Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji was born in 1469 in Talwandi, a village in the
Sheikhupura district, 65 kms. west of Lahore. His father was a village
official in the local revenue administration. As a boy, Sri Guru Nanak
learnt, besides the regional languages, Persian and Arabic. He was
married in 1487 and was blessed with two sons, one in 1491 and the
second in 1496. In 1485 he took up, at the instance of his
brother-in-law, the appointment of an official in charge of the stores
of Daulat Khan Lodhi, the Muslim ruler of the area at Sultanpur. It is
there that he came into contact with Mardana, a Muslim minstrel (Mirasi)
who was senior in
age.
By all accounts, 1496 was the year of his enlightenment when he started
on his mission. His first statement after his prophetic communion with
God was "There is no Hindu, nor any Mussalman." This is an announcement
of supreme significance it declared not only the brotherhood of man and
the fatherhood of God, but also his clear and primary interest not in
any metaphysical doctrine but only in man and his fate. It means love
your neighbour as yourself. Gurdwara nankana sahib In addition, it
emphasised, simultaneously the inalienable spirituo-moral combination of
his message. Accompanied by Mardana, he began his missionary tours.
Apart from conveying his message and rendering help to the weak, he
forcefully preached, both by precept and practice, against caste
distinctions ritualism, idol worship and the pseudo-religious beliefs
that had no spiritual content. He chose to mix with all. He dined and
lived with men of the lowest castes and classes Considering the then
prevailing cultural practices and traditions, this was something
socially and religiously unheard of in those days of rigid Hindu caste
system sanctioned by the scriptures and the religiously approved notions
of untouchability and pollution. It is a matter of great significance
that at the very beginning of his mission, the Guru's first companion
was a low caste Muslim. The offerings he received during his tours, were
distributed among the poor. Any surplus collected was given to his
hosts to maintain a common kitchen, where all could sit and eat together
without any distinction of caste and status. This institution of common
kitchen or langar became a major instrument of helping the poor, and a
nucleus for religious gatherings of his society and of establishing the
basic equality of all castes, classes and sexes.
When Guru Nanak Dev ji were 12 years old his father gave him twenty
rupees and asked him to do a business, apparently to teach him business.
Guru Nanak dev ji bought food for all the money and distributed among
saints, and poor. When his father asked him what happened to business?
He replied that he had done a "True business" at the place where Guru
Nanak dev had fed the poor, this gurdwara was made and named Sacha
Sauda.
Despite the hazards of travel in those times, he performed five long
tours all over the country and even outside it. He visited most of the
known religious places and centres of worship. At one time he preferred
to dine at the place of a low caste artisan, Bhai Lallo, instead of
accepting the invitation of a high caste rich landlord, Malik Bhago,
because the latter lived by exploitation of the poor and the former
earned his bread by the sweat of his brow. This incident has been
depicted by a symbolic representation of the reason for his preference.
Sri Guru Nanak pressed in one hand the coarse loaf of bread from Lallo's
hut and in the other the food from Bhago's house. Milk gushed forth
from the loaf of Lallo's and blood from the delicacies of Bhago. This
prescription for honest work and living and the condemnation of
exploitation, coupled with the Guru's dictum that "riches cannot be
gathered without sin and evil means," have, from the very beginning,
continued to be the basic moral tenet with the Sikh mystics and the Sikh
society.
During his tours, he visited numerous places of Hindu and Muslim
worship. He explained and exposed through his preachings the
incongruities and fruitlessness of ritualistic and ascetic practices. At
Hardwar, when he found people throwing Ganges water towards the sun in
the east as oblations to their ancestors in heaven, he started, as a
measure of correction, throwing the water towards the West, in the
direction of his fields in the Punjab. When ridiculed about his folly,
he replied, "If Ganges water will reach your ancestors in heaven, why
should the water I throw up not reach my fields in the Punjab, which are
far less distant ?"
He spent twenty five years of his life preaching from place to place.
Many of his hymns were composed during this period. They represent
answers to the major religious and social problems of the day and cogent
responses to the situations and incidents that he came across. Some of
the hymns convey dialogues with Yogis in the Punjab and elsewhere. He
denounced their methods of living and their religious views. During
these tours he studied other religious systems like Hinduism, Jainism,
Buddhism and Islam. At the same time, he preached the doctrines of his
new religion and mission at the places and centres he visited. Since his
mystic system almost completely reversed the trends, principles and
practices of the then prevailing religions, he criticised and rejected
virtually all the old beliefs, rituals and harmful practices existing in
the country. This explains the necessity of his long and arduous tours
and the variety and profusion of his hymns on all the religious, social,
political and theological issues, practices and institutions of his
period.
Finally, on the completion of his tours, he settled as a peasant farmer
at Kartarpur, a village in the Punjab. Bhai Gurdas, the scribe of Guru
Granth Sahib, was a devout and close associate of the third and the
three subsequent Gurus. He was born 12 years after Guru Nanak's death
and joined the Sikh mission in his very boyhood. He became the chief
missionary agent of the Gurus. Because of his intimate knowledge of the
Sikh society and his being a near contemporary of Sri Guru Nanak, his
writings are historically authentic and reliable. He writes that at
Kartarpur Guru Nanak donned the robes of a peasant and continued his
ministry. He organised Sikh societies at places he visited with their
meeting places called Dharamsalas. A similar society was created at
Kartarpur. In the morning, Japji was sung in the congregation. In the
evening Sodar and Arti were recited. The Guru cultivated his lands and
also continued with his mission and preachings. His followers throughout
the country were known as Nanak-panthies or Sikhs. The places where
Sikh congregation and religious gatherings of his followers were held
were called Dharamsalas. These were also the places for feeding the
poor. Eventually, every Sikh home became a Dharamsala.
One thing is very evident. Guru Nanak had a distinct sense of his
prophethood and that his mission was God-ordained. During his
preachings, he himself announced. "O Lallo, as the words of the Lord
come to me, so do I express them." Successors of Guru Nanak have also
made similar statements indicating that they were the messengers of God.
So often Guru Nanak refers to God as his Enlightener and Teacher. His
statements clearly show his belief that God had commanded him to preach
an entirely new religion, the central idea of which was the brotherhood
of man and the fatherhood of God, shorn of all ritualism and
priestcraft. During a dialogue with the Yogis, he stated that his
mission was to help everyone. He came to be called a Guru in his
lifetime. In Punjabi, the word Guru means both God and an enlightener or
a prophet. During his life, his disciples were formed and came to be
recognised as a separate community. He was accepted as a new religious
prophet. His followers adopted a separate way of greeting each other
with the words Sat Kartar (God is true). Twentyfive years of his
extensive preparatory tours and preachings across the length and breadth
of the country clearly show his deep conviction that the people needed a
new prophetic message which God had commanded him to deliver. He chose
his successor and in his own life time established him as the future
Guru or enlightener of the new community. This step is of the greatest
significance, showing Guru Nanak s determination and declaration that
the mission which he had started and the community he had created were
distinct and should be continued, promoted and developed. By the formal
ceremony of appointing his successor and by giving him a new name, Angad
(his part or limb), he laid down the clear principle of impersonality,
unity and indivisibility of Guruship. At that time he addressed Angad by
saying, Between thou and me there is now no difference. In Guru Granth
Sahib there is clear acceptance and proclamation of this identity of
personality in the hymns of Satta-Balwand. This unity of spiritual
personality of all the Gurus has a theological and mystic implication.
It is also endorsed by the fact that each of the subsequent Gurus calls
himself Nanak in his hymns. Never do they call themselves by their own
names as was done by other Bhagats and Illyslics. That Guru Nanak
attached the highest importance to his mission is also evident from his
selection of the successor by a system of test, and only when he was
found perfect, was Guru Angad appointed as his successor. He was
comparatively a new comer to the fold, and yet he was chosen in
preference to the Guru's own son, Sri Chand, who also had the reputation
of being a pious person, and Baba Budha, a devout Sikh of long
standing, who during his own lifetime had the distinction of
ceremonially installing all subsequent Gurus.
All these facts indicate that Guru Nanak had a clear plan and vision
that his mission was to be continued as an independent and distinct
spiritual system on the lines laid down by him, and that, in the context
of the country, there was a clear need for the organisation of such a
spiritual mission and society. In his own lifetime, he distinctly
determined its direction and laid the foundations of some of the new
religious institutions. In addition, he created the basis for the
extension and organisation of his community and religion.
The above in brief is the story of the Guru's life. We shall now note
the chief features of his work, how they arose from his message and how
he proceeded to develop them during his lifetime.
(1) After his enlightenment, the first words of Guru Nanak declared the
brotherhood of man. This principle formed the foundation of his new
spiritual gospel. It involved a fundamental doctrinal change because
moral life received the sole spiritual recognition and status. This was
something entirely opposed to the religious systems in vogue in the
country during the time of the Guru. All those systems were, by and
large, other-worldly. As against it, the Guru by his new message brought
God on earth. For the first time in the country, he made a declaration
that God was deeply involved and interested in the affairs of man and
the world which was real and worth living in. Having taken the first
step by the proclamation of his radical message, his obvious concern was
to adopt further measures to implement the same.
(2)The Guru realised that in the context and climate of the country,
especially because of the then existing religious systems and the
prevailing prejudices, there would be resistance to his message, which,
in view of his very thesis, he wanted to convey to all. He, therefore,
refused to remain at Sultanpur and preach his gospel from there. Having
declared the sanctity of life, his second major step was in the planning
and organisation of institutions that would spread his message. As
such, his twentyfive years of extensive touring can be understood only
as a major organizational step. These tours were not casual. They had a
triple object. He wanted to acquaint himself with all the centres and
organisations of the prevalent religious systems so as to assess the
forces his mission had to contend with, and to find out the institutions
that he could use in the aid of his own system. Secondly, he wanted to
convey his gospel at the very centres of the old systems and point out
the futile and harmful nature of their methods and practices. It is for
this purpose that he visited Hardwar, Kurukshetra, Banaras, Kanshi,
Maya, Ceylon, Baghdad, Mecca, etc. Simultaneously, he desired to
organise all his followers and set up for them local centres for their
gatherings and worship. The existence of some of these far-flung centres
even up-till today is a testimony to his initiative in the
Organizational and the societal field. His hymns became the sole guide
and the scripture for his flock and were sung at the Dharamsalas.
(3) Guru Nanak's gospel was for all men. He proclaimed their equality in
all respects. In his system, the householder's life became the primary
forum of religious activity. Human life was not a burden but a
privilege. His was not a concession to the laity. In fact, the normal
life became the medium of spiritual training and expression. The entire
discipline and institutions of the Gurus can be appreciated only if one
understands that, by the very logic of Guru Nanak's system, the
householder's life became essential for the seeker. On reaching
Kartarpur after his tours, the Guru sent for the members of his family
and lived there with them for the remaining eighteen years of his life.
For the same reason his followers all over the country were not
recluses. They were ordinary men, living at their own homes and pursuing
their normal vocations. The Guru's system involved morning and evening
prayers. Congregational gatherings of the local followers were also held
at their respective Dharamsalas.
(4) After he returned to Kartarpur, Guru Nanak did not rest. He
straightaway took up work as a cultivator of land, without interrupting
his discourses and morning and evening prayers. It is very significant
that throughout the later eighteen years of his mission he continued to
work as a peasant. It was a total involvement in the moral and
productive life of the community. His life was a model for others to
follow. Like him all his disciples were regular workers who had not
given up their normal vocations Even while he was performing the
important duties of organising a new religion, he nester shirked the
full-time duties of a small cultivator. By his personal example he
showed that the leading of a normal man's working life was fundamental
to his spiritual system Even a seemingly small departure from this basic
tenet would have been misunderstood and misconstrued both by his own
followers and others. In the Guru's system, idleness became a vice and
engagement in productive and constructive work a virtue. It was Guru
Nanak who chastised ascetics as idlers and condemned their practice of
begging for food at the doors of the householders.
(5) According to the Guru, moral life was the sole medium of spiritual
progress In those times, caste, religious and social distinctions, and
the idea of pollution were major problems. Unfortunately, these
distinctions had received religious sanction The problem of poverty and
food was another moral challenge. The institution of langar had a twin
purpose. As every one sat and ate at the same place and shared the same
food, it cut at the root of the evil of caste, class and religious
distinctions. Besides, it demolished the idea of pollution of food by
the mere presence of an untouchable. Secondlys it provided food to the
needy. This institution of langar and pangat was started by the Guru
among all his followers wherever they had been organised. It became an
integral part of the moral life of the Sikhs. Considering that a large
number of his followers were of low caste and poor members of society,
he, from the very start, made it clear that persons who wanted to
maintain caste and class distinctions had no place in his system In
fact, the twin duties of sharing one's income with the poor and doing
away with social distinctions were the two obligations which every Sikh
had to discharge. On this score, he left no option to anyone, since he
started his mission with Mardana, a low caste Muslim, as his life long
companion.
(6) The greatest departure Guru Nanak made was to prescribe for the
religious man the responsibility of confronting evil and oppression. It
was he who said that God destroys 'the evil doers' and 'the demonical;
and that such being God s nature and will, it is man's goal to carry out
that will. Since there are evil doers in life, it is the spiritual duty
of the seeker and his society to resist evil and injustice. Again, it
is Guru Nanak who protests and complains that Babur had been committing
tyranny against the weak and the innocent. Having laid the principle and
the doctrine, it was again he who proceeded to organise a society.
because political and societal oppression cannot be resisted by
individuals, the same can be confronted only by a committed society. It
was, therefore, he who proceeded to create a society and appointed a
successor with the clear instructions to develop his Panth. Again, it
was Guru Nanak who emphasized that life is a game of love, and once on
that path one should not shirk laying down one's life. Love of one's
brother or neighbour also implies, if love is true, his or her
protection from attack, injustice and tyranny. Hence, the necessity of
creating a religious society that can discharge this spiritual
obligation. Ihis is the rationale of Guru Nanak's system and the
development of the Sikh society which he organised.
(7) The Guru expressed all his teachings in Punjabi, the spoken language
of Northern India. It was a clear indication of his desire not to
address the elite alone but the masses as well. It is recorded that the
Sikhs had no regard for Sanskrit, which was the sole scriptural language
of the Hindus. Both these facts lead to important inferences. They
reiterate that the Guru's message was for all. It was not for the few
who, because of their personal aptitude, should feel drawn to a life of a
so-called spiritual meditation and contemplation. Nor was it an
exclusive spiritual system divorced from the normal life. In addition,
it stressed that the Guru's message was entirely new and was completely
embodied in his hymns. His disciples used his hymns as their sole guide
for all their moral, religious and spiritual purposes. I hirdly, the
disregard of the Sikhs for Sanskrit strongly suggests that not only was
the Guru's message independent and self-contained, without reference and
resort to the Sanskrit scriptures and literature, but also that the
Guru made a deliberate attempt to cut off his disciples completely from
all the traditional sources and the priestly class. Otherwise, the old
concepts, ritualistic practices, modes of worship and orthodox religions
were bound to affect adversely the growth of his religion which had
wholly a different basis and direction and demanded an entirely new
approach.
The following hymn from Guru Nanak and the subsequent one from Sankara are contrast in their approach to the world.
"the sun and moon, O Lord, are Thy lamps; the firmament Thy salver; the orbs of the stars the pearls encased in it.
The perfume of the sandal is Thine incense, the wind is Thy fan, all the forests are Thy flowers, O Lord of light.
What worship is this, O Thou destroyer of birth ? Unbeaten strains of ecstasy are the trumpets of Thy worship.
Thou has a thousand eyes and yet not one eye; Thou host a thousand forms and yet not one form;
Thou hast a thousand stainless feet and yet not one foot; Thou hast a
thousand organs of smell and yet not one organ. I am fascinated by this
play of 'l hine.
The light which is in everything is Chine, O Lord of light.
From its brilliancy everything is illuminated;
By the Guru's teaching the light becometh manifest.
What pleaseth Thee is the real worship.
O God, my mind is fascinated with Thy lotus feet as the bumble-bee with the flower; night and day I thirst for them.
Give the water of Thy favour to the Sarang (bird) Nanak, so that he may dwell in Thy Name."3
Sankara writes: "I am not a combination of the five perishable elements I
arn neither body, the senses, nor what is in the body (antar-anga: i
e., the mind). I am not the ego-function: I am not the group of the
vital breathforces; I am not intuitive intelligence (buddhi). Far from
wife and son am 1, far from land and wealth and other notions of that
kind. I am the Witness, the Eternal, the Inner Self, the Blissful One
(sivoham; suggesting also, 'I am Siva')."
"Owing to ignorance of the rope the rope appears to be a snake; owing to
ignorance of the Self the transient state arises of the individualized,
limited, phenomenal aspect of the Self. The rope becomes a rope when
the false impression disappears because of the statement of some
credible person; because of the statement of my teacher I am not an
individual life-monad (yivo-naham), I am the Blissful One (sivo-ham )."
"I am not the born; how can there be either birth or death for me ?"
"I am not the vital air; how can there be either hunger or thirst for me ?"
"I am not the mind, the organ of thought and feeling; how can there be either sorrow or delusion for me ?"
"I am not the doer; how can there be either bondage or release for me ?"
"I am neither male nor female, nor am I sexless. I am the Peaceful One,
whose form is self-effulgent, powerful radiance. I am neither a child, a
young man, nor an ancient; nor am I of any caste. I do not belong to
one of the four lifestages. I am the Blessed-Peaceful One, who is the
only Cause of the origin and dissolution of the world."4
While Guru Nanak is bewitched by the beauty of His creation and sees in
the panorama of nature a lovely scene of the worshipful adoration of the
Lord, Sankara in his hymn rejects the reality of the world and treats
himself as the Sole Reality. Zimmer feels that "Such holy megalomania
goes past the bounds of sense. With Sankara, the grandeur of the supreme
human experience becomes intellectualized and reveals its inhuman
sterility."5
No wonder that Guru Nanak found the traditional religions and concepts
as of no use for his purpose. He calculatedly tried to wean away his
people from them. For Guru Nanak, religion did not consist in a 'patched
coat or besmearing oneself with ashes"6 but in treating all as equals.
For him the service of man is supreme and that alone wins a place in
God's heart.
By this time it should be easy to discern that all the eight features of
the Guru's system are integrally connected. In fact, one flows from the
other and all follow from the basic tenet of his spiritual system,
viz., the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. For Guru Nanak,
life and human beings became the sole field of his work. Thus arose the
spiritual necessity of a normal life and work and the identity of moral
and spiritual functioning and growth.
Having accepted the primacy of moral life and its spiritual validity,
the Guru proceeded to identify the chief moral problems of his time.
These were caste and class distinctions, the institutions, of property
and wealth, and poverty and scarcity of food. Immoral institutions could
be substituted and replaced only by the setting up of rival
institutions. Guru Nanak believed that while it is essential to elevate
man internally, it is equally necessary to uplift the fallen and the
downtrodden in actual life. Because, the ultimate test of one's
spiritual progress is the kind of moral life one leads in the social
field. The Guru not only accepted the necessity of affecting change in
the environment, but also endeavoured to build new institutions. We
shall find that these eight basic principles of the spirituo-moral life
enunciated by Guru Nanak, were strictly carried out by his successors.
As envisaged by the first prophet, his successors further extended the
structure and organised the institutions of which the foundations had
been laid by Guru Nanak. Though we shall consider these points while
dealing with the lives of the other nine Gurus, some of them need to be
mentioned here.
The primacy of the householder's life was maintained. Everyone of the
Gurus, excepting Guru Harkishan who died at an early age, was a married
person who maintained a family. When Guru Nanak, sent Guru Angad from
Kartarpur to Khadur Sahib to start his mission there, he advised him to
send for the members of his family and live a normal life. According to
Bhalla,8 when Guru Nanak went to visit Guru Angad at Khadur Sahib, he
found him living a life of withdrawal and meditation. Guru Nanak
directed him to be active as he had to fulfill his mission and organise a
community inspired by his religious principles.
Work in life, both for earning the livelihood and serving the common
good, continued to be the fundamental tenet of Sikhism. There is a clear
record that everyone upto the Fifth Guru (and probably subsequent Gurus
too) earned his livelihood by a separate vocation and contributed his
surplus to the institution of langar Each Sikh was made to accept his
social responsibility. So much so that Guru Angad and finally Guru Amar
Das clearly ordered that Udasis, persons living a celibate and ascetic
life without any productive vocation, should remain excluded from the
Sikh fold. As against it, any worker or a householder without
distinction of class or caste could become a Sikh. This indicates how
these two principles were deemed fundamental to the mystic system of
Guru Nanak. It was defined and laid down that in Sikhism a normal
productive and moral life could alone be the basis of spiritual
progress. Here, by the very rationale of the mystic path, no one who was
not following a normal life could be fruitfully included.
The organization of moral life and institutions, of which the
foundations had been laid by Guru Nanak, came to be the chief concern of
the other Gurus. We refer to the sociopolitical martyrdoms of two of
the Gurus and the organisation of the military struggle by the Sixth
Guru and his successors. Here it would be pertinent to mention Bhai
Gurdas's narration of Guru Nanak's encounter and dialogue with the Nath
Yogis who were living an ascetic life of retreat in the remote hills.
They asked Guru Nanak how the world below in the plains was faring. '
How could it be well", replied Guru Nanak, "when the so- called pious
men had resorted to the seclusion of the hills ?" The Naths commented
that it was incongruous and self-contradictory for Guru Nanak to be a
householder and also pretend to lead a spiritual life. That, they said,
was like putting acid in milk and thereby destroying its purity. The
Guru replied emphatically that the Naths were ignorant of even the basic
elements of spiritual life.9 This authentic record of the dialouge
reveals the then prevailing religious thought in the country. It points
to the clear and deliberate break the Guru made from the traditional
system.
While Guru Nanak was catholic in his criticism of other religions, he
was unsparing where he felt it necessary to clarify an issue or to keep
his flock away from a wrong practice or prejudice. He categorically
attacked all the evil institutions of his time including oppression and
barbarity in the political field, corruption among the officialss and
hypocrisy and greed in the priestly class. He deprecated the degrading
practices of inequality in the social field. He criticised and
repudiated the scriptures that sanctioned such practices. After having
denounced all of them, he took tangible steps to create a society that
accepted the religious responsibility of eliminating these evils from
the new institutions created by him and of attacking the evil practices
and institutions in the Social and political fields. T his was a
fundamental institutional change with the largest dimensions and
implications for the future of the community and the country. The very
fact that originally poorer classes were attracted to the Gurus, fold
shows that they found there a society and a place where they could
breathe freely and live with a sense of equality and dignity.
Dr H.R. Gupta, the well-known historian, writes, "Nanak's religion
consisted in the love of God, love of man and love of godly living. His
religion was above the limits of caste, creed and country. He gave his
love to all, Hindus, Muslims, Indians and foreigners alike. His religion
was a people's movement based on modern conceptions of secularism and
socialism, a common brotherhood of all human beings. Like Rousseau,
Nanak felt 250 years earlier that it was the common people who made up
the human race Ihey had always toiled and tussled for princes, priests
and politicians. What did not concern the common people was hardly worth
considering. Nanak's work to begin with assumed the form of an agrarian
movement. His teachings were purely in Puniabi language mostly spoken
by cultivators. Obey appealed to the downtrodden and the oppressed
peasants and petty traders as they were ground down between the two mill
stones of Government tyranny and the new Muslims' brutality. Nanak's
faith was simple and sublime. It was the life lived. His religion was
not a system of philosophy like Hinduism. It was a discipline, a way of
life, a force, which connected one Sikh with another as well as with the
Guru."'� "In Nanak s time Indian society was based on caste and was
divided into countless watertight Compartments. Men were considered high
and low on account of their birth and not according to their deeds.
Equality of human beings was a dream. There was no spirit of national
unity except feelings of community fellowship. In Nanak's views men's
love of God was the criterion to judge whether a person was good or bad,
high or low. As the caste system was not based on divine love, he
condemned it. Nanak aimed at creating a casteless and classless society
similar to the modern type of socialist society in which all were equal
and where one member did not exploit the other. Nanak insisted that
every Sikh house should serve as a place of love and devotion, a true
guest house (Sach dharamshala). Every Sikh was enjoined to welcome a
traveller or a needy person and to share his meals and other comforts
with him. "Guru Nanak aimed at uplifting the individual as well as
building a nation."
Considering the religious conditions and the philosophies of the time
and the social and political milieu in which Guru Nanak was born, the
new spirituo- moral thesis he introduced and the changes he brought
about in the social and spiritual field were indeed radical and
revolutionary. Earlier, release from the bondage of the world was sought
as the goal. The householder's life was considered an impediment and an
entanglement to be avoided by seclusion, monasticism, celibacy, sanyasa
or vanpraslha. In contrast, in the Guru's system the world became the
arena of spiritual endeavour. A normal life and moral and righteous
deeds became the fundamental means of spiritual progress, since these
alone were approved by God. Man was free to choose between the good and
the bad and shape his own future by choosing virtue and fighting evil.
All this gave "new hope, new faith, new life and new expectations to the
depressed, dejected and downcast people of Punjab."
Guru Nanak's religious concepts and system were entirely opposed to
those of the traditional religions in the country. His views were
different even from those of the saints of the Radical Bhakti movement.
From the very beginning of his mission, he started implementing his
doctrines and creating institutions for their practice and development.
In his time the religious energy and zeal were flowing away from the
empirical world into the desert of otherworldliness, asceticism and
renunciation. It was Guru Nanak's mission and achievement not only to
dam that Amazon of moral and spiritual energy but also to divert it into
the world so as to enrich the moral, social the political life of man.
We wonder if, in the context of his times, anything could be more
astounding and miraculous. The task was undertaken with a faith,
confidence and determination which could only be prophetic.
It is indeed the emphatic manifestation of his spiritual system into the
moral formations and institutions that created a casteless society of
people who mixed freely, worked and earned righteously, contributed some
of their income to the common causes and the langar. It was this
community, with all kinds of its shackles broken and a new freedom
gained, that bound its members with a new sense of cohesion, enabling it
to rise triumphant even though subjected to the severest of political
and military persecutions.
The life of Guru Nanak shows that the only interpretation of his thesis
and doctrines could be the one which we have accepted. He expressed his
doctrines through the medium of activities. He himself laid the firm
foundations of institutions and trends which flowered and fructified
later on. As we do not find a trace of those ideas and institutions in
the religious milieu of his time or the religious history of the
country, the entirely original and new character of his spiritual system
could have only been mystically and prophetically inspired.
Apart from the continuation, consolidation and expansion of Guru Nanak's
mission, the account that follows seeks to present the major
contributions made by the remaining Gurus.
In 1709 A.D., he joined Baba Banda singh Bahadur in chastising the tyrants of Sadhaura and Sirhind. in 1733 A.D. Nawab Kapoor singh Singhpuria appointed him a leader of one squad. On Vaisakhi day of 1748 A.D., when Dal Khalsa was reorganized into twelve misls, he was entrusted with the leadership of Shaheedan Misl. In April 1757 A.D., Abdali during his fourth invasion was returning to Kabul from Delhi with precious booty and young men and women as captives, Singhs made a plan to rob him of the valuables and set the prisoners free. The squad of Baba Deep singh was deployed near Kurukshetra. His squad freed large number of prisoners and lightened the burden of valuables of Abdali considerably. While departing from Lahore, Abdali appointed his son Taimur Shah, the Governor of Lahore and told him, "Try to finish the Sikhs". In Accordance with his orders Taimur Shah started demolishing Gurudwaras and filling the holy pools with debris.
.jpg)
