Banda Singh Bahadur defeats Wazir Khan and takes Sirhind

Who: Banda Singh Bahadur and the Sikhs who rallied to him, against Wazir Khan, the imperial faujdar of Sirhind.

What: Banda Singh, born Lachhman Dev, was an ascetic with a hermitage on the Godavari near Nanded. Guru Gobind Singh visited it on 3 September 1708, administered the Khalsa vows and named him Banda Singh. He gave him a drum, a banner and five arrows, and sent him north with five Sikhs: Binod Singh, Kahan Singh, Baj Singh, Daya Singh and Ram Singh. On 26 November 1709 Banda Singh attacked Samana, the home town of Jalal-ud-Din, who had executed Guru Tegh Bahadur, and of executioners who had volunteered to kill the Guru's two young sons. Ghuram, Thaska, Shahabad and Mustafabad followed. On 12 May 1710 at Chappar Chiri, Wazir Khan was killed and the Mughal army routed. According to the Encyclopaedia's entry on him, Sher Muhammad Khan of Malerkotla, who had protested the boys' sentence in 1705 but fought in Wazir Khan's army, was also killed in the battle; its separate Chappar Chiri entry names only Wazir Khan as killed. The Sikhs entered Sirhind two days later. The city was given over to plunder, and Baj Singh was made governor.

Where: Chappar Chiri, twin villages on the Kharar-Banur road, and Sirhind.

Why it mattered: Banda Singh became master of the country between the Yamuna and the Sutlej, which the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism's entry on him values at 36 lakh rupees a year; its entry on the Misls puts the revenue of Sirhind province at 52 lakh. He began a new calendar from the capture of Sirhind and made the old fort of Mukhlisgarh his headquarters as Lohgarh, where he issued a seal and coins in the names of the Gurus. He abolished the zamindari system and gave the tillers proprietary rights over the land. The Sikh state did not last: Banda Singh was captured at Gurdas Nangal in December 1715 and executed near the Qutb Minar in Delhi on 9 June 1716, each told in its own entry.