Guru Gobind Singh Gurpurab celebrates the birth of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), the tenth and last of the human Sikh Gurus, born at Patna in Bihar. His life shaped Sikhism decisively: it was he who, in 1699 at Anandpur, founded the Khalsa, the community of initiated Sikhs, calling for the Panj Pyare (the "five beloved") who offered their heads, administering the amrit (nectar) initiation, and giving the Khalsa the names Singh ("lion") for men and Kaur ("princess") for women and the discipline of the five Ks. Before his death he ended the line of living Gurus, vesting the guruship for all time in the scripture, thereafter the Guru Granth Sahib, and in the community.
The gurpurab is kept, by the lunar reckoning, in the month of Poh (December-January), though the Nanakshahi calendar has assigned it a fixed solar date, a point on which Sikh calendar reform has produced disagreement. It is observed as the other gurpurabs are: with the completed Akhand Path, processions, congregational kirtan, the expounding of the Guru's teaching and life, and langar. Gobind Singh was also a poet and warrior, and the day recalls a figure who gave Sikhism both its distinctive initiated form and its enduring self-understanding as a community of saint-soldiers committed to justice.