Zafarnamah, Muktsar and Damdama
The forty at Muktsar
Men who had renounced Guru Ji at Anandpur came back led by Mai Bhago and fell fighting Wazir Khan's force. Guru Ji blessed them as the forty liberated ones.
According to the tradition, some forty Sikhs from the Majha left Anandpur during the siege and signed a paper disowning Guru Ji. At home their women shamed them, and a woman named Mai Bhago of Jhabal rallied them to go back and ask forgiveness.
They reached the pool of Khidrana in the Malwa just as Wazir Khan's army was closing on Guru Ji, and took up positions in front of the attackers. The Encyclopaedia's entry on Muktsar says they fixed cloths over the shrubs to look like tents. They fought hard enough that the Mughal force, short of water in that dry country, turned back.
Guru Ji came down to the field afterwards and found that all but one had attained martyrdom, and Mahan Singh lay near his end. Macauliffe says Guru Ji offered him any boon and he asked only that the paper be cancelled. Guru Ji took it out and destroyed it, and he passed away content.
Guru Ji blessed them as the forty muktas and cremated them there. The place took the name Muktsar, the pool of liberation. Mai Bhago, wounded, stayed with Guru Ji afterward as a bodyguard in men's dress, the Encyclopaedia says, and later settled near Bidar.
How do we know?
A close source supports this story, and a second independent source agrees.
The fight itself is attested. Mai Bhago and the torn deed, the most loved parts of the story, are not in the passages of Sainapati read here. The annual fair on the first of Magh, around 14 January, also does not match the 29 December date.
- From the timeTells in about twelve lines of a camp by a pool attacked by Mughal forces, without naming the forty or Mai Bhago or telling of the pardon. (ch. XIII; translator's note)[Src]
- ScholarshipDates the battle to 29 December 1705 and names Mai Bhago as leader of the returning forty.[EoS]
- Later traditionTells of her rallying the deserters and being the sole survivor, with Mahan Singh passing away in Guru Ji's lap.[EoS]
- Later traditionTells of the deed of renunciation drawn up by Sikhs of the Majha and of Guru Ji tearing it up at Mahan Singh's request, and links the place to the first of Magh. (pp. 212-214)[Macauliffe]
