During a siege of Anandpur the hill forces sent an intoxicated elephant with iron plates on its head to break the gate of Lohgarh. Guru Gobind Singh Ji gave Bhai Bachittar Singh Ji a nagni barcha, a spear with a serpentine head, and sent him out on horseback against it.
He drove the spear through the plate into the elephant's head. The animal turned and went back through the attacking force.
He was one of the sons of Bhai Mani Singh Ji. He was mortally wounded at the Sarsa in December 1704 and died at Kotla Nihang near Ropar, where a gurdwara marks it.
The nagni barcha is displayed at Anandpur.
The episode is one of the most painted scenes in Sikh popular art and it is a single man on a horse against an armoured elephant, which is worth pausing on before deciding what is legendary in it.
Elephants were sent at gates because a gate is the one part of a wall that cannot be made thicker. The counter was to make the animal turn, since an elephant going backward through its own side does more damage than it would have done going forward, and that is what the account describes.
He was a son of Bhai Mani Singh Ji, who was himself executed at Lahore years later, and the family runs through the whole period. The spear kept at Anandpur is brought out at Hola Mohalla.
A gurdwara at Kotla Nihang marks the place. The man who sheltered them is part of the account and is rarely mentioned in the retellings.