The Guru seemed safe in Anandpur, but as the seventeenth century drew to a close, his was not the only Sikh voice being heard in Punjab. In the doabs, the successors of Prithi Chand seemed dominant. In fact, the Guru’s message went out more to sangats located outside Punjab or in the cis-Sutlej tracts.73 ‘In terms of followers, the doabs of the Punjab [seemed] virtually lost to the successors of Guru Hargobind.’74 Recognizing that an empire in crisis could hit out at one like him, and facing dissension in the Sikh community at the same time, Guru Gobind Singh produced a radical response in
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