As the Sikh com­mu­nity cel­e­brates the 400th Birth an­niver­sary of the Ninth Mas­ter -Guru Tegh Ba­hadur, spir­i­tu­ally-in­clined chron­i­cler Bhupin­der Singh re­counts the vis­its of Guru Sahib to As­sam. This is a lit­tle less known fact and his­to­ri­ans dis­agree on cer­tain as­pects of Gu­ru’s jour­ney there, yet it is a good ex­plo­ration by the au­thor, lay­ing the path for more doc­u­men­ta­tion and his­tor­i­cal re­search.

GURU TEGH BA­HADUR, AF­TER AS­SUM­ING THE MAN­TLE OF GURU vis­ited Am­rit­sar in No­vem­ber 1664. Then he came to Ki­rat­pur, but did not stay there long and de­cided to found a new town­ship called Chak Nanaki (later re­named Anand­pur Sahib) on the banks of Sut­lej River in June 1665. Soon he started out on his mis­sion­ary jour­ney stop­ping at Pa­tiala.

From there he moved Kaithal now Haryana, and moved fur­ther east fol­low­ing the same route hol­lowed by Guru Nanak in his first Udassi. At Patna Guru Sahib left his fam­ily and moved to Dacca in Oc­to­ber 1666. Guru Ji moved fur­ther east in ef­forts to re­vive san­gats (con­gre­ga­tions) at var­i­ous cen­ters es­tab­lished by Guru Nanak dur­ing his Udassi jour­ney. Guru Sahib stayed at Chit­tagong till the end of 1667. Af­ter vis­it­ing Naokhali, Chand­pur and Narayan Ganj Guru Ji re­turned to Dacca in early 1668.

The em­peror Au­rangzeb was in­formed of the losses of Guwa­hati on 19 De­cem­ber 1667. He com­mis­sioned Raja Ram Singh of Am­ber, son of the fa­mous Mirza Raja Jai Singh, to re­take Guwa­hati. Ram Singh left Delhi on 27 De­cem­ber 1667, halt­ing on the way at Patna to pay re­spects to Guru Ji. There he met Mata Nanaki, Guru Sahib’s mother and Mata Gu­jri and came to know that Guru Tegh Ba­hadur was in Dacca on a mis­sion­ary tour. In the neigh­bor­hood of Mongher, Bi­har; while re­turn­ing from Dacca Guru Ji met Am­ber Ra­jput chief, Raja Ram Singh. Raja Ram Singh upon meet­ing Guru Ji per­suaded him to come to Ahom king­dom with him.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur in As­sam
Guru Ji agreed and they fi­nally reached Dhubri in Feb­ru­ary 1669. Guru Tegh Ba­hadur camped at Dhubri while Raja Ram Singh camped with his forces at Ranga­mati Fort 23 KM from Dhubri. Guru Ji chose Dhubri as it was a his­tor­i­cal place vis­ited by Guru Nanak Dev Ji dur­ing the first Udassi.

Raja Ram Singh was ac­com­pa­nied by Rashid Khan, ex-fau­j­dar of Guwa­hati. The de­tails of forces of Raja Ram Singh are as un­der:

• 4,000 troop­ers (from his char-haz­aari mansab)
• 1,500 ahadis (sol­diers re­cruited by the Em­peror)
• 500 bar­qan­dezes
• 30,000 in­fantry­men, 21 Ra­jput chiefs (Thakurs) with their con­tin­gents,
• 18,000 cav­alry
• 2,000 archers and shield men and
• 40 naval ships

Armies from Cooch Be­har joined the Mughal forces since they were vas­sals.

The Ahoms, an­tic­i­pat­ing a Mughal strike be­cause of their an­nex­ing of Guwa­hati, are said to have fol­lowed his move­ments from Delhi it­self. The Ahom ruler at that time was Chakrad­hawaj Singh and his Com­man­der-in-Chief was La­chit Bar­phukan. When La­chit sur­veyed the mas­sive Mughal force later, he was moved to tears and he ut­tered; “It is a tragedy that my coun­try is fac­ing this dire cat­a­stro­phe dur­ing my Phukan­ship. How will my king be saved? How will my peo­ple be saved? And how will my pos­ter­ity be saved?”

The Im­pe­r­ial Army was very con­fi­dent of its mas­sive strength but was not as yet sure whether the five holy men with them would be able to de­stroy the evil ef­fects of magic and witch­craft of the Ahoms. Just across the river the Ahoms were un­nerved by the su­pe­rior num­bers of the Im­pe­r­ial Army, but they were con­fi­dent that the su­per­nat­ural pow­ers of their ma­gi­cians backed by their tact­ful re­sis­tance would keep the at­tack­ers at bay. The Ahoms re­sorted to guerilla war­fare. With their knowl­edge of ter­rain they were ha­rass­ing Mughal forces.

Few skir­mishes took place and Ahom king or­dered tac­ti­cal with­drawal of his troops from the line of en­gage­ments. He asked his re­treat­ing forces to re­in­force the de­fenses of Guwa­hati.

The Ahom women ma­gi­cians em­ploy­ing their tantric para­pher­na­lia be­gan recit­ing mantras for de­struc­tion of Guru Sahib’s en­camp­ment di­rectly across the river. All their magic spells failed to harm the Guru. In des­per­a­tion from across the river they hurled a 26 feet long stone, which came arc­ing across the sky like a mis­sile and struck the ground, near Gu­ru’s camp, so hard that nearly half of its length was em­bed­ded in the ground. It can still be seen to­day in the same po­si­tion. Next, they launched a pi­pal tree to­wards Guru Sahib, and it landed close to where Guru Sahib was sit­ting, but no dam­age was in­flicted. Guru Sahib fi­nally shot an ar­row tak­ing aim at the al­tar from where the op­er­a­tions were be­ing or­ches­trated.

Sud­denly, the whole op­er­a­tion of magic came to a halt. Then women ma­gi­cians re­al­iz­ing folly of their ef­forts, they came to Guru Ji ask­ing for for­give­ness. The woman lead­ing the magic op­er­a­tions was Neta Dhoban or wash­er­woman. She was only fight­ing the for­eigner, she said, with the only weapon at her com­mand, of which her peo­ple were proud. Dur­ing that meet­ing Guru Ji as­sured that he would me­di­ate be­tween the Ahoms and Raja Ram Singh to avert the war. Raja Ram Singh was in­sist­ing on the re­turn of Guwa­hati. Guru Ji act­ing as me­di­a­tor was able to ne­go­ti­ate peace which al­lowed Guwa­hati to re­main with Ahoms.

La­chit out­ma­neu­vered the army of Raja Ram Singh at every bat­tle, which led to the stale­mate of the war. Au­rangzeb asked his gen­eral to ini­ti­ate diplo­macy and sign a friendly treaty for the time be­ing. But La­chit’s trusted Lieu­tenant Atan Burhago­hain, who later be­came the Com­man­der-in-Chief, op­posed such a deal stat­ing that the treaty would be an ex­am­ple of typ­i­cal Mughal treach­ery. He fur­ther ar­gued, what was the guar­an­tee that once the Mughals take Guwa­hati, they would not reach fur­ther east for Gar­gaon or even Nam­rup.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur in Cooch Be­har

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Ji left for a preach­ing tour of Cooch Be­har ar­eas. The Ahoms tak­ing ad­van­tage of the end of mon­soon rains would raid Mughal for­ti­fi­ca­tions at night and ha­rass them. Raja Ram Singh was so an­noyed that he wrote to La­chit; “Be­ing un­able to match with us you are adopt­ing tricks em­ployed only by thieves, just as jack­als con­trive the death of wild ele­phants. No honor ac­crues in fight­ing with such dotards. So, I am not go­ing to fight any longer.” The ne­go­ti­a­tions were pro­longed from Feb­ru­ary 1669 to De­cem­ber 1669. The Ahom gen­er­als re­al­ized that their guer­rilla at­tacks could not achieve spe­cific mil­i­tary re­sults be­yond ha­rass­ing the en­emy.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur re­turned from his tours and ne­go­ti­a­tions were restarted. The set­tle­ment was reached in terms of which Raja Ram Singh no longer pressed the de­mand of Guwa­hati. Af­ter the peace agree­ment was signed Ahom King in­vited Guru Ji to Ka­makhya tem­ple and hon­ored him there. The happy oc­ca­sion of the peace set­tle­ment brought about by the ef­forts of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur was cel­e­brated by a joint homage to the shrine of Guru Nanak by the Mughal and Ahom armies.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur in Ka­makhya Tem­ple, Guwa­hati and meet­ing with the Ahom King

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur as­sured the ma­gi­cians that he would work to bring peace be­tween Raja Ram Singh and the Ahom King, for which a change of heart was nec­es­sary on both sides. Con­se­quently, he ad­vised Raja Ram Singh to achieve his ruler’s ob­jec­tives through peace­ful ne­go­ti­a­tions and not to fight un­less he was at­tacked. The rest of the story is a part of the his­tory as to how he suc­ceeded in patch­ing up the dif­fer­ences be­tween the im­pe­r­ial com­man­der Raja Ram Singh and the Ahom king of As­sam. The grate­ful Ahom king in­vited Gu­ruji to the Ka­makhya shrine, where he was ho­n­oured with great re­spect.

The mound of peace was erected with the red earth car­ried by the sol­diers of the armies us­ing their shields as pans. It is said that each sol­dier car­ried 5 shield loads of red earth and dumped there to raise the mound. This per­ma­nent mon­u­ment to Guru Tegh Ba­hadur’s suc­cess­ful peace ef­forts stands in Dhubri to this day. The name Dhubri was given by Guru Ji as a re­mem­brance for her re­morse of Dhoban hurl­ing the mis­siles in the form of rock and pi­pal tree. Now a Gu­rud­wara stands on the mound and it is called Thara Sahib or Damdama Sahib. From here be­fore the mon­soon of 1670 Guru Ji re­turned to Dacca and then vis­ited Ja­gan­nath Puri be­fore re­turn­ing to Patna via Bon­gaigaon in May 1671. It was on re­turn only that Guru Ji first saw his son Gob­ind Rai. Guru Tegh Ba­hadur and fam­ily reached Anand­pur af­ter leav­ing Patna in Feb­ru­ary 1672.

Events in As­sam af­ter Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Ji’s de­par­ture 

Al­though Guru Ji had left Dhubri, from the read­ing of As­sam his­tory the events took a tragic turn. Soon the ruler Chakrad­hawaj Singh died and was suc­ceeded by his brother Udaya­ditya Singh who asked his gen­er­als to wage a full-fledged war. A pe­riod of bat­tles be­tween the Ahom and Mughal forces in the re­gion of Guwa­hati fol­lowed, with var­ied re­sults, forts chang­ing hands many times. La­chit led the fight in­1671 the bat­tle of Saraighat and in­flicted a crush­ing de­feat to the Mughals at every front. It ap­pears that the Ahoms pre­ferred to take on the Mughal army in wa­ter since this was a dif­fi­cult and un­known ter­rain for the later. Thus, wa­ter war­fare and the Burj (the small boat-like struc­tures on which the army was sta­tioned) played an im­por­tant role in fa­vor of the Ahoms in the Bat­tle of Saraighat.

Bat­tle of Saraighat

When the fi­nal bat­tle of Saraighat started in early 1671, La­chit was ter­ri­bly un­well. How­ever, de­spite be­ing ill, he dis­played tremen­dous valor and ex­em­plary lead­er­ship. Such an ac­tion by an ail­ing yet force­ful La­chit mo­ti­vated his troops. They fought the bat­tle with a fierce zeal and in­tense courage. The Mughal army suf­fered com­pre­hen­sive de­feat in the hands of La­chit’s army. La­chit Bor­phukan died a nat­ural death at Kali­a­bor about a year later in April 1672. This was not the fi­nal bat­tle be­tween the Ahoms and the Mughals, nor did Guwa­hati re­main with the Ahoms for long. La­chit Bor­phukan’s own brother and suc­ces­sor Bor­phukan, Laluk Sola, de­serted Guwa­hati for the Mughals in 1679. It re­mained with the Mughals un­til 1682, when the Ahoms un­der Gadad­har Singh re­cov­ered it thus end­ing Mughal con­trol in Kam­rup for­ever. La­chit is revered in As­sam as a hero and a pa­triot.

Con­clu­sion 

So, we see this Chap­ter of Guru Ji Tegh Ba­hadur’s travel to east was to re­new the re­la­tion­ship of Sikhs with Guru, but it turned out that the tim­ing was tu­mul­tuous from As­sam’s his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive. The de­tails of the jour­ney in parts of As­sam and ad­join­ing ar­eas are not fully ex­plored. It is hoped that this write-up can stir some in­ter­est and a thor­ough re­search is car­ried out so that all the de­tails are his­tor­i­cally cap­tured.

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. Singh, Dr. Hakam & Chadha, Jaswinder Singh, In­di­a’s Guru Mar­tyr: Guru Tegh Ba­hadur.
7. https://​www.bbc.co.uk/​re­li­gion/​re­li­gions/​sikhism/​peo­ple/​tegh­ba­hadur.shtml
8. http://​www.as­sam­info.com/​tourist-places/​51/​gur­d­wara-sri-guru-teg-ba­hadur-sahib-dhubri.htm
9. https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Gur­d­wara_S­ri_Gu­ru_Tegh_Ba­hadur_Sahib
10. https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Bat­tle_of_Saraighat
11. https://​www.or­gan­iser.org/​En­cyc/​2019/​11/​24/​La­chit-Bor­phukan-The-Un­sung-Hero-of-Ahom-King­dom.html
12. http://​www.as­sam­info.com/​tourist-places/​51/​gur­d­wara-sri-guru-teg-ba­hadur-sahib-dhubri.htm
13. https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Bat­tle_of_Saraighat

Videos Ref­er­ences:
Spir­i­tual Jour­ney of Tur­ban Trav­eler by Amar­jeet Singh Chawla
Episode 85 – Com­pro­mise reached be­tween 2 par­ties in 1670. Also on the sign board at the Gu­rud­wara Dum­dama Sahib, Dhubri
Episode 89 – Guru Ji vis­ited Ka­makhya Tem­ple and gave hand writ­ten tran­script which was shown at du­ra­tion 9:15 min­utes of the episode