The Kanhaiya was founded by Jai Singh of Kahna near Lahore and held country in the upper Bari Doab and into the Kangra hills. It was one of the strongest misls in the 1770s and 1780s.
Its fall came through a marriage. Sada Kaur, widow of Jai Singh's son Gurbaksh Singh, who had been killed in battle, took over the misl when Jai Singh died and married her daughter Mehtab Kaur to Ranjit Singh Ji in 1796. It was Sada Kaur's horse and Sada Kaur's judgment that put him into Lahore in 1799.
She was the most powerful woman in Punjab for twenty years and was arrested and dispossessed by her son-in-law in 1821. She died in confinement.
The Kanhaiya territory went into the Lahore state. Sada Kaur's part in its founding is stated in every history and is not on any monument.
Sada Kaur brought the Kanhaiya's horse and money behind Ranjit Singh Ji at the taking of Lahore in 1799 and in the campaigns after it. The Sukerchakia holding on its own was not large enough to do it.
She was arrested in 1821 and her territory taken. She died in confinement in 1832.
The misl's country ran from Batala north to the hills and included holdings in Kangra. Its fort at Batala and its buildings at Sohian have not survived in any recognisable form.