Was born the son of Bhai Guru Narayana, a barber of Bidar in Karnataka,
and his wife Ankamma. Bidar had been visited by Guru Nanak early in
the sixteenth century and a Sikh shrine had been established there
in his honour. Sahib Chand, as Sahib Singh was called before he underwent
the rites of the Khalsa, travelled to Anandpur at the young age of
16, and attached himself permanently to Guru Gobind Singh. He won
a name for himself as marksman and in one of the battles at Anandpur
he shot dead the Gujjar chief Jamatulla. In another action the raja
of Hindur, Bhup Chand, was seriously wounded by a shot from his musket
following which the entire hill army fled the field. Sahib Chand was
one of the five Sikhs who, on the Baisakhi day of 30 March 1699, offered,
upon Guru Gobind Singh's call, to lay down their heads. They were
greeted by the Guru as the five beloved of him. These five formed
the nucleus of the Khalsa, the Guru's own, inaugurated dramatically
on that day.
Sahib Chand, after undergoing the rites of the Khalsa, became Sahib
Singh, receiving the surname of Singh common to all members of the
Khalsa brotherhood. Bhai Sahib Singh fell in the battle of Chamkaur
on 7 December 1705.
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