Bhai Daya Singh Jiਭਾਈ ਦਇਆ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀ

Bhai Daya Singh Ji (1661 to 1708) was the first of the Panj Pyare, the five beloved ones who received the first Khande di Pahul at Anandpur Sahib on Vaisakhi 1699 and became the nucleus of the Khalsa. Born Daya Ram in Lahore, he was the first man in that vast assembly to rise and offer his head when Guru Gobind Singh Ji called for one, and Sikhs have honoured him ever since as the mukhi, the foremost of the five.

A Lahore childhood and the move to Anandpur

Daya Ram was born in 1661 in Lahore, into the family of Bhai Suddha, a Sobti Khatri, and his wife Mai Diali. His birthplace stood in the Koocha Sobti quarter of the walled city, where a Janamasthan shrine later marked the spot. His father was a devout Sikh who had travelled more than once to Anandpur Sahib to sit in the court of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, and the boy grew up in a home where the Gurus' hymns were part of daily life. In 1677 the whole family left Lahore and settled permanently at Anandpur, in the court of the young Guru Gobind Singh Ji.

At Anandpur, Daya Ram received the education of a scholar and a soldier together. He studied Persian and Punjabi, read the classics and Gurbani, and trained in martial arts. Of the five men who would one day stand together as the Panj Pyare, he was the most learned, and the Guru kept him close as an attendant and confidant. A Rehitnama, a manual of Sikh conduct, is attributed to his pen, and an early manuscript of the Dasam Granth copied at Aurangabad is also linked with his hand.

The first to answer the call

On 30 March 1699, at the great Vaisakhi gathering in Keshgarh fort at Anandpur, Guru Gobind Singh Ji stood before the assembly with a drawn sword and asked whether any devoted Sikh would give his head. A silence fell over the crowd. The first man to rise was Daya Ram of Lahore. He walked with the Guru to a tent nearby, and when the Guru returned with a bloodied sword and called again, four more followed him, one by one: Dharam Das, Mohkam Chand, Himmat and Sahib Chand. The Guru then brought all five out alive, dressed in saffron robes, and baptised them with the new rite of the double-edged sword. Daya Ram received the name Daya Singh, and as the first to have offered himself he is remembered as the first and foremost of the five.

The honour carried a meaning the Guru made plain. The five were not merely the first initiates; they were then asked to baptise the Guru himself, so that he became both teacher and disciple, and he declared that where the five beloved ones gather, the Guru is present. Daya Singh's step forward is therefore retold at every Vaisakhi as the moment the Khalsa was born.

In the Guru's service: Anandpur, Chamkaur and the Zafarnama

In the years that followed, Daya Singh fought in the battles around Anandpur and remained at the Guru's side through the sieges. When the fortress of Chamkaur was evacuated on the night of 7 to 8 December 1705, he was one of the small group of Sikhs who slipped out with Guru Gobind Singh Ji and escaped through the enemy lines, rejoining him in the Malwa country after the battle.

His most delicate mission came soon after. The Guru entrusted Daya Singh and Bhai Dharam Singh Ji with carrying his letter, the Zafarnama, the Epistle of Victory written in Persian verse, to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who was then encamped at Ahmadnagar in the Deccan. Travelling south by way of Aurangabad, the two found they could not reach the emperor in person as instructed. Daya Singh sent Dharam Singh back to seek the Guru's guidance, and before fresh instructions could arrive he succeeded in delivering the letter to Aurangzeb himself. He also kept a copy of the Zafarnama, which survives to this day.

Last days at Nanded

Daya Singh followed the Guru on the long journey south and was present at Nanded when Guru Gobind Singh Ji passed away on 7 October 1708. He survived his master only briefly, dying at Nanded the same year. The cremation ground there is honoured by a joint memorial whose name joins the two inseparable companions of the Zafarnama journey: Angitha Bhai Daya Singh ate Dharam Singh. A gurdwara in the Dhami Mahalla of Aurangabad also marks the house where he stayed during the southern mission.

In Sikh memory, Daya Singh stands for the learned devotee whose scholarship was matched by his readiness to give everything. Early Sikh literature even describes him as a rebirth of Lava, the son of Lord Rama, a measure of the reverence in which the tradition holds him. The teaching lineage known as the Bhai Daya Singh Samparda traces itself to the school he is said to have founded under the Guru's orders, carrying his name into the present day.

Why is Bhai Daya Singh Ji called the first of the Panj Pyare?

Because he was the first to answer. When Guru Gobind Singh Ji called for a head at Anandpur on 30 March 1699, Daya Ram rose before anyone else in the assembly and offered himself. The other four followed his example, and the Guru honoured the five alike, but tradition has always placed Daya Singh at their head as mukhi, the first of the beloved five.

What was the Zafarnama that Bhai Daya Singh Ji delivered?

The Zafarnama, the Epistle of Victory, is the letter Guru Gobind Singh Ji wrote in Persian verse to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb after the evacuation of Anandpur and Chamkaur. In it the Guru rebuked the emperor for the broken oaths of his officials and held that when all other means fail, it is righteous to take up the sword. Daya Singh and Dharam Singh carried it south, and Daya Singh delivered it to Aurangzeb at Ahmadnagar.