The Ādi Granth, or the Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs (1877) · 28

(■Er?5S7 fRUft 7'^ stt $■ *)yyJ> yoKd thi jktv^ ^tt^ 3 S3 vr^ 3^r5 \r3 tr^) are by no

The Guru cannot have been so ignorant of the proceedings of bis Masands as he pretended to be; for he must have known that such large sums of money, as he was continually demanding and spending on his troops, were not fortlicoming willingly, especially from a poor popuhilion. It must surprise every one, that the Mugul Government did not stop tliis secret ta.\-gatliering of the Sikh Gurus, as we can liardly assume that the authorities were kept in ignorance of it.

xoiv SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE OTHER SIKH GURUS. GOVIND SINGH.

After Govind Singh had settled his affairs at home, he marched for the Dckhan, where he had been appointed to the command of five thousand horse.' On the march there he fell in ■with a Pathan, who was the grandson of that Paindah Ehan with whom Guru Ilar-govind had fought. The Guru showed to this man great affection, and engaged him in his service and took him with him.' One day the Guru began to mock at him; when he perceived that the Pathan paid no heed to his taunts, he began to put him to shame, saying: "If the son (and) grandson, whose father (and) grandfather have been killed by somebody, goes to him in order to get his subsistence from him, say, what shameless man must he he? " The Pathan answered: " If a man remains with the enemy of his father (and) grandfather and gets his subsistence from him, he must be a very shameless, nose-cut person." The Guru continued: " If a Pathan remain with the enemy of his father (and) grandfather, what dost thou consider him? " He answered: "I do not consider him a Pathan, but a weaver."^ The Guru said further: "If thou wouldst meet with the enemy of thy father (and) grandfather and a weapon would be in thy hand, say, what wouldst thou do?" He answered: "I would not let him live." The Pathan wondered why the Guru asked him such things and reflected on it. He recollected that Govind Singh was descended from Har-Govind, with whom the battle of Kartarpur was fought; he felt ashamed in his mind and resolved to take his revenge at a given opportunity. One day a Sikh brought to the Guru from abroad a very beautiful dagger. The Guru seeing its brightness and its edge was much pleased with it and kept it always with him. One day he asked the Pathan by how many thrusts of this dagger a man might be killed? He answered, that one thrust of it was enough. The Guru went on to say: " Well, if he, by whom thy father and grandfather may have been killed, would come before thee and this dagger were in thy hand, what wouldst thou do with him?" The Pathan on hearing this got very angry in his heart, but could say nothing. Shortly after the Guru fell asleep and all his door-keepers went to their own tent. The Pathan, who had remained sitting near him, took gently the. dagger out of the hand of the Guru and thrust it into his belly. When he thought that he was dead, he rose and fled. The Guru, who was not dead, on seeing the wounds of the dagger, cried out: "0 brother Sikhs, I am dead!" All the Sikhs assembled together and running in the four directions they seized that Pathan and brought him back to the Guru. It is said, that the Guru praised the bravery of the Pathan and set him free, telling the Sikhs, who were overcome by grief on seeing the wounds of the Guru, that they should not be sorrowful, for this was ordered so by the Lord; the Pathan had not struck him (treacherously), but he had himself provoked him to kill him by putting him to shame.'

' The Siklis are now loath to concede this appointment of Govind Singh. In the Sikha de raj di vithia it is only said: f^ fsjTJ Jff^^ fjRUf \[3Ti $^ % ^?5 ^ f?IWT: one day Govind Singh went on a journey to tlie south. Govind Singh can have been only a short time in the Deklian, others e,\tend his stay there. Tlie chronology of these events requires a. careful research, whicli can only be carried out at the hands of more trustworthy materials, whicli have as yet to be searched for.

* There is a Sakhi in the " Sdkhl Book of the description of Guru Govind Singh's religion and doctrine," translated into English by Sirdar Attar Singh, chief of Bliadour, Benares (printed at tlie Medical Hall Press), 1873, which gives some more details al)out the story in question (see Sakhi 98, p. 198 sqq.). It is stated there, that the grandson of Paindali Klian saluted the Guru in a Darbar held by him, having been sent by his mother, who considered the Guru as a prophet. Tiie Guru presented liim with five gold Mnhars and ordered him to come every day to his house to play witli him at chess. For this service he receive<l five Rupees per diem.

' The -rtwio, or weaver, is considered in India a coward.

* Cunningliain gives a somewhat different story, p. 79, following MacGregor in this point (vol. i. p. 99). Malcolm, who is here very brief, seems to liave bad tlie same tradition Ijefore him, which we have given more in detail, following the SikhS de raj di vithia, p. 70 si/tj. In this hook however a great chronological blunder

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE OTHEE SIKH GURUS. GOVIND SIXGH. xcv

The wounds were sown up and healed again, but it seems that the Guru was bent on dying, One day he bent his bow! with great force and by so doing the stitches of the wounds were broken and the blood began to flow. The surgeon bound up his wounds again, but the Guru obtained no rest. He mounted a Palkl and travelled towards the south. When ho had arrived at a town named Nader (S%W)>' the Guru became greatly exhausted by his wounds. He said to his Sikhs, that he saw that he would not live any longer, they should therefore stop in this place. When they were staying there for some days and his pain was not relieved, he said to his disciples, that they should give some alms, as medicines were no more of any use to him. The Sikhs brought together a great quantity of food of various kinds and feasted Brahmans and Saints and distributed in alms ornaments and clothes. The Guru felt that his dissolution was near at hand, and ordered his Sikhs to keep ready wood (for cremation) and a shroud. Having done so they all joined their hands and asked: "0 true Guru, whom will you seat, for the sake of our welfare, on the throne of the Guruship? " He answered: "As the nine Kings before me were at the time of their death seating another Guru on their throne, so shall I now not do; I have entrusted the whole society (of the disciples) to the bosom of the timeless, divine male. After me you shall everywhere mind the book of the Granth-sahib as your Guru; whatever you shall ask it, it will show to you. Whoever be my disciple, he shall consider the Granth as the form of the Guru, and whichever disciple wishes to have an interview with me, he shall make for one Eupee and a quarter, or for as much as he is able, Karah parsad; ' then opening the book and bowing his head he will obtain a reward equal to an interview with me." Having given them some other directions the Guru soon after became senseless. Meantime the disciples heaped up a pyre of sandal-wood and kept every other thing ready. One hour before he expired he said to the disciples: "Bathe me and put on me new clothes and give me all my weapons; when my breath departs, do not take off these clothes, but bum me with them and with all my weapons!"^ He then sat himself down upon the funeral pyre, and having meditated on the Supreme Lord, he uttered with his mouth and with love the following Savaiya:

Since I seized thy feet, I brought nothing else under (my) eye.

0 merciful Bam, the Puranas and the Qur'an teach various systems, I did not mind one

(of them). The Smriti, the Shastras and the Yedas, all teach many modifications, I did not recognize

one (of them). 0 disposer of happiness, bestow mercy (on me)! I did not say " I," all I recognized as " Thee." *

is committed, it being stated, that Nadir Shah sent his own physician from Dilli to look after tlie wounds of Govind Singh. Nadir Shah invaded India in 1738, whereas Govind Singh died in 1708. la tlie Sakhi quoted it is stated, that Lakha Singh ran after the boy and cut off his head.

' Nader is a town in the valley of the Godavery.

' o^^lvJ VBTT^. the offering up of 5^TvJ (a kind of sweetmeat, made of flour, ghi and sugar) to a holy person (as, for instance, the Guru), and tlien distributing it among the worshippers.

' This is confirmed by the Sakhi quoted: see p. 201.

* The original is (Sikha de raj di vithia, p. 81):

vrfs 3R "3^ tto 3 THi 3?^ wttf?jtff urnw i Tr»f ^H VTTTs ^t^t; w^ 7& W5 nrss? tj w^ i-

f?rf»p??-R33 %7 srit -sra t^ 7^ TPT ^ 7J tH^ I

?J^?}f?JV|T^ = Sansk. ^«|*y ifrjT, lie who holds liappiuess in his hands, an epitliet of Vishnu.

xcvi SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE OTHER SIKH GURUS. GOVIND SINGH.

Having_ uttered these verses he closed his eyes and expired a.d. 1708. All the Sikhs and saints, who from many parts were assembled there, raised the shout of Jaikar (Victory!) and sang a beautiful song and the eyes of many people were filled with tears on account of the separation of the Guru. Beautiful edifices were erected there, and in the midst of them all the shrine of the Guru, and round this some Dharm-salas, in which the Granth-sahib was deposited. To the town of Nader they gave the name of Abcal-nagar.' They put up many swords, shields, spears and steel discuses in that shrine, and the Sikh people, -who go there on pilgrimage, worship those weapons, as they believe that they belonged to Guru Govind Singh.

The object of his life Govind Singh could not carry out, though he tried to secure it even by a human sacrifice, and he died broken-hearted and weary of life far from the scenes of his exploits; but he has contributed a good share to the destruction of the Muhammadan power in India by his bloody struggles, inuring his Sikhs to a continual warfare, and moulding. them by his new ordinances into a distinct nation of fanatical soldiers, the Khalsa. A body containing such elements could not remain quiet; their course was prescribed to them, and they had indeed no other choice but to conquer or to be conquered. "We need therefore not wonder that the Sikhs, though repeatedly repulsed, soon succeeded in erecting their own sway on the ruins of the declining Muhammadan Empire.

' >Hyti*4 7^3,the immovable city; m H\i^ = »lfftfH?5, Saiisk. ^^rf^^^T- MacGregor (vol. i. p. 101) states that the Sikhs call it Aphullanuggur, a strange mistranscription; Cumiiiighani, History of the Sikhs, p. 394, writes it similarly UpcIuiUuniiggur.

The religious system of the Sikhs has been touched already by different writers, but in such general terms, that but little can be gathered from them. Even H. H. Wilson, in his " Sketch of the Eeligious Sects of the Hindus," has very cautiously handled this matter, and contented himself ■with oiFering a few short, though pertinent, remarks about it. All these authors had not read the Granth themselves, but received the information they gave from second hand; it is therefore partly defective, partly labouring under mistakes.

Nanak himself was not a speculative philosopher, who built up a concise system on scientific principles; he had not received a regular school-training, and uttered therefore his thoughts in a loose way, which are now scattered through the Grauth, and must first be patiently searched out and collected into a whole, before we can form an idea of his tenets.

Nanak himself was by no means an independent thinker, neither had he any idea of starting a new religious sect: he followed in all essential points the common Hindu philosophy of those days,' and especially his predecessor Kahir, who was at that time already a popular man in India, and whose writings, which were composed in the vulgar tongue, were accessible to the unlearned masses. This obligation, which Xanak and the following Sikh Gurus owe to Kabir, is acknow- ledged by the reception of a great portion of the verses of Xabir into the Sikh Granth itself. That also the writings of other famous Bhagats were known to and used by the Sikh Gurus, is sufficiently attested by the Granth, into which they were partly incorporated and thereby saved from oblivion.

The doctrines once uttered by Baba Xanak were taken up by the following Sikh Gurus without any perceptible deviation; and after the volume of the Granth had been collected by Guru Arjun, they were never called into question, the Granth being held sacred as an immediate divine revelation.