Baba Gurbaksh Singh Shaheed

Baba Gurbaksh Singh, also called Bhai Gurbakhsh Singh and Nihang Gurbakhsh Singh, is remembered as the Shaheed who fell with about thirty Sikhs defending the Akal Takht against Ahmad Shah Durrani's army in the winter of 1764.

His life: The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he was born on 10 April 1688 at Lil village, Amritsar district, to Bhai Dasaundha and Mai Lachchhami. The family moved to Anandpur in 1693 and he took pahul at the Baisakhi of 1699. He completed his religious education under Bhai Mani Singh. He joined the Shahid misl under Baba Deep Singh, and after Baba Deep Singh's death in 1757 he formed his own jatha, or fighting band.

The Damdami Taksal's own page agrees on 1688, on the village (which it spells Leel, near Khemkaran) and on the parents. It says Bhai Mani Singh and Baba Deep Singh both taught him, and that when Guru Gobind Singh left Anandpur Sahib he ordered him to stay there. The Damdami Taksal's own page lists Baba Deep Singh as its first jathedar and says Baba Gurbaksh Singh was appointed the next jathedar.

1764: The Encyclopaedia says that when Ahmad Shah Durrani invaded in November 1764 Gurbakhsh Singh was at Amritsar with about thirty men. They confronted the invading force and all of them, including him, were killed, and it dates his death to 1 December 1764. Its entry on the Akal Takht says Durrani, who had razed the Harimandar in 1762, attacked Amritsar again in December 1764, and that a small band of 30 Sikhs under Nihang Gurbakhsh Singh, stationed at the Akal Takht, came out to meet the invading army and fell fighting to the last man. He was cremated behind the Akal Takht, and the tomb later built there is now Shahid Ganj.

The Taksal's page puts the fight in 1765, in Ahmad Shah Abdali's tenth invasion of India, and says Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj, behind Sri Akal Takht Sahib, commemorates his Shaheedi. The two accounts differ by a year and on the number of the invasion.

• 10 April 1688: born at Lil, the Encyclopaedia says.
• 1699: takes pahul.
• 1757: after Baba Deep Singh's death, forms his own jatha.
• November to December 1764: stands at Amritsar against Ahmad Shah Durrani's army; dies on 1 December 1764 by the Encyclopaedia's reckoning.

He is remembered at Shahid Ganj behind the Akal Takht, as the Shaheed of the shrine's defence.