KIRPĀL DĀS, MAHANT, an Udāsī prelate, was putting up with Gurū Gobind Siṅgh at Pāoṇṭā Sāhib at the time of the commencement of the battle of Bhaṅgāṇī, fought between the troops of hill chiefs and those of Gurū Gobind Siṅgh, in 1688. As his followers, not given to fighting ways, fled, Mahant Kirpāl Dās stayed back and joined action, flourishing his heavy mace or club. He was totally inexperienced in the art of war. Yet he engaged the Paṭhān chief, Hayāt Khān, who dealt out a heavy blow with his sword. Kirpāl Dās received it on his club. Then rising in his stirrups and shouting vociferously Sat Srī Akāl, he smote Hayāt Khān's head with his wooden truncheon so mightily that his skull was crushed. The scene is described by Gurū Gobind Siṅgh in the Bachitra Nāṭak in an eloquent simile. He wrote: "Mahant Kirpāl, raging, lifted his club and struck the fierce Hayāt Khān on the head, upon which his brains spilt forth as butter flowed from the Gopī's pitcher broken by Kṛṣṇa."

         Mahant Kirpāl Dās was later keeper of the Udāsī ḍerā at village Hehar in Ludhiāṇā district. He was visited by Gurū Gobind Siṅgh after the battle of Chamkaur. He, as a mark of respect, gave his shoulder to the palanquin on which the Gurū was carried to the next village of Rājoānā.