Dhir Mal and the stolen book.
Guru Arjan's original manuscript of the Adi Granth ended up with a rival branch of the family, who refused to hand it over and used it as a claim to the Guruship. The Panth carried on with copies, and the Kartarpuri manuscript is still held by that family's descendants — the tradition tells this without softening it.
The Kartarpuri Bir — the manuscript Bhai Gurdas wrote for Guru Arjan in 1604 — passed into the hands of Dhir Mal, Guru Hargobind's grandson, who used possession of it as a claim to the Guruship and refused to hand it over. Accounts of what followed differ and are unflattering in every version: Sikhs seized it, and Guru Tegh Bahadur ordered it returned. The manuscript remains with Dhir Mal's descendants at Kartarpur in Punjab and is not freely available for scholarly examination, which has kept a textual-criticism argument alive for a century about how it relates to other early recensions. What the Panth did instead is the notable part — it carried on with copies and, in 1705, Guru Gobind Singh dictated a fresh recension at Damdama Sahib adding his father's hymns. A tradition that could have fractured over a relic decided the words were the point.
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