With an in­creas­ing num­ber of deaths around the world due to Covid, death is an en­forced topic of con­cern and dis­cus­sion homes to po­lit­i­cal of­fices to the sta­tis­tics de­part­ments of gov­ern­ments. Re­li­gious peo­ple and spir­i­tual prac­ti­tion­ers re­sort to a va­ri­ety of faith-build­ing tech­niques to pro­vide re­lief to the fam­i­lies of the de­ceased. Spe­cial­ist care­givers pre­pare ter­mi­nally-ill pa­tients for death with their train­ing in pal­lia­tive care.  Spir­i­tual prac­ti­tioner Bhupin­der Singh enu­mer­ates the var­i­ous deaths wit­nessed by the Ninth Mas­ter Guru Tegh Ba­hadur in his for­ma­tive years. He asks read­ers to im­bibe the teach­ings of the Guru who pre­pares for death while lead­ing nor­mal lives. 

THE IN­EVITABLE RE­AL­ITY OF HU­MAN LIFE IS DEATH. In fact, death and af­ter-death re­main un­known to us, while life is known as real and is be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced, so nat­u­rally, it is cher­ished by us. As a con­se­quence, we all strive to live for­ever, be it by us­ing am­brosia or other eas­ily avail­able al­ter­na­tives in the form of sur­gi­cal in­ter­ven­tions. We even try to shield chil­dren from ex­po­sure to death ex­pe­ri­ence. We find it dif­fi­cult to share the loss, its re­sult­ing void, in­clud­ing its re­al­ity with them hon­estly as we are un­sure of their men­tal ca­pac­ity to cope with it.

How­ever, when early life has been shaped by mul­ti­ple ex­pe­ri­ences of close en­coun­ters with this in­evitable re­al­ity of life, it is bound to leave a last­ing im­pres­sion, by mould­ing the think­ing process as well as shap­ing the out­look on life. The Ninth Mas­ter -Guru Tegh Ba­hadur’s life was filled with such ex­pe­ri­ences, yet he coped with them not just with tears but with re­silience.

Let us first ex­plore this as­pect of tran­si­tory na­ture of life from the writ­ings in the Sloks and then try to con­nect to the life ex­pe­ri­ences that shaped them.

ਜਗ ਰਚਨਾ ਸਭ ਝੂਠ ਹੈ ਜਾਨਿ ਲੇਹੁ ਰੇ ਮੀਤ ॥
ਕਹਿ ਨਾਨਕ ਥਿਰੁ ਨਾ ਰਹੈ ਜਿਉ ਬਾਲੂ ਕੀ ਭੀਤਿ ॥੪੯॥
ਰਾਮੁ ਗਇਓ ਰਾਵਨੁ ਗਇਓ ਜਾ ਕਉ ਬਹੁ ਪਰਵਾਰੁ ॥
ਕਹੁ ਨਾਨਕ ਥਿਰੁ ਕਛੁ ਨਹੀ ਸੁਪਨੇ ਜਿਉ ਸੰਸਾਰੁ ॥੫੦॥
ਚਿੰਤਾ ਤਾ ਕੀ ਕੀਜੀਐ ਜੋ ਅਨਹੋਨੀ ਹੋਇ॥
ਇਹੁ ਮਾਰਗੁ ਸੰਸਾਰ ਕੋ ਨਾਨਕ ਥਿਰੁ ਨਹੀ ਕੋਇ॥੫੧॥
ਜੋ ਉਪਜਿਓ ਸੋ ਬਿਨਸਿ ਹੈ ਪਰੋ ਆਜੁ ਕੈ ਕਾਲਿ॥
ਨਾਨਕ ਹਰਿ ਗੁਨ ਗਾਇ ਲੇ ਛਾਡਿ ਸਗਲ ਜੰਜਾਲ॥੫੨॥

Trans­la­tion: The whole world is tran­si­tory (there­fore false); un­der­stand this well, my friend. Says Nanak, it is like a wall of sand (im­per­ma­nent); which gets blown away as it shall not en­dure (the blow from the storm in the form of death). ||49|| (Even) Raam passed away, so did Raa­van, de­spite his large fam­ily (that could not help stave it off). Says Nanak, noth­ing lasts for­ever; the world is like a pass­ing dream. ||50|| Be­come anx­ious, only when some­thing un­ex­pected hap­pens in re­al­ity. (But) this is the way of the world, O Nanak; noth­ing is last­ing (here). ||51|| What­ever has been cre­ated shall per­ish; every­thing is per­ish­able, (it is just a mat­ter of time) to­day or to­mor­row. O Nanak, sing the Glo­ri­ous Praises of the Lord, leav­ing all other en­tan­gle­ments. ||52||
 Guru Granth Sahib, page 1429

This is borne out of real-world ex­pe­ri­ences in life. Guru Sahib has de­scribed this re­al­ity of life suc­cinctly; by shar­ing with us this re­al­ity of the tran­si­tory na­ture of the world is bring­ing our at­ten­tion to it. Al­though, every­one in this world is cog­nizant of it, yet each acts as if it does not ap­ply to him or her, as if car­ry­ing the ex­emp­tion. The very act of try­ing to push the sub­ject away on the false con­vic­tion of self’s in­vin­ci­bil­ity does not al­ter the ground re­al­ity.

How­ever, dur­ing that time of mourn­ing of a death of a close rel­a­tive or as­so­ci­ate, this no­tion of self’s in­vin­ci­bil­ity evap­o­rates, only tem­porar­ily. At that time of grief, time is stretched out giv­ing us a feel­ing of be­ing drowned in an un­end­ing ocean. The feel­ing of lone­li­ness is very strong, over­pow­er­ing, giv­ing rise to a feel­ing of help­less­ness. Imag­ine if this type of ex­pe­ri­ence is repli­cated a few times, how emo­tion­ally dev­as­tat­ing it can be, leav­ing us scarred for life un­less we have some sound grief sup­port sys­tem.

Let us ex­plore Guru Tegh Ba­hadur’s life to un­der­stand how these ex­pe­ri­ences of grief moulded him into a re­silient be­ing  -how he learnt from it and shared with us his ob­ser­va­tions for our ben­e­fit.

On 15 May 1628, the 7000-strong Mughal armies un­der the lead­er­ship of Mukhlis Khan at­tacked Am­rit­sar. The Sikhs, upon re­ceiv­ing the ad­vance in­for­ma­tion on the im­pend­ing at­tack, evac­u­ated Lo­hgarh, a small mud fort on the out­skirts of the city, leav­ing only a small gar­ri­son to de­fend it.  On the first day of the at­tack, the Mughal army over­ran the fort, but the next day there was one to one com­bat be­tween Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib and Mukhlis Khan, where the lat­ter lost his life and as a con­se­quence, Mughal forces hastily re­treated.

The next day, Bibi Veero -daugh­ter of Guru Ji’s wed­ding was sol­em­nized at Jha­bal, near Am­rit­sar, si­mul­ta­ne­ously the dead in the bat­tle were be­ing cre­mated in Am­rit­sar. Baba Tegh Ba­hadur’s eyes wit­nessed the sor­row­ful cre­ma­tion of the dead in the bat­tle with a sub­dued cel­e­bra­tion of his sis­ter’s wed­ding. The irony of hap­pi­ness and sor­row be­ing in­te­gral parts of life were firmly im­printed on Baba’s ten­der mind.

Bibi Veero -daugh­ter of Guru Ji’s wed­ding was sol­em­nized at Jha­bal, near Am­rit­sar, si­mul­ta­ne­ously the dead in the bat­tle were be­ing cre­mated in Am­rit­sar. Baba Tegh Ba­hadur’s eyes wit­nessed the sor­row­ful cre­ma­tion of the dead in the bat­tle with a sub­dued cel­e­bra­tion of his sis­ter’s wed­ding. The irony of hap­pi­ness and sor­row be­ing in­te­gral parts of life were firmly im­printed on Baba’s ten­der mind.

Af­ter the wed­ding, the fam­ily re­turned to Am­rit­sar and in June 1628, Guru Har­gob­ind with his fam­ily paid a visit to Tarn Taran. Tarn Taran, the city es­tab­lished by his grand­fa­ther, Guru Ar­jan Dev Ji, was a nos­tal­gic visit for Baba Tegh Ba­hadur. There, Baba Tegh Ba­hadur learnt first hand about the supreme sac­ri­fice of his grand­fa­ther from the eye­wit­nesses, who were still alive. From there they vis­ited Khadur Sahib and Goind­wal, their an­ces­tral home. Here at both these places he was not just reap­praised of the glo­ri­ous his­tory of Guru An­gad Dev, and Guru Amar Das Ji but also in­spired by it. Mata Ganga -Baba Tegh Ba­hadur’s grand­mother passed away at Bakala, again leav­ing a void in Baba Ji’s world.

Baba Tegh Ba­hadur, born on April 1, 1621, was about 7-1/​2 years old when his el­der brother Baba Atal passed away on July 23, 1628. Baba Atal was about 9 years of age; he was a con­stant com­pan­ion of Baba Tegh Ba­hadur at home and in the play­ground. The void cre­ated by the loss of sib­ling bond on the younger sur­viv­ing sib­ling can be trau­matic. They were not just broth­ers, but real bud­dies and best friends. We can imag­ine the type of void that was left be­hind in young Baba Tegh Ba­hadur’s world. Baba Tegh Ba­hadur made mu­sic as one of the chief sources of his di­vine in­spi­ra­tion as well as for pro­cess­ing the grief of be­reave­ment.

Baba Tegh Ba­hadur made mu­sic as one of the chief sources of his di­vine in­spi­ra­tion as well as for pro­cess­ing the grief of be­reave­ment.

Dur­ing the win­ter of 1631, Baba Bud­dha, Tegh Ba­hadur’s teacher, in­vited Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib with his fam­ily to visit him, as his end was ap­proach­ing. Guru Ji came to vil­lage Ram­das, 20 miles from Am­rit­sar and Baba Tegh Ba­hadur ac­com­pa­nied him. Baba Tegh Ba­hadur was about 10 years old when he wit­nessed with calm de­tach­ment and a sup­pressed sor­row the grand end of his teacher who had ini­ti­ated him into the world of knowl­edge and wis­dom. Baba Bud­dha had spent time with the first six Gu­rus and he used to share anec­dotes plus say­ings of the Gu­rus with Tegh Ba­hadur.

Through these dis­courses, Baba Bud­dha Ji had in­stilled the lessons of mys­ti­cism in Baba Tegh Ba­hadur. The void felt by Baba Tegh Ba­hadur can­not be de­scribed in words. It can be pre­sumed that along with grief, Baba Tegh Ba­hadur con­tin­ued his bond with his rev­erend teacher through cher­ished mem­ory and found so­lace, com­fort in that pre­cious mem­ory.

Baba Bud­dha Ji had in­stilled the lessons of mys­ti­cism in Baba Tegh Ba­hadur. The void felt by Baba Tegh Ba­hadur can­not be de­scribed in words. It can be pre­sumed that along with grief, Baba Tegh Ba­hadur con­tin­ued his bond with his rev­erend teacher through cher­ished mem­ory and found so­lace, com­fort in that pre­cious mem­ory.

In April 1635, Guru Har­gob­ind got a mes­sage in­form­ing him about the prepa­ra­tions of at­tack on him from La­hore. Babas Gur­ditta and Tegh Ba­hadur got per­mis­sion from Guru Har­gob­ind Ji to join the bat­tle of Kar­tarpur.  Al­though Baba Tegh Ba­hadur was just 14 at that time, he dis­played ex­em­plary brav­ery on that bat­tle­field. The Im­pe­r­ial army re­ceived a crush­ing de­feat with sev­eral thou­sand dead, while the Sikhs lost 700 in the bat­tle. So this time young ten­der-hearted Baba Tegh Ba­hadur again wit­nessed gory deaths in a trau­matic set­ting of the bat­tle­field.

One day Guru Har­gob­ind ex­pressed his de­sire to visit Goind­wal, as he had an in­tu­ition of Bhai Gur­das’s end ap­proach­ing. Bhai Gur­das was elated on see­ing Guru Ji vis­it­ing with him at the time of his de­par­ture. Bhai Sahib in a rem­i­nis­cent mood rec­ol­lected the sweet mem­o­ries of his beloved un­cle Guru Amar Das, his brother-in-law Guru Ram Das, and the hap­pi­est mo­ments of his child­hood and adult life spent with Guru Ar­jan Dev Ji. Guru Har­gob­ind blessed Bhai Gur­das Ji, who breathed his last in Guru Ji’s arm on Au­gust 25, 1636. Baba Tegh Ba­hadur was there with Guru Ji wit­ness­ing this very emo­tional part­ing, and won­der­ing that he was not go­ing to hear the sweet voice of this sage and his teacher any­more. Bhai Gur­das’s life and teach­ings have had a deep in­flu­ence on the ten­der mind of Baba Tegh Ba­hadur.

In 1638, Baba Gur­ditta, el­dest brother of Baba Tegh Ba­hadur passed away, which was again a great shock for him. The same year, Bidhi Chand who was also Baba Tegh Ba­hadur’s teacher of arms train­ing passed away. These events made him ex­pe­ri­ence the im­per­ma­nence of hu­man life acutely. Two years later Babak, whose melo­di­ous voice had sung the hymns of Guru for two decades in Gu­rud­waras saw his end ap­proach­ing. The great mu­si­cian who had taught Baba Tegh Ba­hadur var­i­ous mu­si­cal in­stru­ments as well as in­tri­ca­cies of mu­si­cal mea­sures – ra­gas, was no more. Dur­ing such try­ing times ear­lier, this melo­di­ous voice had soothed Baba Tegh Ba­hadur’s soul was not to be heard any­more. This was fol­lowed by the demise of Jati Mal, who had taught Baba all the skills of war­fare.

Never in his life did Baba Tegh Ba­hadur feel that acutely im­per­ma­nence of fleet­ing mor­tal life, as he felt at that time. He had seen the deaths of his broth­ers and teach­ers in such quick suc­ces­sion that death had made a last­ing im­pres­sion on his psy­che.  These lin­ger­ing im­pres­sions left deep im­prints, and every time one thinks about these events there is a mo­ment of lone­li­ness, which is quite strong, yet it acts as a re­minder of the in­evitable re­al­ity that catches up with every­one. These deaths, losses, and sep­a­ra­tion cast a last­ing in­flu­ence on Baba Ji the way life was to be seen, ex­pe­ri­enced as well as how to cope with deaths. Through these tragic losses, Baba be­came re­silient in life.

These deaths, losses, and sep­a­ra­tion cast a last­ing in­flu­ence on Baba Ji the way life was to be seen, ex­pe­ri­enced as well as how to cope with deaths. Through these tragic losses, Baba be­came re­silient in life.

Guru Har­gob­ind spent the last ten years of his life in Ki­rat­pur, breath­ing his last there on March 4, 1644. For Tegh Ba­hadur this pe­riod was of un­in­ter­rupted bliss in the com­pany of his fa­ther. Baba Tegh Ba­hadur was an eye­wit­ness to an­other death of a very close fam­ily mem­ber, the bi­o­log­i­cal cum spir­i­tual fa­ther. Ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed Lat­if’s His­tory of Pan­jab, “his death was con­sid­ered a na­tional calamity.”

Baba Tegh Ba­hadur was just 23 at that time and af­ter a month of the last rites, Baba Tegh Ba­hadur moved to Bakala as per his fa­ther’s in­struc­tions and spent con­sid­er­able time in med­i­ta­tion. Dur­ing this pe­riod he un­der­took a preach­ing tour of the east at the di­rec­tion of sev­enth Guru Har Rai in 1656. Un­for­tu­nately, he had to cut short his tour and re­turn upon hear­ing the news of the pass­ing away of Guru Har Rai in 1661. Dur­ing his re­turn to Delhi, he had vis­ited Guru Har Kr­is­han Ji, the suc­ces­sor eighth Guru on 21 March 1664, be­fore re­turn­ing to Bakala.

The demise of the bi­o­log­i­cal cum spir­i­tual fa­ther -Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib left an in­deli­ble mark on Tegh Ba­hadur. Ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed Lat­if’s His­tory of Pan­jab, “his death was con­sid­ered a na­tional calamity.”

Baba Tegh Ba­hadur was anointed as ninth Guru by Guru Har Kr­is­han Ji, be­fore he breathed his last on March 30, 1664. Af­ter as­sum­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in 1665 Guru Ji un­der­took a tour of Pan­jab and founded the city now known as Anand­pur Sahib. Then he re­sumed the tour of the east from 1666 to 1670. Guru Tegh Ba­hadur re­turned to Anand­pur in Feb­ru­ary 1672. He spent the next two years preach­ing in ar­eas of Pun­jab. In May 1675, a strong del­e­ga­tion of 500 Kash­miri Pan­dits led by Pan­dit Kirpa Ram vis­ited Anand­pur, plead­ing for help with the forced con­ver­sions that they were be­ing sub­jected to.

Af­ter se­ri­ous de­lib­er­a­tions, Guru Ji told Pun­dits seek­ing suc­cour that they should con­vey to the Gov­er­nor and the Em­peror to stop in­di­vid­ual co­er­cion, but if he could con­vert Guru Tegh Ba­hadur to Is­lam they all would fol­low suit. Sud­denly, this gaunt­let was a game-changer, it co­a­lesced the di­rec­tion of the con­ver­sion thrust. As soon as the mes­sage reached Em­peror Au­rangzeb, his next step was to is­sue a sum­mons for the ar­rest of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur. Guru Ji was ar­rested in Sikan­dra, near Agra and brought to Delhi. When in­duce­ments failed to achieve the ob­jec­tive of con­ver­sion, Guru Ji was asked to show Kara­mat (mir­a­cle), which too were re­fused by Guru Ji, then tor­ture reg­i­men was un­leashed on him, fol­lowed by tor­ture ex­e­cu­tion of his three sub­or­di­nates to weaken his re­solve. Upon fail­ing on their ob­jec­tive of con­ver­sion, Guru Ji was ex­e­cuted on No­vem­ber 11, 1675.

The fi­nal fate that Guru Ji was sub­jected to was sealed by the very of­fer that Guru Ji had made for the pro­tec­tion of Kash­miri Pan­dits. It takes tremen­dous spir­i­tual for­ti­tude to of­fer self’s life for oth­ers. He gave his life with a smile on his face and prayers on his lips. Such an of­fer goes against the very nor­mal hu­man ap­petite for longer life. This de­ci­sion has to be viewed through Guru Ji’s own life as lived, in the close en­coun­ters with the in­evitable re­al­ity of death from early child­hood.

Here we find a com­plete ab­sence of the nor­mal hu­man ap­petite for long life. This unique per­spec­tive was borne out of crys­tal clear thoughts on the ob­jec­tive and pur­pose of life, cou­pled with knowl­edge of the re­dun­dancy of life with­out that moral com­pass. It is this supreme sac­ri­fice that earned Guru Ji the hon­orific of “Dharam di Chad­dar -the pro­tec­tor of re­li­gious free­dom.”

It takes tremen­dous spir­i­tual for­ti­tude to of­fer self’s life for oth­ers. He gave his life with a smile on his face and prayers on his lips. Such an of­fer goes against the very nor­mal hu­man ap­petite for longer life. 

Guru Ji en­dured psy­cho­log­i­cal suf­fer­ing through eye wit­ness­ing the tor­ture and killing his close sub­or­di­nates be­fore his own sac­ri­fice was mind-numb­ing. The sac­ri­fice of his grand­fa­ther Guru Ar­jan Dev Ji set a bench­mark that the grand­son up­held by lay­ing down his own life for the rights to freely prac­tise one’s faith. He sac­ri­ficed to up­hold those ar­ti­cles of faith as sa­cred, the thread around the body and marks on the fore­head, which has not been a part of the faith ini­ti­ated by Guru Nanak Ji, has no par­al­lels in world his­tory. Be­sides the Sa­lokas above, his other bani coun­ters the pop­u­lar hu­man mis­con­cep­tion based on life for­ever, un­der­scor­ing the re­la­tion­ship of death to life.

Guru Sahib, in many Shabads and Sloks -the re­vealed Word of the Almighty, ex­presses the tran­si­tory na­ture of life:

ਸਾਧੋ ਰਚਨਾ ਰਾਮ ਬਨਾਈ ॥ ਇਕਿ ਬਿਨਸੈ ਇਕ ਅਸਥਿਰੁ ਮਾਨੈ ਅਚਰਜੁ ਲਖਿਓ ਨ ਜਾਈ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥                      Trans­la­tion: Holy Saad­hus: the Lord has cre­ated such a play of the uni­verse, that one per­son passes away, and an­other thinks that he will live for­ever – this is a won­der be­yond un­der­stand­ing! 1. Pause.
Guru Granth Sahib, page  219

ਰੇ ਨਰ ਇਹ ਸਾਚੀ ਜੀਅ ਧਾਰਿ ॥ ਸਗਲ ਜਗਤੁ ਹੈ ਜੈਸੇ ਸੁਪਨਾ ਬਿਨਸਤ ਲਗਤ ਨ ਬਾਰ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥Trans­la­tion: O man, grasp this Truth firmly in your mind. The whole world is just like a dream; it will be gone in an in­stant. 1. Pause.
  Guru Granth Sahib, page  633

ਜਾਗ ਲੇਹੁ ਰੇ ਮਨਾ ਜਾਗ ਲੇਹੁ ਕਹਾ ਗਾਫਲ ਸੋਇਆ ॥ ਜੋ ਤਨੁ ਉਪਜਿਆ ਸੰਗ ਹੀ ਸੋ ਭੀ ਸੰਗਿ ਨ ਹੋਇਆ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥

Trans­la­tion: Wake up, O mind! Wake up! Why are you sleep­ing un­aware? Even the body you were born with shall not go along with you in the end. 1. Pause.

Guru Granth Sahib, page  726

ਕਹਾ ਮਨ ਬਿਖਿਆ ਸਿਉ ਲਪਟਾਹੀ ॥ ਯਾ ਜਗ ਮਹਿ ਕੋਊ ਰਹਨੁ ਨ ਪਾਵੈ ਇਕਿ ਆਵਹਿ ਇਕਿ ਜਾਹੀ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥

Trans­la­tion: O my mind, why are you cling­ing to sen­sual plea­sures? No one is al­lowed to re­main in this world for­ever; one comes, and an­other de­parts. 1. Pause.
                                                                                        Guru Granth Sahib, page 1231

From these quotes above we can see that Guru Ji has talked about the tran­si­tory na­ture of life, with an ex­piry date and time. We all die when our turn comes, yet life goes on as usual. This was the knowl­edge that pre­pared him uniquely to lay down his own life. Guru lived his life feel­ing the di­vine pres­ence within, so he had no fear of death, as death was not go­ing to take that away. This di­vine knowl­edge pro­vided the req­ui­site strength with firm con­vic­tion to re­nounce the love of life. Guru Ji of­fered his own life to up­hold the right of free­dom to prac­tice one’s cho­sen faith.

This was dur­ing the pe­riod when these free­doms were only for those who pro­fessed the faith of the ruler. The price for pro­fess­ing any­thing not of­fi­cially sanc­tioned was be­com­ing sec­ond class cit­i­zens or even death. Guru Ji through his sac­ri­fice has shared that the life given at the al­tar for a higher pur­pose can spawn a new rev­o­lu­tion.

When the pur­pose is greater than our own selves, it is em­pow­er­ing for the masses. Such a life-giv­ing is held in awe by the masses and it can change the course of his­tory. The art of dy­ing is the art of liv­ing.

Ref­er­ences:

1. Singh, Ran­bir. Guru Tegh Ba­hadur; Di­vine Poet, Sav­ior and Mar­tyr. Chief Khalsa Di­wan. 1975.
2. Singh, Dr Trilochan. Guru Tegh Ba­hadur: Prophet and Mar­tyr. Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee, Delhi. 1967.
3. Kohli, Dr Surindar Singh. The Sword and the Spirit. Na­tional Book Shop. Delhi
4. Dil, Dr. Bal­bir Singh. Guru Tegh Ba­hadur: Jee­wan Te Rachna (Pun­jabi). Pun­jabi Uni­ver­sity. 1975.
5. Singh, Fauja & Talib, Gur­bachan Singh. Guru Tegh Ba­hadur: Mar­tyr and Teacher. Pun­jabi Uni­ver­sity. 1996.
6. Kohli, Mo­hin­der Pal. Guru Tegh Ba­hadur: Tes­ti­mony of Con­science. Sahitya Akademi (1992)
7. Talib, G. S. (Ed.) Guru Tegh Ba­hadur: Back­ground and Supreme Sac­ri­fice. Pun­jabi Uni­ver­sity, Pa­tiala (1999)

Ti­tle Photo cour­tesy: Life and Death -Oil paint­ing on can­vas by John Car­nithen