The battles of the 1630s
Painda Khan and the battle of Kartarpur
A trusted Pathan follower turns against Guru Ji over a gift and a stolen hawk, and is killed in battle.
The Gurbilas, as reported by the Encyclopaedia, says Painda Khan was an Afghan orphan whom Guru Ji took on at sixteen and trained as a soldier. At Vaisakhi in 1635 a merchant named Chitra Sain gave Guru Ji a fine horse, a white hawk, a costly robe and a sword. Baba Gurditta received the hawk, and Painda Khan received the rest. His son-in-law Asman Khan then took the gifts for himself, rode out in them, and came home with the white hawk as well.
When asked, Painda Khan denied all of this before Guru Ji. Bhai Bidhi Chand went to Asman Khan's village and brought everything back. Exposed, Painda Khan went over to the Mughals and came back with the faujdar of Jalandhar. On the last day of the fighting he fell to Guru Ji's sword. The Gurbilas says that as he lay dying Guru Ji told him to recite the kalima, and shaded his face from the sun with a shield.
The Dabistan tells a story from a Sikh named Sadh. In the fight a man struck at Guru Ji, who parried and told him that this was not the way to strike, and then showed him the way with a blow that felled him. When asked what this meant, the author said that the teacher's stroke was a lesson, not anger.
How do we know?
A close source supports this story, and a second independent source agrees.
The battle and Painda Khan's death are confirmed by the Dabistan. The quarrel over the gifts appears only in later chronicles, and it repeats the motif of a hawk.
- From the timeRecords a battle at Kartarpur in which Mir Badehra and Painda Khan were killed, and repeats the anecdote of the swordsman. (p. 16)[Src]
- ScholarshipGives the hawk quarrel and the Bhatt Vahi date of 26 to 28 April 1635.[EoS]
- ScholarshipGives 26-27 April 1635 for the clash at Kartarpur.[EoS]
- ScholarshipSays the three-day battle involved the young Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji and ended with Guru Ji's departure for Kiratpur.[EoS]
