History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c48.s3: §8. Conflict of the Gurus with the Mughal Government.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c48.s3
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§8. Conflict of the Gurus with the Mughal Government.
v3.c48.s3.1
At the very end of his career, Arjun made the sole mistake of his life. Moved by compassion and entreaty, he in a weak moment blessed the banners of Khusrau, the rival of Jahangir for the Mughal throne, and even gave money help to that prince. On the defeat of the pretender, Jahangir fined the guru two lakhs of Rupees for his disloyalty to the king *de jure*. The Sikhs were willing to subscribe the amount; but the man of God forbade them, saying, "Whatever money I have, is for the poor, the friendless and the stranger." (iii. 92.) He regarded the fine as an unjust imposition, refused to pay it, and stoically endured imprisonment and torture, which were the usual punishments of revenue defaulters in those days. Worn out by being forced to sit in the burning sand of Lahor, he died in June 1606. This was clearly not a case of religious persecution, but merely the customary punishment of a political offender.
v3.c48.s3.2
With his son Har Govind (1606-1645), a new era began. He was a man of a less spiritual fibre than Arjun. "Unlike his father, Har Govind constantly trained himself in martial exercises and systematically turned his attention to the chase." Early in his pontificate, he began to enlist men and increase his bodyguard of 52 warriors till it became a small army. When the saintly old Sikh, Bhai Budha, remonstrated against this unspiritual passion, Har Govind replied, "I wear two swords as emblems of spiritual and temporal authority. In the guru's house religion and worldly enjoyment shall be combined." His retinue during his tours to places of pilgrimage was large enough to scare away holy men by suggesting that some Rajah had arrived! (Mac. iv. 4-5, 53.)
v3.c48.s3.3
Under the easy and good-natured Jahangir, Har Govind was fairly well treated by the imperial family, though he had to undergo twelve years' confinement in Gwalior fort to make him pay the balance of his father's fine. But the growing military strength and royal pomp of the guru and his worldly spirit and tastes made a conflict between him and the Government of the country inevitable, and it broke out after Shah Jahan's accession. When that Emperor was hawking near Amritsar, the guru entered the same area in pursuit of game, and his Sikhs quarrelled with the servants of the imperial hunt about a bird. The two parties came to blows, and in the end the imperialists were beaten off with slaughter. An army was sent against the audacious rebel, but it was routed with heavy loss, at Sangrana, near Amritsar, 1628. (Mac. iv. 80-98.)
v3.c48.s3.4
The victor's fame spread far and wide. "Many men came to enlist under the guru's banner. They said that no one else had power to contend with the Emperor."*
v3.c48.s3.5
Such an open defiance of imperial authority could not be tolerated near Lahor. Larger and larger armies were sent against the guru, and though he gained some successes at first, his house and property at Amritsar were, in the end, seized, and he was forced to take refuge at Kiratpur in the Kashmir hills beyond the reach of Mughal arms.†
v3.c48.s3.6
† *Dabistan*, 188. The Sikh accounts disguise the guru's defeat, but they can offer no explanation of his flight to the hills if he had been, as they allege, always victorious over the imperialists.
v3.c48.s3.7
Here he died in 1645, after investing his younger grandson, Har Rai, a boy of fourteen, as his successor. An elder grandson, named Dhir Mal, set up as guru in the Panjab plains, in alliance with the imperial Government, and kept possession of the original copy of the *Granth*, which had already attained to the veneration of a tutelary idol.
v3.c48.s3.8
Har Rai's pontificate (1645-1661) was uneventful. But Dara Shukoh had paid him visits of respect in the course of his general devotion to *sadhus*, and the guru had blessed the prince when a fugitive in the Panjab after the battle of Samugarh. Aurangzib summoned Har Rai to answer for his conduct. The guru sent his eldest son Ram Rai to Court, but that young man temporized and ingratiated himself with the Mughal, for which his father disinherited him. Har Rai died in 1661 after investing his second son, Har Krishan, as his successor. Ram Rai immediately proclaimed himself guru and claimed his father's heritage. Taking advantage of the disputed succession to the leadership of the Church, "the *masands* collected and kept the greater part of the offerings for themselves." (Mac., iv. 314-317.)
v3.c48.s3.9
∗ He had so completely sunk the character of a religious reformer in that of a conquering general, that he had no scruple in enlisting large bands of Afghan mercenaries. These afterwards deserted him, joined the imperial general, and attacked the guru.