Bhai Mani Singh

Bhai Mani Singh was a scholar, a scribe and the custodian of Sri Harmandir Sahib who grew up beside Guru Gobind Singh and was put to death at Lahore. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism calls him scholar and martyr. His birth year and birthplace are disputed. The Encyclopaedia says that, by the account of his contemporary Kesar Singh Chhibbar, he came of a Kamboj family, and that later chroniclers make him a Dullat Jatt of Kambowal near Sunam, where a memorial gurdwara stands near Longowal. It says he was brought as a child to Guru Tegh Bahadur at Anandpur and was about the same age as the Guru's son, Gobind Rai. Other accounts, such as Wikipedia's, give Alipur in the Multan region and 1644 as his birth year.

Key moments

• As a youth he stayed with the Guru, went with him to Paonta, and wrote out holy volumes and hymn anthologies for distribution.
• 30 March 1699: he took the vows of the Khalsa when the Guru founded it. Soon after, the Guru sent him to Amritsar to take charge of Sri Harmandir Sahib (the Harimandar), which had had no custodian since the death of Sodhi Harji in 1696.
• 5 to 6 December 1705: he was at Anandpur at the evacuation and escorted the Guru's wives, Mata Sundari and Mata Sahib Devan, to Delhi.
• 1706: he rejoined the Guru at Talwandi Sabo (Damdama Sahib) and, under the Guru's guidance, prepared the final recension of the Guru Granth Sahib.
• After the Guru left for the South he resumed his duties at Amritsar under the authority of Mata Sundari at Delhi. A surviving letter to her, dated 20 April 1711, shows him at his religious and administrative work.
• After Banda Singh Bahadur was put to death, he used his influence to make peace between the Bandai Sikhs and the Tat Khalsa.

The Encyclopaedia names his achievement in letters as his compilation of the Dasam Granth. Two prose works are attributed to him: the Gian Ratnavali, an account of the life of Guru Nanak, and the Bhagat Ratnavali, better known as the Sikhan di Bhagat Mala, a commentary in anecdotes on Bhai Gurdas's Var XI.

The Diwali tax and his death

Under the governors Abd us-Samad Khan and his son Zakariya Khan, Diwali and Baisakhi were hardly ever held in peace. In 1737 Mani Singh asked Zakariya Khan for leave to hold Diwali at Amritsar. It was granted on condition of a poll tax of five thousand rupees (ten thousand, says Ratan Singh Bhangu). The Encyclopaedia calls this a ruse, since the governor sent a strong force under Diwan Lakhpat Rai to destroy the Sikhs who gathered. Mani Singh got wind of it and forbade the Sikhs, scattered in forests and deserts, to come to Amritsar. No tax could be collected, and he was prosecuted for not paying it. At a summary trial he was told to accept Islam or die. He chose death and was executed with his body cut apart bone by bone. Until Partition, Gurdwara Shahid Ganj stood at the place in Lahore.

The year of his death is disputed. The Encyclopaedia dates it 1737. Wikipedia's article gives 14 June 1738 in its summary box and 1737 elsewhere.