Guru Tegh Bahadurs Birth

Entering the world in the city of Amritsar during the early morning hours of the day, Guru Tegh Bahadur was born on Baisakh Vadi 5 in 1678 to Mata Nanaki and Guru Hargobind. He was the youngest in the family, having four elder brothers [Baba Gurditta, Suraj Mal, Ani Rai and Atal Rai], and one elder sister, Bibi Viro. When the news spread across the city, large groups of women came running and singing to congratulate Mata Nanaki and to see the young Guru Tegh Bahadur.

Nau Nidh

While renown for his dispassion towards the world and carefree devotion in his youth, Guru Gobind Singh remarks on the glory of his father, commenting in the Sikh Ardas how all the wealth in the world came running to his father's house. The nine nidhi's [treasures] represented the entirety of wealth and prestige, which would forever attend to the God of Wealth Kubera in Indic mythology. Guru TeghBahadur's prominence across the entire subcontinent resulted in vast amounts of wealth transitioning to the Guru's house, enabling the vast amounts of charitable donations and the buying and founding of the city of Anandpur Sahib for future generations of Sikhs.

Baba Bakala

Guru Tegh Bahadur was anointed Guru after Makhan Shah Lubana had made the Guru public, after enduring countless tests from the Guru. The prophetic saying of Guru Harkrishan "The Guru, Baba [grandfather] resides in Bakala", was Makhan Shah's guiding principle, which led him to Bakala where countless other charletons had gone to set up camp, declaring themselves the Guru. Makhan Shah saw past all the fake Gurus when seeing the undistributed one-pointed focus of Guru TeghBahadur.

Dhirmal Dispute

Dhirmal, the grandson of Guru Hargobind was envious for the throne of the Guru's House since a young age and was deeply upset when he found out Guru Tegh Bahadur had been anointed Guru. A force of 100 armed men stormed Guru Tegh Bahadur's house, when only the Guru, his mother Mata Nanaki, and a few Sikhs were present. Dhirmal's force stole all the possessions and shot a bullet at Guru Tegh Bahadur, which grazed his forehead.

Battle of Kartarpur

At the young age of 14, Guru Tegh Bahadur adorned weapons and mounted an agile horse to ride out and join his brothers and father who were defending the city of Kartarpur (Doaba) in the year 1635. Mata Nanaki, standing on her roof yelled out to stop the young Guru Tegh Bahadur, but only heard a fierce reply, "I am one who adorns weapons, abandoning the battlefield is not a part of my Dharam" Guru Tegh Bahadur then rode out with his elder brother Suraj Mal and provided support to the troops with his bow and arrow and matchlock rifle.