Budh Singh

A fearless and benevolent warrior who planted the seed of the Sikh rule in Punjab; the great ancestor of Maharaja Ranjit Singh

Budh Singh belonged to a family of humble and devout followers of the Sikh Gurus. They resided at a place called as Sukkar Chak. In the Punjabi language, Sukkar stands for ‘narrow and cramped’, while Chak is used to specify ‘a piece of land’. This area is currently located in Pakistan, near Gujranwala and is about 70 km north of the capital, Lahore.

Budh Singh owned a small piece of land and lived in a decent size house with a well and he owned a few cattle. He was known to be an intrepid, adventure seeking individual who during his early career made a living by pilfering cattle from the wealthy inhabitants of the surrounding area. The economy of Punjab was in shambles and there were very few means to earn a decent and honest living, therefore the population found alternate means to make a living and look after their family during these adverse financial conditions.

Budh Singh helped the impoverished populace by providing them with the necessities such as food and clothing; he seldom caused harm to the underprivileged. He was a man with a magnanimous heart and on one occasion, when he learnt that he had taken away livestock belonging to a poor woman from a village Nankhona, he clandestinely returned the cattle to its rightful owner who was desperately searching for her only means of livelihood. Following is the narrative from the book Noblemen and Kinsmen by Parminder Singh Sandhawalia:

‘Budh Singh was distinguished for the most intrepid courage, for his sagacity and shrewdness which bore him successfully through all his schemes, and for his ready wit and good humor. He was also famed for his regard to the rights and property of the poor. As an instance of this it is told that having once carried away more than a hundred head of cattle from about nunkhona, in the south, he some days afterwards met a poor widow, who ignorant of whom she was speaking to, told him that she had come a long way to petition Desoo (Budh Singh’s nickname) for the return of five head of cattle belonging to her and her fatherless children, which had been stolen. Budh Singh told her that it would be useless to go to Desoo, as he was a hard hearted inexorable man. He said however that he in consideration of her poverty and her loss would give her twenty head of cattle. He kept his word, the story goes, and actually sent the cattle by some of his own people, further promising to afford her and her property protection ever after.’

Since his childhood, Budh Singh was an avid rider and an adventurous young man. He was fond of his horse, a piebald breed called Desi (these types of horses have colored spots on a white background). According to tradition, he swam the Jhelum, the Chenab and the Ravi rivers fifty times on his favourite horse and thus was also called Desu, named affectionately after his adorable, thoroughbred horse, Desi.

He had met Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur in the year 1692 and when the Khalsa brotherhood was established in 1699, he was baptized into the Khalsa fold by the Guru himself, who gave him ‘Amrit’ with his own hands. Budh Singh was an experienced warrior when he joined the services of the Guru and fought in his campaigns against the Hill Rajas along with the Mughals. He also participated in battles under the leadership of Banda Singh Bahadur. Budh Singh met a warrior’s death while fighting one of the most important and final battles of Banda Singh’s career at Gurdas Nangal in 1715.

The historian, S M Lateef has documented the following in his book ‘History of the Punjab’, ‘He was a brave and courageous man, and is said to have received during his lifetime twenty five sword cuts, and nine matchlock wounds, without his physical strength failing him.’

He left behind two sons: Naudh Singh and Chanda Singh. Naudh Singh, like his father, Budh Singh became a mighty warrior and fought under the leadership of Nawab Kapur Singh. He was the father of Charat Singh, and he in turn was the grandfather of Maharaja of Punjab, the Great Ranjit Singh.

References:

History of the Sikhs vol. 4 by Dr. H.R Gupta

History of the Punjab by S.M Latif

Noblemen and Kinsmen by Parminder Singh Sandhawalia

Painting:

A Sikh nobleman riding a piebald horse, an attendant on foot alongside holding a parasol

Punjab, circa 1840

gouache and gold on paper, black inner border, orange outer border, inscribed no. 5 verso

From the following website: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/25327/lot/41/

Written By:

Gurmeet Singh Sandhu from Ottawa, Canada. He is an Information Technology professional with the Canadian Public Sector, an avid reader and writes short articles on Sikh History