Ram Das

Guru Ram Das ਗੁਰੂ ਰਾਮਦਾਸ
Opaque watercolour on paper c 1800 Government Museum, Chandigarh
Born	Bhai Jetha 24 September 1534 (1534-09-24) Chuna Mandi, Lahore, Punjab, Mughal Empire (Present day Pakistan)
Died	September 1, 1581 (1581-10) (aged 46) Goindval, Mughal Empire (Present day India)
Other names	The Fourth Master
Occupation	Guru
Years active	1574–1581
Known for	founder of Amritsar city
Predecessor	Guru Amar Das
Successor	Guru Arjan
Spouse(s)	Bibi Bhani
Children	Baba Prithi Chand, Baba Mahan Dev, and Guru Arjan
Parent(s)	Hari Das and Mata Anup Devi

Guru Ram Das ([ɡʊru ɾɑm dɑs]; 1534–1581) was the fourth of the ten Gurus of Sikhism. He was born on 24 September 1534 in a poor Hindu family based in Lahore, part of now Pakistan. His birth name was Jetha, he was orphaned at age 7, and thereafter grew up with his maternal grandmother in a village.

At age 12, Bhai Jetha and his grandmother moved to Goindval, where they met Guru Angad. The boy thereafter accepted Guru Angad as mentor and served him. The daughter of Guru Angad married Bhai Jetha, and he thus became part of Guru Angad's family. As with the first two Gurus of Sikhism, Guru Amar Das instead of choosing his own sons, chose him as his successor and renamed him as Ram Das or "servant or slave of god (Rama)".

Ram Das became the Guru of Sikhism in 1574 and served as the Sikh leader until his death in 1581. He faced hostilities from the sons of Guru Amar Das, shifted his official base to lands identified by Guru Amar Das as Guru-ka-Chak. This newly founded town was eponymous Ramdaspur, later to evolve and get renamed as Amritsar – the holiest city of Sikhism. He is also remembered in the Sikh tradition for expanding the manji organization for clerical appointments and donation collections to theologically and economically support the Sikh movement. He appointed his own son as his successor, and unlike the first four Gurus who were not related through descent, the fifth through tenth Sikh Gurus were the direct descendants of Guru Ram Das.

His father was Hari Das and his mother Anup Devi (Daya Kaur), a Sodhi Khatri caste family. He married Bibi Bhani, the younger daughter of Guru Amar Das. They had three sons: Prithi Chand, Mahadev and Guru Arjan.

Guru Ram Das died on 1 September 1581, in the city of Amritsar, Punjab.

Of his three sons, Guru Ram Das chose Arjan, the youngest, to succeed him as the fifth Sikh Guru. The choice of successor, as throughout most of the history of Sikh Guru successions, led to disputes and internal divisions among the Sikhs. The elder son of Guru Ram Das named Prithi Chand is remembered in the Sikh tradition as vehemently opposing Guru Arjan, creating a faction Sikh community which the Sikhs following Guru Arjan called as Minas (literally, "scoundrels"), and is alleged to have attempted to assassinate young Hargobind. However, alternate competing texts written by the Prithi Chand led Sikh faction offer a different story, contradict this explanation on Hargobind's life, and present the elder son of Guru Ram Das as devoted to his younger brother Guru Arjan. The competing texts do acknowledge disagreement and describe Prithi Chand as having become the Sahib Guru after the martyrdom of Guru Arjan and disputing the succession of Guru Hargobind, the grandson of Guru Ram Das.