Anandpur and the Broken Oaths

After months of siege, in 1704, the people inside Anandpur were starving. Hill Rajas offered safe passage if the Guru would leave. A written assurance attributed to Aurangzeb was said to have been sworn on the Quran. The Guru’s party left. They were attacked at the Sarsa river, and fighting at Chamkaur followed.

In 1705 the Guru wrote the Zafarnama, the “Epistle of Victory,” to Aurangzeb in Persian verse. It reproaches the emperor for the broken oaths and for the violence that followed. In it, force is a last resort, justified only when other means have failed.

What we could not confirm

We did not read the Persian text, and we do not give a verse number for the oath passage. Scholars debate whether the poem was composed as verse or versified later. Estimates of the forces involved differ by a factor of ten across sources.

Counsel

An oath is only as good as the party who swears it and the cost of breaking it. Before you leave a position on someone’s word, ask what it costs him to break it, and who would make him pay.

Verification

Source for the siege: Wikipedia, 'Second Battle of Anandpur', citing J. S. Grewal and Max Macauliffe. It dates the siege to May to 19 December 1704, reports an offer of safe passage sworn by the Hill Rajas (on the cow) and a written assurance attributed to Aurangzeb (said to be on the Quran), and says the assurances were betrayed at the Sarsa river. The Quran-oath detail has no separate citation there. Source for the letter: Wikipedia, 'Zafarnama (letter)', which reports that it reproaches Aurangzeb for broken oaths. We did not read the Persian and do not cite a verse number for the oath passage. Authenticity and original form of the poem are debated; troop numbers vary widely by source.