Bhai Behlo, Bhai Salho, Bhai Bhagatu

The building of Amritsar and Tarn Taran was done by named Sikhs whose names survive because Guru Arjan Dev Ji recorded who did the work.

Bhai Behlo of Phaphre in the Malwa carried brick and mortar for the tank at Amritsar and is remembered in the phrase Behlo sabh ton pehlo, Behlo before all. Bhai Salho supervised the works. Bhai Bhagatu of the Malwa was a preacher of the same period whose descendants held the dera at Bhagta Bhai Ka.

Bhai Langah and Bhai Bhagirath were among the early sangat leaders in the Majha and the Malwa, and Bhai Praga was a soldier of Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji's period.

These are not famous names outside the tradition and inside it they are attached to specific villages, which is why a great many Punjab villages have a gurdwara commemorating a man nobody outside the district has heard of.

The pattern is worth stating: the early Panth was organised through named individuals in named villages, and most of those villages still know the name and nothing else.

They are among the Sikhs named in the early tradition as having served the Gurus in specific ways, and each has a village and a shrine attached to his name.

Bhai Behlo is associated with the construction work at Amritsar and Tarn Taran, and the phrase about him in the tradition is that he was made first among the devoted.

Bhai Bhagatu's line in the Malwa established a dera and a following. These figures are the connective tissue of the early community and almost nothing is written about any of them.

What we don't know

  • Almost all biographical detail for these figures. The names survive and the lives do not.

Where to check this

Named but not linked. These are real, findable documents. This project has not consulted them for this page.

  • Gurdwara records at the villages named.

This page has not yet been read through by the editor. Treat it with more caution than the rest.

How this page was written. The text is compiled from the standard published histories and reference works, not from a document held in hand. Nobody from this project has visited the place or read the archive. The list above is where a reader can go to check it, not a record of what was consulted line by line. Dates and figures are the received account. If you hold something better, write in and it will be corrected.

This is one of 130 accounts in The Ten, the chapter of this site covering the Gurus, from 1469 to 1708.