Lehal Library

Ahmed Shah Abdali 149 month of May, they were up in arms again. When Abdali was in Lahore they defeated the Afghan faujdar of Sirhind at Hamaulgarh. Jassa Singh Ahluwalia and Tara Singh Gheba plundered the Jullundur Doab, the Bhangis and Sukerchakias took the doabs between the Ravi and the Jhelum, and bands of Sikh horsemen roving between Panipat and Kamal made communication between Delhi and Lahore impossible. Despite the Ghalliighara disaster in the preceding spring, by the autumn the Sikhs had regained enough confidence to foregather in large numbers at Amritsar to celebrate Divali. Abdali made a mild effort to win them over and sent an envoy with proposals for a treaty of peace. The Sikhs were in no mood to treat with the Afghan, and heaped insults on the emissary. Abdali did not waste any more time and turned up on the outskins of Amritsar. The battle of Amritsar~ was fought in the grey light of a sun in total eclipse. It ended when the sunless day was blacked out by a moonless night with the adversaries retiring from the field: the Sikhs to the fastness of the jungles of Lakhi, Abdali behind the walled safety of Lahore. 38 This battle is not accepted by all historians. Forster in his Trawls describes the Sikh chronicles of the time as stating: "This event is said Lo have happened in October 1762, when the collected body of the Sicque nation, amounting to sixty thousand cavalry, had formed a junction at the ruins of Amritsar for the purpose of performing some appointed ceremony, and where they resolved. expecting the auack, to pledge their nationaJ existence, in the event of a battle. Ahmed Shah, at that time encamped at Lahore, marched with a strong force to Amritsar. and immediately engaged the Sicques; who roused by the fury of a desperate revenge. in sight also of the ground sacred to the founders of their religion, whose monuments had been destroyed by the enemy they were then to combat, displayed, during a bloody contest, which lasted from the morning until night, an enthusiastic and fierce courage. which ultimately forced Ahmed Shah to draw off his army and retire with precipitation to Lahore.' (Cf. Browne, ii, 25-6; Aliuddin, 125-6.) Forster datibts the authenticity of the conflict; so do Malcolm, J. N. Sarkar, and N. K. Sinha (fuse of the Sikh P(IWer) . It is, however, accepted by H. R Gupt.:-,, History ofIM Sikhs, 1, 178, and Dr. Ganda Singh, Ahw,d, Shah Durrani,, p. 286.