Jitoji in many accounts (Mata Sahib Kaur in others), added sugar puffs, so that the strength of steel would be joined with sweetness. The five drank this amrit from the same bowl, a startling act in a society where castes would not share food or water. Then the Guru knelt and asked the five to initiate him. He became Gobind Singh.

Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edition) — Eleanor Nesbitt, Oxford University Press (2016)

The initiated became the Khalsa, a word used for land held directly by the sovereign: these Sikhs belonged directly to the Guru, with no masands between. Men took the name Singh, “lion”, and women Kaur, often translated “princess”, erasing the caste names that revealed a person’s place in the hierarchy.

The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edition) — Eleanor Nesbitt, Oxford University Press (2016)

The Khalsa were to keep their hair uncut and carry arms, and to avoid tobacco, eating halal meat and sexual relations outside marriage. These became the five Ks and the four prohibitions of today’s Sikh code of conduct, the Rahit Maryada: kes (uncut hair), kangha (a wooden comb), kara (a steel bracelet), kirpan (a sword or dagger) and kachera (cotton undershorts).

Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edition) — Eleanor Nesbitt, Oxford University Press (2016)
Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies — Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.), Oxford University Press (2014)

What the Khalsa meant

The Khalsa turned a devotional community into one that could, and did, fight. In the years that followed, Guru Gobind Singh fought both the hill rajas and Mughal forces. Anandpur was besieged and abandoned in 1704–05; his two elder sons died in battle at Chamkaur, and his two youngest, aged about nine and six, were bricked up alive and then executed at Sirhind on the governor’s order. Sikhs still mourn them every December.

The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799 — Purnima Dhavan, Oxford University Press (2011)
Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the Game of Love — Louis E. Fenech, Oxford University Press (2000)

Historians note that the Sikh community was never entirely Khalsa. Many Sikhs, then and now, do not take amrit, and in the nineteenth century there was a wide range of Sikh practice. Harjot Oberoi argued that a single, sharply bounded “Khalsa” identity became dominant only with the reform movements of the late nineteenth century, a view other scholars have challenged.

The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition — Harjot Oberoi, University of Chicago Press (1994)
The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies — Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.), Oxford University Press (2014)
Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)

But for most Sikhs today, Vaisakhi 1699 is the moment the Sikh people were born as a people: a family without caste, with one name, one bowl and one Guru, and a promise to defend the weak.

How it's seen

Sikh tradition

The Guru asked a vast crowd who would give their head for the faith, and five men, of different castes and regions, stepped forward. They became the Panj Piare, the first Khalsa, and the Guru then asked them to initiate him in turn: a community of equals, sovereign under God alone.

Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edition) — Eleanor Nesbitt, Oxford University Press (2016)
A History of the Sikhs (2 vols, 2nd edition) — Khushwant Singh, Oxford University Press (2004)

Historians

That the Guru founded the Khalsa at Anandpur around 1699 is accepted, but the detailed story comes from sources written decades later. Historians such as McLeod and Oberoi argue that parts of the full Khalsa code, including the precise list of the five Ks, took shape gradually during the eighteenth century and were standardised later; other scholars stress continuity with the Guru's own intent.

Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition — Harjot Oberoi, University of Chicago Press (1994)
When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799 — Purnima Dhavan, Oxford University Press (2011)
The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies — Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.), Oxford University Press (2014)

Why it matters today

Sikhism

The Khalsa gave Sikhs their most recognisable features: the surnames Singh and Kaur, the turban and uncut hair, and the five Ks. Every Vaisakhi, in April, Sikhs everywhere celebrate it with nagar kirtan processions, and the amrit initiation it began is still how a Sikh fully commits to the faith. When people ask why Sikhs wear turbans, the answer goes back to this day.