The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c19.78

v4.c19.78

The early Gurūs won the reverence of the Mughul emperors by their saintly peaceful lives. But their successors aspired to a temporal domination for themselves and made military discipline take the place of moral self-reform and spiritual growth. Under Arjan, the fifth Gurū (1581–1606), the number of Sikh converts greatly increased, and with them the Gurū’s wealth. He organised a permanent source of income: his agents were stationed in every city from Kābul to Dacca where there was a Sikh to collect the tithes and offerings of the faithful and transmit this spiritual tribute to the central treasury at Amritsar. The Gurū lived like a king and was girt round by a body of courtiers called *masands* (a Hindi corruption of the Muhammadan title *masnad-i-a‘la*). At the same time he completed the two sacred tanks at Amritsar, built the first temple for enshrining the Holy Book (*Ādi Granth*)—on the site where the Golden Temple now stands—and gave the final shape to their Scriptures by compiling a volume of hymns from the works of the principal Indian saints. But in the last year of his life he made the mistake of blessing the banners of Khusrav, the rival of Jahāngīr for the Mughul throne, and even gave him money help. On the defeat of the rebel, Jahāngīr fined the Gurū two lakhs of rupees for his collusion with treason. The Gurū refused to pay and died under torture, which was the usual punishment of revenue defaulters in those days (1606).