29 March 1748[EoS][EoS][EoS][EoS][Gupta][EoS]Vaisakhi 1748
The Sarbatt Khalsa forms the Dal Khalsa
At Vaisakhi in 1748, a Sarbatt Khalsa at Amritsar merged the 65 Sikh bands into one force, the Dal Khalsa, grouped in eleven misls. Nawab Kapur Singh urged the union, and Jassa Singh Ahluwalia was named to lead it.
The Sarbatt Khalsa was the general assembly of the Panth, meeting at the Akal Takht at Vaisakhi and Diwali. Its decisions, called gurmatas, bound those present. The earliest known meeting was at Diwali in 1723, and in October 1745 it had reorganised the fighters into 25 bands of about a hundred men each.
By March 1748 those bands had grown to 65, each acting alone. Ahmad Shah Durrani had occupied Lahore that January on his first invasion. At Amritsar on 29 March, Nawab Kapur Singh pressed the need for unity, and a gurmata merged the fighters into one body. Each of the eleven misls had its own leader and banner.
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism calls the result a loose confederacy with no strict constitution. A horseman could move between misls. It also notes that the name Dal Khalsa does not appear in Indian chronicles until after James Browne's India Tracts of 1788.
The Encyclopaedia is not consistent on who held command. Its entries on the Dal Khalsa and on Jassa Singh Ahluwalia place him in command, and its entry on Nawab Kapur Singh says the Nawab handed over leadership. Its entry on the misls says Jassa Singh held joint command while Nawab Kapur Singh stayed the acknowledged supreme commander.[EoS][EoS][EoS][EoS][Gupta][EoS]