The Sarbat Khalsa organises the Dal Khalsa and the misls

Who: The Sikh jathas gathered at Amritsar; Nawab Kapur Singh; Jassa Singh Ahluwalia; and the sardars who led the eleven misls.

What: For years the Panth had survived as small, mobile bands, meeting at Amritsar for Baisakhi and Diwali. A Sarbat Khalsa on Diwali, 14 October 1745, after the death of Zakariya Khan, had reorganised them into 25 bands of about a hundred riders. By March 1748 there were 65. Ahmad Shah Durrani, on his first invasion, had occupied Lahore on 12 January 1748.

On Baisakhi, 29 March 1748, the Sikhs gathered at Amritsar and a Sarbat Khalsa passed a gurmata. The whole fighting force was unified as the Dal Khalsa under Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, and the 65 bands were grouped into eleven misls: Ahluwalia (Jassa Singh Ahluwalia), Singhpuria or Faizullapuria (Nawab Kapur Singh), Karorsinghia (Karora Singh), Nishanwalia (Dasaundha Singh), Shahid (Deep Singh), Dallewalia (Gulab Singh), Sukerchakia (Charhat Singh), Bhangi (Hari Singh), Kanhaiya (Jai Singh), Nakai (Hira Singh) and Ramgarhia (Jassa Singh Ramgarhia). The first six formed the Buddha Dal and the last five the Taruna Dal. The Phulkian chiefs counted as a twelfth misl but stood outside the Dal's command.

Where: Amritsar, where, according to near contemporaries, the Sarbat Khalsa was convened at the Akal Takht.

Why it mattered: The Dal Khalsa was a loose confederacy, not a state, with no strict constitution. Every amritdhari Sikh could join, mostly as cavalry, and an estimated 70,000 riders served. The misls answered to the Sarbat Khalsa, and the Akal Takht stood as the symbol of unity, the Sikh state in the making. The Encyclopaedia notes that the name Dal Khalsa does not appear in contemporary Indian chronicles before James Browne's India Tracts of 1788. Accounts differ on command: one entry says Kapur Singh handed supreme command to Jassa Singh, another that Kapur Singh remained supreme commander with Jassa Singh in joint command. Within two decades the misls held most of Punjab.