Tempo:
SIKHISM UNDER GOBIND
CHAP. Ill
(51
Gobind was equally bold, systematic, and sanguine; 1675-1708. but it is not necessary to suppose him either an unscrupulous impostor or a self-deluded enthusiast. He thought that the minds of men might be wrought upon to great purposes, he deplored the corruption of the worid, he resented the tyranny which endangered his own life, and he believed the time had come for another teacher to arouse the latent energies of the human will. His memory was filled with the deeds of primaeval seers and heroes; his imagination dwelt on successive dispensations for the instruction of the world, and his mind was not perhaps untinged with a superstitious belief in his own earthly destiny. ^ In an extant and authentic composition,^ he traces his mortal and mode descent to ancient kings, and he extols the piety of his of presentimmediate parents which rendered them acceptable to ^^^ God. But his own unembodied soul, he says, reposed "^'^^i""in bliss, wrapt in meditation, and it murmured that it should appear on earth even as the chosen messenger of the Lord the inheritor of the spirit of Nanak, transmitted to him as one lamp imparts its flame to another.^ ^''^^
—
was in the ancient European world; and even the 'most Christian of poets' has used it without rebuke to justify the anger of a shade in Hades, and his own sympathy as a mortal man yet dwelling in the world it
:
'Oh guide beloved His violent death yet unavenged, said I, !
By any who are partners in his shame Made him contemptuous; therefore, as I think, He passed me speechless by, and doing so Hath made me more compassionate his fate.' Dante, Hell, xxix. Gary's translation.
The persuasion of being moved by something more than the mere human will and reason, does not necessarily imply delusion or insanity in the ordinary sense of the term, and the belief is everywhere traceable as one of the phenomena of 1
'mind', both in the creation of the poet and in the recorded experience of actual life. Thus the reader will remember the 'unaccustomed spirit' of Romeo, and the 'rebuked genius' of Macbeth, as well as the 'star' of Napoleon; and he will call to mind the 'martial transports' of Ajax infused by Neptune, as well as the 'daemon' of Socrates and the 'inspiration' of the holy men of Israel. - The Vichitr Natak, or Wondrous Tale, which forms a portion of the Daswin Padshah ka Granth, or Book of the Tenth King. ^ The reader will contrast what Virgil says of the shade of Rome's 'great emperor', with the devoted Quietism of the Indian reformer 'There mighty Caesar waits his vital hour, Impatient for the world, and grasps his promised power.' Aeneid, vi. He will also call to mind the sentiment of Milton, which the more ardent Gobind has greatly heightened. :
CHAP. Ill
(51
Gobind was equally bold, systematic, and sanguine; 1675-1708. but it is not necessary to suppose him either an unscrupulous impostor or a self-deluded enthusiast. He thought that the minds of men might be wrought upon to great purposes, he deplored the corruption of the worid, he resented the tyranny which endangered his own life, and he believed the time had come for another teacher to arouse the latent energies of the human will. His memory was filled with the deeds of primaeval seers and heroes; his imagination dwelt on successive dispensations for the instruction of the world, and his mind was not perhaps untinged with a superstitious belief in his own earthly destiny. ^ In an extant and authentic composition,^ he traces his mortal and mode descent to ancient kings, and he extols the piety of his of presentimmediate parents which rendered them acceptable to ^^^ God. But his own unembodied soul, he says, reposed "^'^^i""in bliss, wrapt in meditation, and it murmured that it should appear on earth even as the chosen messenger of the Lord the inheritor of the spirit of Nanak, transmitted to him as one lamp imparts its flame to another.^ ^''^^
—
was in the ancient European world; and even the 'most Christian of poets' has used it without rebuke to justify the anger of a shade in Hades, and his own sympathy as a mortal man yet dwelling in the world it
:
'Oh guide beloved His violent death yet unavenged, said I, !
By any who are partners in his shame Made him contemptuous; therefore, as I think, He passed me speechless by, and doing so Hath made me more compassionate his fate.' Dante, Hell, xxix. Gary's translation.
The persuasion of being moved by something more than the mere human will and reason, does not necessarily imply delusion or insanity in the ordinary sense of the term, and the belief is everywhere traceable as one of the phenomena of 1
'mind', both in the creation of the poet and in the recorded experience of actual life. Thus the reader will remember the 'unaccustomed spirit' of Romeo, and the 'rebuked genius' of Macbeth, as well as the 'star' of Napoleon; and he will call to mind the 'martial transports' of Ajax infused by Neptune, as well as the 'daemon' of Socrates and the 'inspiration' of the holy men of Israel. - The Vichitr Natak, or Wondrous Tale, which forms a portion of the Daswin Padshah ka Granth, or Book of the Tenth King. ^ The reader will contrast what Virgil says of the shade of Rome's 'great emperor', with the devoted Quietism of the Indian reformer 'There mighty Caesar waits his vital hour, Impatient for the world, and grasps his promised power.' Aeneid, vi. He will also call to mind the sentiment of Milton, which the more ardent Gobind has greatly heightened. :
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