ਸੋ ਕਿਉ ਮੰਦਾ ਆਖੀਐ ਜਿਤੁ ਜੰਮਹਿ ਰਾਜਾਨ ॥

Why call her inferior? From her, kings are born. Asa ki Vaar (Ang 473)

A catalogue I keep of the women of Sikh itihas. From 1699 every Khalsa woman is Kaur, heir, sovereign, belonging to no man’s lineage. The names below are why that title fits.

The Guru period

  • Bebe Nanaki (1464–1518), the first to recognise the jot in her younger brother; the first Sikh. Tradition credits her with arranging Bhai Mardana’s rabab.
  • Mata Sulakkhani, wife of Guru Nanak Dev Ji; held the household through the udasis.
  • Mata Khivi (1506–1582), wife of Guru Angad Dev Ji; built the langar institution. The only Guru-parivaar woman named in praise in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji: ਬਲਵੰਡ ਖੀਵੀ ਨੇਕ ਜਨ (Ang 967).
  • Bibi Amro, daughter of Guru Angad Dev Ji; her morning paath drew Amar Das Ji to the Guru’s door. Later led a manji (diocese) under Guru Amar Das Ji, who also condemned sati and purdah and appointed women preachers.
  • Bibi Bhani (1535–1598), daughter of Guru Amar Das Ji, wife of Guru Ram Das Ji, mother of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, the link between three houses of the Guruship.
  • Mata Ganga, wife of Guru Arjan Dev Ji; sought Baba Buddha Ji’s blessing for Hargobind, the warrior Guru.
  • Mata Damodari · Mata Nanaki · Bibi Viro, the house of Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji. Mata Nanaki was mother of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji; Bibi Viro’s five sons fought at Bhangani.
  • Bibi Rup Kaur, daughter in the house of Guru Har Rai Ji; preserved the Guru’s sakhis and teachings in her pothi.
  • Mata Krishan Kaur, mother of Guru Har Krishan Ji through his seva in Delhi’s epidemic.
  • Mata Gujri (1624–1704), wife of the ninth shaheed Guru, mother of the tenth, grandmother of the Char Sahibzade. Managed the Guru’s household and treasury through the Anandpur years. Shaheed in Sirhind’s Thanda Burj after steeling her youngest grandsons for theirs, the first shaheed singhni of the Khalsa era.

The Khalsa era

  • Mata Jito Ji, wife of Guru Gobind Singh Ji; sweetened the first amrit with patase.
  • Mata Sahib Kaur (1681–1747), Mother of the Khalsa; every amritdhari Sikh’s spiritual parentage is recorded as Guru Gobind Singh Ji and Mata Sahib Kaur, born of Anandpur. Issued hukamnamas to sangats after 1708.
  • Mata Sundri (d. 1747), led the entire Panth for nearly forty years after 1708: issued hukamnamas, exposed impostor claimants to Guruship, sent Bhai Mani Singh to Amritsar to manage Harmandir Sahib and prepare the sarups of Guru Granth Sahib Ji. The Panth’s steadying hand through its darkest decades.
  • Mai Bhago, Mata Bhag Kaur, shamed the forty deserters of Anandpur, armed them, and led them back into battle at Khidrana (1705). The forty fell as the Chali Mukte; she survived and served as Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s bodyguard. The first woman known to lead troops in battle in Punjab.
  • Bibi Harsharan Kaur, a sixteen-year-old who crossed enemy lines at night to cremate the shaheeds of Chamkaur, including the elder Sahibzade; killed at the pyre she lit.
  • Bibi Anup Kaur (d. 1705), captured after Anandpur’s evacuation; chose death by her own kirpan over forced conversion and marriage.
  • The Singhniyan of Mir Mannu’s jail (1748–53), imprisoned in Lahore, worked at heavy grindstones (sava-sava mann daily); their children were killed and hung in garlands around their necks. Not one abandoned Sikhi. Named in Ardas daily: ਧਰਮ ਨਹੀਂ ਹਾਰਿਆ।

The misl and raj era

  • Rani Sada Kaur (1762–1832), chief of the Kanhaiya misl; commanded ~8,000 cavalry. Planned and rode in the 1799 capture of Lahore, the campaign that founded the Sikh Empire of her son-in-law Ranjit Singh.
  • Bibi Sahib Kaur (1771–1801), prime minister of Patiala at twenty-two. At Mardanpur (1794) she dismounted her rath, drew her sword, and rallied a wavering Sikh line to defeat a larger Maratha force; led campaigns to Nahan (1796) and against George Thomas (1798).
  • Rani Rajinder Kaur (1739–1791), of Patiala; defended the state through the same decades; celebrated by chroniclers of the age for courage and administration.
  • Mai Desan, widow of Charat Singh; regent of the Sukerchakia misl, running diplomacy and campaigns for a decade.
  • Mai Sukhan, widow of Gulab Singh Bhangi; commanded the defence of Amritsar in 1805.
  • Rani Jind Kaur (1817–1863), regent of the Sikh Empire; resisted the British through two Anglo-Sikh wars; escaped Chunar fort; reunited with Duleep Singh in 1861 and turned his heart back to Sikhi.

The modern era

  • Gulab Kaur (c. 1890–1941), Ghadar Party; gave up her passage to America, smuggled weapons and press materials, served prison time for the freedom struggle.
  • Mata Kishan Kaur Kaonke (1856–1952), rode at the head of Akali jathas in the Gurdwara Reform Movement; jailed by the British in her sixties.

The pattern across five centuries: the first believer, the builder of langar, the leader of the Panth’s longest regency, the general at Khidrana, the strategist behind the Sikh Empire, the transmission and the steel of Sikhi have run through its women. ਧੰਨ ਗੁਰੂ ਕੇ ਸਿੰਘ, ਧੰਨ ਗੁਰੂ ਕੀਆਂ ਸਿੰਘਣੀਆਂ।

Sources: Bibi Sahib Kaur, Sikh Encyclopedia · Mai Bhago, Wikipedia · Khalsa Women and Mir Mannu’s Jail, Discover Sikhism · Bibi Harsharan Kaur, SikhiWiki · Warrior Women of Punjab, The Better India · Issues of Gender among the Sikhs, Journal of Punjab Studies