Tempo:
CHAP. Ill
SIKHISM UNDER GOBIND
73
again denounced evil upon all who should thencefor- 1675-1708. ward desert him; in the south he selected the daring Banda as an instrument, and the Sikhs speedily reappeared in overwhelming force upon the banks of the But Gobind's race was run, and he was not Sutlej. himself fated to achieve aught more in person. He had engaged the services of an Afghan, half-adventurei, half-merchant, and he had procured from him a conThe merchant, or sersiderable number of horses.^ vant, pleaded his own necessities, and urged the payment of large sums due to him. Impatient with delay, he used an angry gesture, and his mutterings of The violence provoked Gobind to strike him dead. body of the slain Pathan was removed and buried, and his family seemed reconciled to the fate of its head. But his sons nursed their revenge, and awaited an opportunity of fulfilling it. They succeeded in stealing Gobind upon the Guru's retirement, and stabbed him mortally wounded b>
when asleep or unguarded. 'Gobind sprang up and the ^^sassms. assassins were seized; but a sardonic smile played UDon their features, and they justified their act of retribuThe Guru heard: he remembered the fate of tion. their father, and he perhaps called to mind his own unavenged parent. He said to the youths that they had done well, and he directed that they should be released uninjured." The expiring Guru was childless, and the note), and it is in a degree corroborated by the undoubted fact of the Guru's death on the banks of the Godavari. The traditions preserved at Nader give Kartik, 1765 (Sambat), or towards the end of A. D. 1703, as the date of Gobind's arrival at that place. 1 It would be curious to trace how far India was colonized in the intervals of great invasions by. petty Afghan and Turko-
man leaders, who defrayed their first or occasional expenses by the sale of horses. Tradition represents that both the destroyer of Manikiala in the Punjab, and the founder of Bhatnair in Hariana, were emigrants so circumstanced; and Amir Khan, the recent Indian adventurer, was similarly reduced to sell his steeds for food. (Memoirs of Amir Khan, p. 16.) - All the common accounts narrate the death of Gobind as given in the text, but with slight differences of detail, while some add that the widow of the slain Pathan continually urged her sons to seek revenge. Many accounts, and especially those by Muhammadans, likewise represent Gobind to have become deranged in his mind, and a story told by some Sikh writers gives a degree of countenance to such a belief. They say that the heart of the Guru inclined towards the youths whose father he had slain, that he was wont to play simple games of skill with them, and that he took opportunities of inculcating upon them the merit of revenge, as if he v/as himself weary of life, and wished to fall by their hands. The Siar ul Mutakharin (i. 114) simply says that Gobind died of grief on account of (Cf. Malcolm, Sketch, p. 70, &c.: and the loss of his children. The accounts now furnished by Elphinstone, History, ii. 564.)
SIKHISM UNDER GOBIND
73
again denounced evil upon all who should thencefor- 1675-1708. ward desert him; in the south he selected the daring Banda as an instrument, and the Sikhs speedily reappeared in overwhelming force upon the banks of the But Gobind's race was run, and he was not Sutlej. himself fated to achieve aught more in person. He had engaged the services of an Afghan, half-adventurei, half-merchant, and he had procured from him a conThe merchant, or sersiderable number of horses.^ vant, pleaded his own necessities, and urged the payment of large sums due to him. Impatient with delay, he used an angry gesture, and his mutterings of The violence provoked Gobind to strike him dead. body of the slain Pathan was removed and buried, and his family seemed reconciled to the fate of its head. But his sons nursed their revenge, and awaited an opportunity of fulfilling it. They succeeded in stealing Gobind upon the Guru's retirement, and stabbed him mortally wounded b>
when asleep or unguarded. 'Gobind sprang up and the ^^sassms. assassins were seized; but a sardonic smile played UDon their features, and they justified their act of retribuThe Guru heard: he remembered the fate of tion. their father, and he perhaps called to mind his own unavenged parent. He said to the youths that they had done well, and he directed that they should be released uninjured." The expiring Guru was childless, and the note), and it is in a degree corroborated by the undoubted fact of the Guru's death on the banks of the Godavari. The traditions preserved at Nader give Kartik, 1765 (Sambat), or towards the end of A. D. 1703, as the date of Gobind's arrival at that place. 1 It would be curious to trace how far India was colonized in the intervals of great invasions by. petty Afghan and Turko-
man leaders, who defrayed their first or occasional expenses by the sale of horses. Tradition represents that both the destroyer of Manikiala in the Punjab, and the founder of Bhatnair in Hariana, were emigrants so circumstanced; and Amir Khan, the recent Indian adventurer, was similarly reduced to sell his steeds for food. (Memoirs of Amir Khan, p. 16.) - All the common accounts narrate the death of Gobind as given in the text, but with slight differences of detail, while some add that the widow of the slain Pathan continually urged her sons to seek revenge. Many accounts, and especially those by Muhammadans, likewise represent Gobind to have become deranged in his mind, and a story told by some Sikh writers gives a degree of countenance to such a belief. They say that the heart of the Guru inclined towards the youths whose father he had slain, that he was wont to play simple games of skill with them, and that he took opportunities of inculcating upon them the merit of revenge, as if he v/as himself weary of life, and wished to fall by their hands. The Siar ul Mutakharin (i. 114) simply says that Gobind died of grief on account of (Cf. Malcolm, Sketch, p. 70, &c.: and the loss of his children. The accounts now furnished by Elphinstone, History, ii. 564.)
©
2026
Lehal.net