A brief outline of the rise of Maharaja Ranjit Singh

Originally the Sikhs were a peaceful sect of altruistic views. The word Sikh or Sikha is Punjabi nad is derived from Sanskrit Cishya, meaning a disciple. The Sikhs were transformed into a military theocracy under Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and the last of the Gurus, towards the end of the 17th century. The greatest number which the Guru is said to have engaged in a single battle was about 8,000 men, horse and foot. Guru Gobind Singh employed about 500 Pathans who formed a part of his cavalry. The Guru’s army came to be known, later on, as Dal-Khalsa. Guru Gobind Singh changed the name of his followers from Sikhs or disciples to Singhs or lions. He it was who instituted the Guru-mata or the ‘the collective sense or deliberation of the community.’ and established the Akalis or ‘Im-mortals.’He also endeavoured to separate the Sikhs from the mass of Hindus. The final compilation of the Guru Granth Sahib is his too.

Speaking about the development of Sikhs half a century later, Mr Garrett! says that though the Sikhs were strong, they were not united, for they were divided into misls or clans. These misls were bitterly jealous of one another. The misl of Charat Singh, the grandfather of the Ranjit Singh, was one of the least considerable.  .Ranjit Singh was born in 2nd November, 1780.  He was named Ranjit Singh by his father Mahan Singh. Maharajah Ranjit Singh Sandhawalia (November 13, 1780 – June 27, 1839), also known as “Sher-e-Punjab” (“The Lion of Punjab”), became the first Sikh Emperor after uniting the 11 Sikh Kingdoms of Punjab on the foundations of the Khalsa and under the banner of Sarkar-i-Khalsa, from 1799-1839. Ranjit’s father died in 1792 at the early age of twenty-seven. Ranjit his only son, was then twelve years old, having been born in 2nd November, 1780. Little care had been bestowed on the education of Ranjit “whose early years were spent in following the sports of the field and who had never been taught to read or write in any language.” At seventeen Ranjit assumed the conduct of affairs. It was the genius of Ranjit Singh that forged the Khalsa int one sovereign state. His authority may be said to have commenced in 1799, when he occupied Lahore, after having been invested with a written authority by Zaman Shah of Kabul, the Punjab being then  a part of the Afghan dominions. In 1802, Ranjit Singh occupied Amritsar and rapidly extended his authority over Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar well before his death on 27th June, 1839AC, at the age of 59, after a reign of forty years.

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