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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.
Bhai Sahib Singh fell in the battle
of Chamkaur on 7 December 1705.
Copyright © Harbans Singh "The
encyclopedia of Sikhism. "
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