Born Lachhman Dev on Katak Sudi 13, VS 1723 (1670 AD) in the village of Rajauri, District Poonch, to a Rajput father named Ramdev Bhardwaj, he was destined for a life far beyond his origins. As a young man, he killed a pregnant doe during a hunt; watching her two newborns die before him shook him to his core and set him irrevocably upon a spiritual path. He renounced his home, took diksha from a Bairagi sadhu named Janki Prasad — who renamed him Madho Das — and later studied yoga and tantra under the yogi Aughar Nath at Panchwati near Nasik.
After Aughar Nath's death, Madho Das established his own dera at Nanded on the banks of the Godavari. His reputation for tantric powers spread, and it was said that he was not above using them to intimidate visiting ascetics. It was through Jait Ram, the Mahant of the Dadu Dwara at Jaipur, that Guru Gobind Singh heard of him — and resolved to visit him, less to confront than to redirect a powerful soul toward righteousness.
Their meeting at Nanded in 1708 is one of the most celebrated encounters in Sikh history. The Guru transformed Madho Das entirely: he received amrit, took the name Gurbaksh Singh, and was given the title Banda Bahadur — the Brave Slave of the Guru. Armed with five arrows, a nagara drum, a nishan sahib, five Singhs as companions and a string of hukamnamas to the Sikh sangats of Punjab, he was despatched northward with a divine commission: to punish the oppressors of the Khalsa.
On 7th October 1708, Guru Gobind Singh departed this world. Banda Bahadur, already on his way north, would carry the Guru's authority into Punjab — and forge, in the brief years of his sovereignty, the first coins ever struck in the name of the Khalsa.
