The Forty Mukteਚਾਲੀ ਮੁਕਤੇ

The Forty Mukte (Chali Mukte, the forty liberated ones) were forty Sikh soldiers of the Majha who died on 29 December 1705 at the pool of Khidrana, in present day Sri Muktsar Sahib, holding back a Mughal army that was hunting Guru Gobind Singh Ji. They had once signed a written disclaimer, a bedava, renouncing the Guru during the siege of Anandpur Sahib. Led back by Mai Bhago Ji, they redeemed that act with their lives, and the Guru tore up the bedava over the battlefield and named them liberated.

The siege of Anandpur and the bedava

In 1704 the combined forces of the Mughal empire and the hill chiefs closed around Anandpur Sahib, and the siege ground on for months. Inside the forts, food ran short. The besiegers announced that any Sikh who openly said he was no longer a Sikh of Guru Gobind Singh Ji would be allowed to leave unharmed.

A group of forty Sikhs from the Majha, worn down by hunger and hardship, went to the Guru and told him they were his Sikhs no longer. Guru Gobind Singh Ji answered that such a break had to be made in writing. Each man signed the bedava, the written disclaimer, and the forty rode home to their villages. Their leader and spokesman was Bhai Maha Singh, whose name closes the traditional lists of the forty.

Mai Bhago shames the forty back

Home brought the forty no peace. At Jhabal Kalan lived Mai Bhago Ji, born into a family that had served the Gurus as soldiers for generations. When she heard that the men of her neighbourhood had deserted the Guru in his hardest hour, she rebuked them openly, and her words shamed them into agreeing to go back, find the Guru and beg his forgiveness. She rode at their head herself, and other Sikhs joined the party as it crossed the Malwa. The Guru, since leaving Anandpur, had been hunted through that same country by the imperial force of Wazir Khan of Sirhind.

The Battle of Khidrana, 29 December 1705

The parties met near the village of Khidrana, where a single pool, the dhab, held the only water in a dry tract. Mai Bhago and the forty took up their position around the pool as the Mughal force came up in pursuit of the Guru. The sources put that force at several thousand men, with figures between 7,000 and 12,000; accounts of the battle also place a body of Malwa Sikhs under Kapura Singh Brar on the field.

The forty knew they could not win. They fought to hold the pool and break the pursuit, and they held it. From a mound nearby, Guru Gobind Singh Ji shot arrows into the Mughal ranks. By nightfall the imperial force had given up the attack and pulled back, and the road south lay open for the Guru.

When the Guru came down to the field he found the forty dead among the slain. Two of the party still breathed: Mai Bhago, gravely wounded, the battle's only survivor, and Bhai Maha Singh, at the very edge of death.

The bedava torn up

The Guru lifted Maha Singh's head into his lap. The dying man asked for one thing only: that the bedava be cancelled, the paper signed at Anandpur torn up, so that the forty would die as the Guru's own. The Guru tore up the document, declared them forgiven, and blessed the forty as the Chali Mukte, the forty liberated ones. Bhai Maha Singh died in peace in the Guru's lap. From that day the place itself changed its name: Khidrana became Muktsar, the pool of liberation, today the city of Sri Muktsar Sahib.

The names of the forty

Sikh tradition has preserved the names of all forty. The lists handed down in the old texts are not perfectly uniform, but the names recorded in the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism tradition are: Bhai Bhag Singh, Bhai Dilbag Singh, Bhai Mann Singh, Bhai Nidhan Singh, Bhai Kharbara Singh, Bhai Darbara Singh, Bhai Dyal Singh, Bhai Nihal Singh, Bhai Khushal Singh, Bhai Ganda Singh, Bhai Ishmer Singh, Bhai Singha, Bhai Bhalla Singh, Bhai Suhel Singh, Bhai Chamba Singh, Bhai Ganga Singh, Bhai Sumer Singh, Bhai Sultan Singh, Bhai Maya Singh, Bhai Massa Singh, Bhai Sarja Singh, Bhai Sadhu Singh, Bhai Gulab Singh, Bhai Harsa Singh, Bhai Sangat Singh, Bhai Hari Singh, Bhai Dhana Singh, Bhai Karam Singh, Bhai Kirt Singh, Bhai Lachman Singh, Bhai Buddha Singh, Bhai Kesho Singh, Bhai Jado Singh, Bhai Sobha Singh, Bhai Bhanga Singh, Bhai Joga Singh, Bhai Dharam Singh, Bhai Karam Singh, Bhai Kala Singh and Bhai Mahan Singh.

Mela Maghi and the memory of the forty

The forty are not remembered once a year only. The Ardas, the supplicatory prayer with which Sikhs close every service, names the Chali Mukte among the martyrs recalled daily. Mukta, from a Sanskrit root meaning liberated or delivered, is in Sikh teaching the soul freed from the cycle of birth and death, and the title the Guru gave the forty says he counted them exactly that.

Their great day is Maghi, the first day of the month of Magh in mid January, when the Mela Maghi fair fills Sri Muktsar Sahib and pilgrims bathe in the sacred pool and gather at the gurdwaras raised over the battlefield. The story of the forty, of a written renunciation torn up above the men who had signed it, remains one of Sikhism's best loved teachings on repentance, courage and forgiveness. It belongs in sequence with the Panj Pyare of 1699 and the Ten Gurus hub tells the larger story around both.

Who were the Chali Mukte?

The Chali Mukte were forty Sikhs of the Majha who died at Khidrana on 29 December 1705. Having once renounced Guru Gobind Singh Ji in writing, they returned under Mai Bhago Ji, fought a Mughal army many times their number, and were blessed by the Guru as the forty liberated ones.

What was the bedava?

The bedava was the written disclaimer that the forty signed at Anandpur Sahib, stating that they were no longer Sikhs of Guru Gobind Singh Ji. The Guru required the break to be made formally, in writing, and it was that same paper he tore up on the field of Khidrana at Bhai Maha Singh's dying request.

Why is Khidrana called Muktsar?

Guru Gobind Singh Ji declared the forty dead to be mukte, liberated ones, and the pool of Khidrana took the name Muktsar, the pool of liberation, in their honour. The town that grew around the pool is today the district headquarters of Sri Muktsar Sahib in the Malwa region of Punjab.