Bhai Ghanaiya

Bhai Ghanaiya, also written Bhai Kanhaiya (1648 to 1718), was a Sikh of Guru Tegh Bahadur and of Guru Gobind Singh. He is remembered as the founder of the Sevapanthi, or Addanshahi, order and for giving water to the wounded of both sides in the fighting at Anandpur Sahib.

The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he was born into a Dhamman Khatri family at Sodhara, near Wazirabad in Sialkot district, now in Pakistan. His father was a wealthy trader. He left home while very young and wandered with sadhus and ascetics seeking peace, then met Guru Tegh Bahadur and took initiation from him. He set up a dharamsal at Kavha village, in what is now Attock district, which became a centre for selfless service to humanity regardless of nationality, caste or creed. Wikipedia names his father as Nathu Ram and says he served the Guru as water-bearer, in the langar and with the Guru's horses.

The water at Anandpur

• During the siege of Anandpur Sahib he carried water in a goatskin bag to the wounded and dying, without distinguishing friend from enemy. The Encyclopaedia dates this to 1705 and Wikipedia to May 1704.
• Some Sikhs complained to Guru Gobind Singh that he was reviving fallen enemy soldiers.
• His answer, as the Encyclopaedia gives it, was that he saw no Mughals or Sikhs on the battlefield, only "the Guru's face in everyone." The Guru was pleased, blessed him, and told his Sikhs that Kanhaiya had understood his teaching correctly.
• Popular tellings, including Wikipedia's, add that the Guru gave him medicine or medical aid so that he could dress the wounds he tended.

After Anandpur was evacuated he retired to Sodhara and died in 1718. Wikipedia adds that he was sent to Sindh to spread Sikhism, where the Khat Wari Darbar at Shikarpur is dedicated to him, and that in 2017 the SGPC and the Punjab government marked his birth anniversary, which the state designated Manav Sewa Diwas.

He is remembered as the Panth's emblem of sewa that sees no enemy: a Sikh who tended the wounded of the other side in the middle of a war, with the Guru's approval.