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THE SIKHS.
warfare, and by his new ordinances moulding them into the distinct community of the Khalsa,—the Commonwealth bonded together to fight until they triumphed,—Govind Singh contributed much to the weakening of the Mahomedan power at a time when the Emperor Aurangzeb, by his bigotry towards Hindus, was paving the way for the disintegration of his Empire. Under his strong hand the Sikhs rose by a feeling of nationality among a people who had none. He well and truly laid the corner-stone of that nation which Ranjit Singh a hundred years later, by the force of the religious bond of the Khalsa, raised in the Punjab on the ruins of the Moghul Empire, emancipating the land of his ancestors from thraldom and persecution.
