Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was born at Amritsar in 1621, the youngest son of Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji. He fought at Kartarpur as a young man, which is where the name Tegh Bahadur, brave of the sword, comes from. He then lived at Bakala in near seclusion for about twenty years.
As Guru he travelled widely in the east, to Patna, where his son was born, and through Bengal and Assam. He founded Anandpur in 1665 on land bought near Kiratpur.
In 1675 a delegation of Kashmiri Pandits led by Kirpa Ram came to Anandpur. They were being forced to convert under the policy then being applied in Kashmir. The account is that his son Gobind Rai, then nine, said that a great man was needed to give his life, and that the Guru went to Delhi.
He was held, and his companions were killed in front of him. Bhai Mati Das Ji was sawn in two. Bhai Dayala Ji was boiled. Bhai Sati Das Ji was wrapped in cotton and burned. He was beheaded at Chandni Chowk on 11 November 1675.
He did not die for his own religion. He died for the right of people of another religion to keep theirs. That distinction is the whole of why the martyrdom is remembered as it is, and it is stated plainly in Sikh sources from the earliest period.
His 115 hymns are in the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, placed there by his son. They are among the plainest and bleakest compositions in it.
Gurdwara Sis Ganj at Chandni Chowk stands where the execution was carried out and Gurdwara Rakab Ganj where the body was cremated. The tradition is that Bhai Jaita Ji carried the head to Anandpur and that Lakhi Shah Vanjara Ji burned his own house over the body so that the cremation would pass as a fire.
Gurdwara Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib at Dhubri in Assam marks the eastern limit of the journey, where the account is that he came between the Mughal commander Ram Singh and the Ahom king and made peace. Mata Gujri Ji was with him for that journey.
His hymns and shloks were added to the volume by his son, and the fifty-seven shloks that close the Guru Granth Sahib Ji are his.