1894.] 
W. Irvine —Guru Gobind Sirjgh and Bandah. 
115 
authority. 1 His first campaign was made as the ally of one hill raja, 
Blilm Cand, Raja of Radon, against another, the Raja of Jammu, who had 
been incited by Miyan Khan, Mughal, to make an attack on his neighbour. 2 
Where the interval of twenty years, between 1675 and 1695, was passed, 
we cannot say with any certainty. In one place, 3 we hear of his leaving 
a village called Paotah, just before he fought the Muhammadans. This 
village, where there is now a Sikh temple, lies close to the west or right 
bank of the Jamuna, in the Kiyarda dun , or valley, which is now part 
of the hill state of Sirmur or Kalian 4 . Prom after events, such as the 
building of a Sikh fort on the outer hills in Kalian territory, and the 
vengeance taken by Bahadur Shah on the Kalian raja, we may infer 
some close connection between Gobind and the ruler of that state. His 
period of obscurity, in which he is said to have occupied himself with 
hunting, shooting, and the chase, may have been spent in the Kiyarda 
dun, or the adjoining hills. 5 
An early adventure was his pursuit by the Muhammadans. 6 He 
fled to a jungle called Rarayanpur, thence he took refuge in a grove 
at Man! Majra . 7 His next assailants were the hill rajas, the original 
ground of quarrel being obscure. 8 Probably its chief cause was the 
natural hostility of the Rajput ruler and his Brahman counsellor 
to the head of a heterodox sect. Gobind’s baggage appears to have 
been plundered 9 In at least one battle Gobind won the day and 
triumphed over the Hindur, Kahlur, and Rahan leaders. 10 
1 Browne’s dates (p. 4) are quite different. He makes Gdbind a posthumous 
child, and places his first outbreak in 1114 H. (1704), when he was twenty years 
of age. In that case, he must have been born in 1684. 
2 Malcolm, 58. 
3 Sakhi Book, 41. 
4 J. D. Cunningham, 74, and Indian Atlas, sheet No. 48. 
6 See also the quotation from the Vicitra Natali, in Malcolm, 55, where Gdbind 
says he went, on his father’s death, to the Kaliadi, or Jamuna river. 
6 Sakhi Book, 41. 
7 Perhaps the Narayangarh, about 18 m. N. E. of Ambala: Manx Majra is 
about 22 m. N. of the same place. 
8 McGregor, I, 80, attributes it to an attempt by the Rajas to appropriate 
some valuable presents—an elephant, a horse, a tent, a sword, and a hawk—that 
had been sent to Gobind Sirjgh. 
9 Sakhi Book, 46. 
10 Cunningham, 75, says his first contest was with Nalran, aided by the Raja 
of Hindur. Gdbind was victorious, and he killed Hari Cand, of Nalagarh (capital of 
Hindur, see Thornton, 681) with his own hand. This is the same story as in 
Malcolm, 55, and note. Hindur and Kahlur are hill states, lying just north of 
Anandpur, the Sikh Guru settlement on the bend made by the Satlaj, just as it 
enters the plains. 
