1 WNlSTffy
2 The ago of
3 .Maha Singh.
4 Birth of Him
5 jeet Singh.
6 1^2 HISTORY OP THE SIKHS.
7 require the chastisement of a fukeer to induce him
8 to seek his livelihood by less arduous labour than
9 cultivating the fields; and the well-known tenets of
10 Go vine! Singh, whereby the use of the sword was
11 enforced, had a reudy attaetion for him and others.
12 The story of the fukeer is, no doubt, one of those
13 invented to give a romantic colouring to the
14 history of Runjeet’s ancestor, and to supply some
15 excuse for Churruth Singh’s adoption pf the dis¬
16 reputable calling of a robber. The exact date of
17 Chumith Singh’s death, by the bursting of his
18 matchlock, is differently stated by former historians
19 of the Punjab. According to one, it occurred in
20 1774, while another gives 1771; a difference of
21 three years. Now in the Mussulman records re¬
22 garding this event, the death of Churruth Singh is
23 stated to have occurred when his son Maba Singh
24 was only seven years of age; and further, that
25 llunjeet Singh, the son of the latter, was born
26 when he had attained the age of twenty. All are,
27 moreover, agreed, that the Maharajah was born
28 in the year of the Christian era 1780; so that his
29 father being then twenty years old, he must have
30 been born in 1760, and seven years added to this
31 wi ll give the correct year of Churruth Singh’s
32 death, 1767.
33 Runjeet Singh was born, at Goojurawala, on the
34 2 nd November, 1780.
35 His mother was of the Jheend family; the father
36 was Maha Singh, a man of great military skill and
37 bravery. He died young; thus leaving his son, a