Later Mughals v1.c6.s15: Sec. 15.—The Sikhs, Their Origin and History.
Later Mughals v1.c6.s15
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Sec. 15.—The Sikhs, Their Origin and History.
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Baba or Guru Nanak, sometimes called Nanak Shah,* was born in Baisakh 1526 (April-May 1469 A.D.) at Talwandi, now called Nanakana, a village situated on the river Ravi, 35 miles south-west of Lahor, in the Sarakpur sub-division of the Lahor district. His father's name was Kalu, a Khatri, of the Bedi sub-division, and by occupation the *patwari* or account-keeper of the village. Nanak was a boy of a contemplative nature but little fitted to cope with the ordinary duties of village life. He allowed his father's buffaloes to break into a field; he sowed his seed and left the crop to be destroyed by cattle; he was sent out to trade and spent the capital on *faqirs*. In short, no work could be got out of him. His parents came to the conclusion that he was deficient in sense. He was next tried as an assistant to his brother-in-law Jai Ram of Sultanpur,* a grain agent in the service of Nawab Daulat Khan Lodi. Here his accounts fell into disorder and he left the Nawab's service. This occurred at Sultanpur. From this time began his career as a religious teacher, his first saying to attract attention being "There is no Hindu and no Musalman". The rest of his life was passed in wandering about the country, but from this point facts are so mingled with fables that it is impossible to disentangle them. As Dr. Trumpp says, there is nothing in what is told about him that might not be applied to every Hindu religious mendicant. He seems to have consorted freely with Muham-madans, particularly with the successors of Shaikh Farid, known as *Ganj-i-shakkar*, whose tomb is at Pak Patan (or Ajodhan), south of Lahor. Some writers† have even gone to the length of classing him as a Muhammadan and not a Hindu innovator. Nanak died in 1538 at Kartarpur in the Jalandhar Duab, [on the Ravi, 5 miles from Kalanur.]
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∗ Baba, 'grandfather', a name of respect given to *faqirs*. Guru, 'spiritual guide or teacher'. Shah, 'king', the appellation of Muhammadan *faqirs*.
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† F. Pincott in *Hughes' Dictionary of Islam*, 583—596.
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Nanak had been married to the daughter of another patwari, and had by her two sons. But he did not live long with her, and instead of nominating one of his sons he named as his successor his disciple Lahina, a Tihun Khatri, to whom he had given the name of Angad.‡ This Guru, a totally unlettered man, took up his residence at Khadur, on the banks of the Bias. There he died on the 6th March 1552, having named as his successor Amardas, a Bhalla Khatri, born in 1479§ at Vasarka in the district of Amritsar. When he became Guru he removed to Govindwal, where he made a great well, with eighty-four steps down to the water, round which every year a great mela or gathering is still held. He died on the 14th May 1574, leaving as his successor his son-in-law Ramdas, a Khatri of the Sodhi clan, born at the village of Guru Chak. Ramdas derived a large income from the voluntary offerings of his disciples, which he devoted to the restoration of an old tank that he called Amritsar (Nectar-tank), building in the middle of it a temple called Har-mandar (the temple of Hari). The town which sprang up round the tank was known at first as Ramdaspur, but gradually the name Amritsar superseded all others. This well-known city, the spiritual centre of the Sikh religion, lies 32 miles east of Lahor. Tradition asserts that the land was granted to the Guru by the Emperor Akbar, nor is this improbable. The word chak in the revenue language of Upper India means a slice or portion of the village area. A piece of land detached and given to a faqir would naturally be known as Chak Guru or Guru Chak. In Browne's map, prepared about 1787, it still bears that name, as well as the modern one of Amritsar. Ramdas died on the 3rd March 1581.
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∗ No doubt this is the Sultanpur in the Jalandhar Duab, the then residence of the faujdar of Baith Jalandhar. [Macauliffe, i. lxx.]
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‡ Angad literally means 'giving one's limbs or body,' or, (Mac. i. 185) 'produced from the body.' Kadur is about 40 miles east of Lahor; Angad was born at Harike [ii. 1.] [J. S.]
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§ Irvine gives 1509 as the year of his birth. I have followed Macauliffe.
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The next Guru was Arjun, the son of Ramdas. With him the hereditary succession began which continued to the end and added greatly to the wealth and influence of the later Gurus, whom the Sikhs grew gradually to look upon as their actual sovereigns. Another momentous change arose in Arjun's time; he was an active and enterprising man and the first Guru who meddled with politics. Moreover, his father Ramdas having provided in Amritsar a holy rallying place Arjun undertook to give them sacred scriptures. He busily collected the verses of his predecessors, added many of his own, and completed the work with extracts from the popular writings of previous saints, Kabir the weaver of Magahar in the Basti district, and others, calling the whole by the name of Granth or ‘The Book.’* Being composed in their mother tongue, it was intelligible to the vulgar, who knew nothing of the Sanskrit in which the Brahmans veiled their holy writings. The sixth, seventh and eighth Gurus added nothing to the Sikh scriptures.
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ii. 30. Ramdas was born in the portion of the city of Lahor called Chuni Mandi. (Ibid, 87.) [J. S.]
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∗ Arjun's Granth is usually called the first or Adi Granth, to distinguish it from Guru Govind's or the Daswan Padshah di Granth, (Book of the Tenth Sovereign).
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Another of Arjun's acts was of very great importance to the body of which he was the head. His predecessors had no income beyond the fluctuating voluntary offerings of their disciples. Arjun substituted for these a sort of tithe or tax to be received by collectors deputed by him, who forwarded the money to him once a year. These men, whose oppressions figure largely in the later tradition history, were known as *masand*, which Dr. Trumpp states to be a corruption of the Arabic word *masnad* in its meaning of a prop or support, and metaphorically, a deputy.* Guru Arjun laid aside the garb of a holy man and adopted the state of a grandee. He also traded on a great scale. Altogether, he is proved to have been a man of great originality as an organizer, and in his time the Sikh community increased quickly and spread far and wide over the Panjab. We have very vague unsatisfactory accounts of Guru Arjun's death, but we know that it took place at Lahor in 1606. Apparently he died from ill-treatment while a prisoner in the hands of the Emperor Jahangir, his offence being a participation in the rebellion of Prince Khusrau. [See Macauliffe, iii. 92-100.]
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From this time the accounts we have become more and more conflicting and obscure.† On Arjun's death his brother Pirthi Mal disputed the succession with his son, the youthful Har Govind. The former was soon deserted and the latter recognized as the true successor. Har Govind was a man of warlike spirit and addicted to hunting, was surrounded by armed followers, and kept eight hundred horses in his stable. He took service under the Emperor Jahangir, but appropriating the pay of his soldiers and refusing to liquidate the fine imposed on his father Arjun, he was made a prisoner and kept in the fortress of Gwaliyar for twelve years. After Jahangir's death, which happened in October 1627, he was employed by Shah Jahan, but soon resigned and raised a petty revolt.* The imperialists having taken Ramdas-pur, Har Govind fled to Kartarpur. Here he was attacked by Painda Khan Afghan, an imperial commander. The Guru gained the day and Painda Khan was slain. The Guru and his Sikhs then advanced to Bhagwara near Lahor, but meeting with resistance fled again to the hills. Finally Har Govind made his home at Kiratpur near Anandpur, a place on the upper Satlaj in the hill State of Kahlur, and there died on the 10th March 1645. This Guru, with no taste for meditation, was a man of war, his disciples (Sikhs) were now soldiers, the hope of booty attracting the sturdy Jat peasantry to his standards in ever-increasing numbers. Their expeditions were as yet on a limited scale and seem to have been treated by the short-sighted local governors with more or less of contempt.
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∗ *Cf.* the title of *Masnad-i-ala* given to the highest ministers and nobles in the Pathan States of Northern India in the 16th century. [J. Sarkar.] Mac. ii. 271, citing the *Dabistan*.
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† Dr. Trumpp says (lxxxiii, note 1) "The Sikh accounts are frequently contradictory and dictated by prejudice, or hatred against the Muhammadans. The part of their history requires as yet a careful critical sifting, as the Sikhs themselves have no idea of historical truth." [W. Irvine.] Macauliffe gives the Sikh accounts of the last four Gurus in his volumes iv and v. [J. S.]
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Passing over his four surviving sons Har Govind transmitted his leadership to his grandson Har Rai, son of his eldest son Gurditta. The new Guru, a wise and sensible man, was of a more peaceable disposition than his grandfather. The only public act of importance recorded as done by him was his joining the standard of Dara Shukoh, son of Shah Jahan, when that Prince fled to Lahor in order to continue his contest for the throne with his younger brother, Aurangzeb Alamgir, As soon as the issue of the contest was clear, and Dara Shukoh had been overthrown, Har Rai prudently returned to his home at Kiratpur, sending his eldest son, Ram Rai, to make his excuses to the conqueror. Alamgir received Ram Rai in a kindly manner, but thought fit to retain him as a hostage. The Guru lived in peace at Kiratpur and died there in 1661.
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∗ The details of these struggles, solely from the Sikh sources, are given in Mac. iv. 81—214.
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Har Rai had two sons, Ram Rai and Har Kishan. In selecting his successor, he passed over the elder son and transmitted his office to Har Kishan. Ram Rai, then a hostage in the custody of the Emperor Alamgir, resented this exclusion from the headship of the sect. He referred the question to the Emperor's decision. Har Kishan was summoned to Court, and had not been long at Dihli when he died from an attack of small-pox. This was in the year 1664. When his followers called on him to name his successor, he placed five pice and a cocoanut on the ground (the usual tokens of installation) and uttered the enigmatical declaration "Go, your Guru is in the village of Bakala." This village is near Kiratpur. [Mac. iv. 329.]
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A schism now arose. Ram Rai, the elder brother of Har Kishan, claimed the succession. Another party preferred Tegh Bahadur, second son of Har Govind the sixth Guru, then resident at Bakala village. In the end Ram Rai was disavowed, and abandoning the struggle he retired to the valley (dun) between the Sewaliks and the Himalaya mountains, bounded on the west by the Jamuna and the east by the Ganges. Here he founded a sect of his own, called after him the Ram Raiyas. The town which sprang up took its name of Dehra from the temple founded by him, and the whole valley became known as the Dehra Dun. There is still a Sikh community at Dehra.
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On his appointment as Guru, Tegh Bahadur left his home at Bakala and made his abode six miles from Kiratpur on some ground bought from the Rajah of Kahlur, calling the place Anandpur, (1665). Tegh Bahadur, for some unexplained reason,* now left the Panjab and took refuge at Patna on the Ganges, in Bihar, where he is supposed to have lived for a few months and then accompanied Kumar Ram Singh Kachhwaha to Assam. At Patna, during his absence, his son Govind was born (1666).
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Tegh Bahadur returned at length to Anandpur. Sikh tradition asserts that he lived the harmless life of a wandering devotee. Apparently he was seized at Agra and by Alamgir's orders transferred to the capital. After many efforts to convert him to the Muhammadan faith, he was tortured and executed at Dihli in the year 1675 A.D.* One of this Guru's crimes, in the Emperor's eyes, may have been the style of address adopted by his disciples, who had begun to call their leader Sacha Padshah or the 'True King'. This title was readily capable of a twofold interpretation; it might be applied as the occasion served in a spiritual or a literal sense. Its use was extremely likely to provoke the mistrust of a ruler even less suspicious by nature than Alamgir.
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∗ The enmity of Dhir Mal and the Sodhis (acc. to Mac. iv. 338).