A History of Agriculture in India v2.c87.s3.8

v2.c87.s3.8

On the Baisakhi of 1699 he convened an assembly of his followers at Anandpur and created the Khalsa. He declared at a congregation that he wanted to sacrifice a man. At his call five men volunteered. They belonged to different castes and were from different parts of India, viz. Daya Ram, a Khatri from Lahore; Dharam Das, a Jat from Rohtak; Mohkam Chand, a washerman from Dwaraka in Gujarat; Himmat, a water-carrier from Jagannath Puri in Orissa; and Sahib Chand, a barber from Bidar in Deccan. The Guru baptised them with water stirred with a sword. They were told to renounce their ancestral occupations, family ties, old religious beliefs, rituals and customs. Thus a casteless society, the Khalsa, was created. As Cunningham observed, "through his baptism of the sword, Gobind roused the dormant energies of a vanquished people and filled them with a lofty, although fitful, longing for social freedom and national ascendancy, the proper adjuncts of that purity of worship which had been preached by Nanak. Gobind saw what was yet vital and he relumed it with Promethean fire."² It was thus that the timid Hindus riven by caste dissensions were transformed into warriors who suffered fearsome persecutions and ultimately overthrew the tyrannical government of the Mughals.