Wife of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji; guide of the Khalsa after 1708
Mata Sundari
Mata Sundari was a wife of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji and the mother of Sahibzada Ajit Singh. After Guru Ji passed away in 1708 she lived at Delhi for nearly four decades. From there she guided the Sikhs, sent Bhai Mani Singh to Amritsar and issued letters under her own seal.
Marriage and family
She was the daughter of Bhai Ram Saran of Bijwara, in what is now Hoshiarpur district. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism dates her marriage to Guru Ji to 4 April 1684, at Anandpur, and the birth of Sahibzada Ajit Singh at Paonta to 26 January 1687.
After the evacuation of Anandpur in December 1705, Bhai Mani Singh escorted her and Mata Sahib Devan to Delhi. The Encyclopaedia says she rejoined Guru Ji at Talwandi Sabo in 1706, and there learned that the four Sahibzade had been martyred and that Mata Gujri had passed away. She returned to Delhi when Guru Ji left for the south.[EoS][EoS][Macauliffe]
Leading from Delhi
After 1708 the Sikhs looked to her for direction. She put Bhai Mani Singh in charge of the sacred sites at Amritsar, and the Encyclopaedia says she also asked him to gather Guru Ji's writings. Her surviving hukamnamas open with the words of the Mata's order and run from 12 October 1717 to 10 August 1730. Mann notes that eighteen letters by her and Mata Sahib Devan are in print, and that they sought help for the langar at Delhi and stressed that the Khalsa Panth belonged to God.
Gupta describes her in sharper political terms, as acting head of the Khalsa. He says Emperor Farrukh Siyar held her and Mata Sahib Devan to press Banda Singh Bahadur into submission, and that she then broke with him in letters to Sikh leaders.[EoS][EoS][Mann][Gupta]
The adopted son
At Delhi she adopted a boy and named him Ajit Singh, for his likeness to her late son. The emperor Bahadur Shah received him at court, and he grew proud. She disowned him. He was put to death in 1725 after a murder conviction. She moved to Mathura for a time, then came back to Delhi, where she passed away in 1747. Her memorial is at Gurdwara Bala Sahib.[EoS][Macauliffe][Gupta]
What the sources disagree on
- Whether she was a separate person from Mata Jito
A note in Macauliffe records the opinion of a learned Sikh that Sundari was another name for Mata Jito and not a second wife. The Encyclopaedia, Gupta and Macauliffe's own narrative all treat them as two women.[Macauliffe][EoS][EoS][Gupta]
- Date of the marriage and of her son's birth
The Encyclopaedia gives 4 April 1684 and January 1687. Gupta gives April 1685 and places Ajit Singh's birth at Paonta in 1686.[EoS][Gupta]
- Her part in the break with Banda Singh Bahadur
Gupta presents it as following imprisonment and imperial pressure. The account of her imprisonment was read only in Gupta and has not been confirmed elsewhere.[Gupta]