24. Bhai Sahib Singh Ji

Bhai Sahib Singh was one of the Panj Piare or the Five Beloved of revered memory in the Sikh tradition, was born the son of Bhai Guru Narayana, a barber of Bidar in Karnataka, and his wife Ankamma. Bidar had been visited by Guru Nanak early in the sixteenth century and a Sikh shrine had been established there in his honour. Sahib Chand, as Sahib Singh was called before he underwent the rites of the Khalsa, travelled to Anandpur at the young age of 16, and attached himself permanently to Guru Gobind Singh. He won a name for himself as marksman and in one of the battles at Anandpur he shot dead the Gujjar chief Jamatulla. In another action the raja of Hindur, Bhup Chand, was seriously wounded by a shot from his musket following which the entire hill army fled the field. Sahib Chand was one of the five Sikhs who, on the Baisakhi day of 30 March 1699, offered, upon Guru Gobind Singh's call to lay down their heads. They were greeted by the Guru as the five beloved of him. These five formed the nucleus of the Khalsa, the Guru's own, inaugurated dramatically that day. Sahib Chand, after undergoing the rites of the Khalsa, became Sahib Singh, receiving the surname of Singh common to all members of the Khalsa brotherhood. He attained martyrdom fighting in the battle of Chamkaur on 7 December 1705.