The Sikhs (Gordon)/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
GURU GOVIND SINGH, FOUNDER OF THE KHALSA, THE SIKH COMMONWEALTH.
Young Govind, who became the tenth Guru on the death of his father, Tegh Bahadur, in 1675, being surrounded by enemies, retired to the Himalayas at the headwaters of the Jumna, and there lived for twenty years, devoting himself to study and the chase. At the age of thirty-five he issued from his retreat, having matured his plans for reforming the Sikhs and making them a separate people. The violent death of his father and the deep sense of the wrongs of his persecuted race resolved him to make them prominent as a nation. He summoned the dispersed Sikhs from all parts to join him: crowds obeyed. The time suited him, the bigot Emperor Aurangzeb having commenced a crusade against Hindu and Sikh alike. He called upon his disciples by all that was dear to them, in defence of their faith and in the name of their martyred Guru to exchange their rosaries and ploughs for swords: now was the time to raise their fallen race and to overthrow the hated Mahomedans, who were bent on subverting their religion. There could be no religious freedom while the Moslem ruled the land.
He then announced that converts to the Sikh faith would be admitted from all tribes, and caste abolished. In order to effect this he revived in the form of baptism an old initiatory ceremony called the pahal, which had ceased to be observed during the persecutions, administering it first to five of his most resolute disciples who had given marked proof of devotion. After bathing and putting on clean garments they were seated side by side, each with his sword girded on. With a two-edged dagger the Guru stirred a mixture of sugar-and-water in an iron dish, reciting over it verses in praise of God.[1] Some of this they drank, part was poured on their heads, and the rest sprinkled on their faces. Then patting them with his hand, he commanded them to say, "The Khalsa of the Vah Guru, victory to the Vah Guru." They were then hailed as "Singhs" or lions of their race, and declared to be the Khalsa—the select, the purified, God's own—the Sikh brotherhood or commonwealth, which he foretold would grow up as a forest of trees firmly rooted, multiplying their leaves, become a nation and rule the land. Govind then took the pahal from their hands in the same manner and exclaimed, "The Khalsa arose from the Guru and the Guru from the Khalsa. They are the mutual protectors of each other." All the rest of the disciples present were similarly baptised and declared Singhs. The Guru then announced that wherever five Sikhs should be assembled together, it should be considered as if the Guru was himself present; that those who wished to see the Guru would see him in the Khalsa. From this time he changed his name to Govind Singh, and he added "Singh" to his baptised followers' names, an affix which up till then was exclusively assumed by the Rajputs, the first military class of the Hindus, who alone were entitled to carry arms.
This baptismal rite is observed to this day—administered when five or more Sikhs are present, and not before the attainment of years of discretion.
The members of the Khalsa were required to carry arms and to salute one another with "The Khalsa is of the Lord Guru, victory attend the Lord!" as an acknowledgment of obligation to the brotherhood. In order to mark them as a select body who should be known by outward signs, it was declared that every true Sikh must always have five things with him, their names all commencing with the letter k—namely, kes (long hair of the head: the Sikh must never cut his hair or beard); kangi (comb), to secure the hair tied up in a knot on the top of the head; kachh (breeches reaching to the knee), kard (knife), and kirpan (sword). Rules of conduct were also enjoined by which they were to be known to all the world. All was designed to give the Sikhs a distinct national character in opposition to the ways of other people, and to keep alive a sense of duty and profession of faith. Hindus and Mahomedans are much given to shaving heads and beards: among the Scythians and ancient Hindus shaving the head was an infamous punishment. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate; take the pahal of the Khalsa," was Govind's call to the Sikhs. "I bow with love and devotion to the Holy Sword,"[2] was his address to the sword, by which religious liberty was to be won; and his prayer enjoined to every Singh, "Grant, O God, that I may never hesitate to perform good and meritorious deeds, nor flee from my enemy in fear when I go to fight with him with the determination and certainty of victory. When the period of life may draw to its close on the field of battle, may I die like a hero. Let us prove our loyalty to our sovereign and master, and leave our life and death to God." His definition of the true Sikh was he who never fears though often overcome. Personal courage in the fight for the cause was to be the highest of virtues, cowardice the basest of crimes. Neither loss of life nor loss of property in maintaining their cause was to be lamented.
Govind's next move was to issue orders that every Sikh house inhabited by four adult males should contribute two for service under him. In a short time 80,000 men were gathered round him. In 
GOVIND SINGH'S ARMED DISCIPLES.
The Early Soldiers of the Khalsa.
addressing them he commenced by praising God as the Omnipotent, Almighty, Invincible, and Merciful, who must be worshipped in truthfulness and sincerity, and that no material resemblance must degrade Him. He could only be beheld by the eye of faith in the general body of the Khalsa. All Sikhs must be united in one chain of brotherhood. "Ye Sikhs are all brothers, all equal; there must be no caste among you, you must all be equal, no man greater than the other. All must eat together and drink from the same cup. Caste must be forgotten, idols destroyed, the Brahmanical thread broken, the graves of saints abandoned, Korans and Purans torn to pieces." The only way to salvation was through the pahal [lit. gate] of the true Guru.
He appealed to the eternal human instinct of equality, liberty, and brotherhood, broke for ever with caste prejudices, and received into the Khalsa people of all classes who had hitherto been debarred from bearing arms. The Singhs of the Khalsa felt themselves at once elevated to rank and equality with the proud martial Rajputs. Personal pride and vigour were infused into them, and Sikhism knitted them together in the brotherhood of the Sword. Each became great in his own eyes, as forming one of the select Khalsa whom the Guru regarded as his own. The contagious momentum of enthusiasm created by Govind Singh's irresistible appeal brought thousands of the lower orders to receive the pahal and enter the Khalsa. The pride and prejudices of the Brahmans and Rajputs among his followers were offended by this levelling up of caste to such a degree that many of them left him, but he knew that his great strength lay among the Jat peasantry, who welcomed the brotherhood. The disciples who did not acknowledge these innovations of Govind simply called themselves Sikhs, without adding to their names the title of "Singh."
He now disciplined his followers to some extent, exercised them in the use of arms, organised then into troops and bands, and built forts along the skirt of the hills between the Jumna and the Sutlej where their retreats lay. At the end of the century he felt his power equal to the hazard of a rebellion against the Imperial Government. He routed the hill rajas who opposed him, and defeated the Moghul troops sent to aid them, but the Emperor, roused to greater action, sent a powerful army, which eventually scattered the Sikhs for a time. His mother with his two youngest sons, mere boys, escaped to Sirhind, where they fell into the hands of the Mahomedan governor. One day as they were sitting in his durbar he kindly said to them, "Boys, what would you do if I gave you your liberty?" The boys answered, "We would collect our Sikhs, tight with you, and put you to death." The Governor said, "If you were defeated in the fight, what would you do then?" to which they replied, "We would collect our army again, and either kill you or be killed." The Governor, enraged at this spirited answer, ordered them to be taken away. They were buried alive under a wall, and Govind's mother died of grief.
The Guru himself was hard pressed by the Moghul troops, and held a post with a small devoted band of his men against overwhelming numbers, indignantly refusing to surrender and embrace the Mahomedan faith. His two surviving sons and their mother were killed by his side. Escaping with five followers, he made his way to the jungles and desert south of the Sutlej. He met his adversities with undaunted resolution; submitted to the will of God, and rallied his Sikhs round him again, saying, "The affairs of this sorrowful world are transitory. God makes a thing and unmakes a thing; who are we to grumble since the rein is in His hand? Rely then firmly on His will, for He is the Almighty; what are we poor mortals before Him?" His disciples, seeing their Guru so firm and resolute, recommenced fighting with the enemies of their faith, and defeated the imperial troops sent to disperse them, when great numbers fell on both sides. They were now left there undisturbed for some time, during which thousands of the Jat peasantry joined the Khalsa.
Later on Govind Singh returned to his old retreat near the Sutlej, passing by Sirhind, the scene of the murder of his two little sons. His Sikhs implored him for orders to burn the town. He said that the death of his sons would not be avenged by the destruction of the town, which had done no harm, but that for the future every true Sikh who passed that way should pull down two bricks and throw them into the river in detestation of the crime committed on innocent children. This act has been observed by the faithful Govindi Sikhs through the many years; but little remains now, as the railway contractor some years ago appeared on the scene and carried away the mass of old Sirhind as ballast on which to lay the iron track—the iron made sacred by the martial Guru, and which every true Singh was commanded to wear always in some shape, either as a sword, a small hatchet, or as a bangle. The Sikh now in the railway carriage has the satisfaction of crushing under the wheels the ruins of the cursed city of Sirhind. Towards the close of the reign of his enemy Aurangzeb, Govind Singh remained in peace. He felt it a duty to save all that could be saved of the Sikhs for the time, to recuperate the race, and enable them to emerge more powerful after so much tribulation, as he no doubt saw that the Emperor's bigoted intolerance towards Hindus had weakened the Moghul power. In the meantime he was gaining many disciples, and had given them confidence in fighting. In a letter to the Emperor he wrote, "Beware! I will teach the sparrows to strike the eagle to the ground," an allusion to his inspiring the peasantry with valour and ambition.
Aurangzeb while in the Deccan felt nervous about the Khalsa, and summoned Govind Singh to his Court. He replied in a letter, setting forth the calamities and persecution to which he had been subjected by the Imperial Government. He had been rendered childless and homeless; he had lost all his family. The day of reckoning would at last come when the oppressor would have to account before the Creator for the wrongs done by him; that for himself he despised death and was weary of life; that he feared no one and was willing to die, but that if he was killed his death would be avenged. The Emperor did not resent this letter, but again desired the Guru to come to him, in which case he would be kindly received. He accordingly set out in 1707 to visit Aurangzeb, but on his way he heard of the Emperor's death. The new Emperor, Bahadur Shah, received Govind Singh with distinction, and as he had to contend with the younger brother for the crown, invited his aid and gave him a command of 5000 horse in his army in the Deccan. While there he was mortally wounded by a Pathan assassin. He left no successor; he was the last lineal descendant of the Gurus. He said the appointed ten Gurus of the Sikhs had done their mission, the dispensation was ended, and that he in-trusted his beloved Khalsa to the care of God, "the never-dying." "The 'Granth' shall support you in all troubles in this world and be a true guide to the hereafter. The Gurus shall dwell in the society of the Khalsa, and wherever there shall be five Sikhs gathered together there the true Guru shall be present also." They must have "firm belief in one God, and look to the 'Granth' as His inspired law." Feeling faint, he said to his disciples, "Bathe me, put on me new clothes, and arm me with all my weapons. When my breath departs do not take off these clothes, but burn me with them and with all my weapons."[3] He was placed on the funeral pyre dressed and armed, and expired in the performance of his devotions, his last words being, "O Holy God, Thy mercy is such that though I have not perceived Thee by touch of hand, yet have I fully recognised Thee." He died in 1708 at Nader, on the banks of the Godavari river, in the forty-eighth year of his age, having reigned as Guru for nearly thirty-three years.
The rule of the Gurus had now lasted for two hundred years, and the reformed religion established by them had taken firm root among the Jats. The dry bones of an oppressed peasantry were stirred into life, and the institution of the Sikh baptismal rite at the hands of a few disciples anywhere—in a place of worship, in the house, or by the roadside—brought about the more full and widespread development of the new faith. In Govind were united the qualities of religious leader, king, warrior, and lawgiver. He was the right man for the needs of the Sikhs of his day. He devoted them to steel, and hence the worship of the Sword. He imbued them with a warlike spirit, and made them a people separated from their Indian countrymen in political constitution and ambition as well as in religious tenets, leading them to reject caste and to abandon the institutes of Hinduism for a fraternity of arms and military daring. Faced by the intolerance and persecution of the Moghul Government, the time had gone for the preservation or diffusion of the Sikh faith in Nanak's spirit of meekness and humility. Nanak laid the broad foundations of religious reform, on which Govind built his militant doctrine to suit the changed times. He wished to infuse his own spirit into Nanak's 'Granth,' as he said it only instilled into the minds of the Sikhs a spirit of meekness and humility; but the guardians of the book signed by Arjun the compiler refused to let this be done, so Govind decided to make an additional book for his followers which should rouse their military valour and inflame them to deeds of courage. He completed it in 1696, calling it the 'Granth of the tenth King,' or reign, as the rule of the Gurus is termed—the 'Granth of the Govindi Sikhs,' as distinguished from the 'Adi Granth,' the first book. In it he treats of the knowledge of God and the way to salvation; urges the necessity of leading an active and useful life, giving lofty ideas of social freedom and rousing his disciples to deeds of valour, military glory, and national ascendancy. His 'Book of Guidance' contains the principles by which the Singhs were to adhere to the commands of the Guru in all affairs of life and conduct, and to preserve their separation from all other sects. He instituted the "Guru Mata," or National Council, to which all Sikhs were admitted and given the opportunity to express their opinions on political matters. This with the 'Granth' for guidance formed the Sikh constitution.
By converting a horde of undisciplined peasants into enthusiastic soldiers animated with religious fervour, by inuring them to 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.
- ↑ The tradition is that as the water was being poured into the iron dish, Govind's wife happened to pass by carrying five kinds of sugared sweetmeats. She was hailed by him as auspicious. He took some sugar from her hands and mixed it in the baptismal water.
- ↑ Herodotus refers to the worship of the Sword which prevailed among the Scythian Getæ.
- ↑ The ancient Scythian custom.