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22 AN EXAMINATION OF SUCCESSION THEORIES Except in the case of deaths occurring in the thick of battle, the reciters or writers of Vdrs generally skipped over the mention of deaths or made a casual reference to them in a prose sentence. In support of this observation we have the • example of Bhai Gurdas. He was one of the closest relatives of Guru Arjun on the mother's side, and was also one of the revered and knowledgeable Sikhs of his time. In his Varan he has in a systematic manner given brief accounts not only of the Gurus from the time of Guru Nanak to Guru Hargobind but also of the various Sangats and important Sikhs in the Panjab and outside. But he does not make any clear and direct statement on the martyrdom of Guru Arjun which gave a sharp turn to the development and transformation of the Sikh movement. He has quietly passed over the event with only a casual reference to his death in a line or two. In his Ibrat Namah or the Swaneh, 1705-19 A. D., Mirza Muhammad Harisi had devoted some thirteen pages to the contemporary account of the Sikhs, with particular reference to Banda Singh.t He tells us that Guru Gobind Singh had travelled in the train of Emperor Bahadur Shah to the Deccan and was killed there in 1120 al-Hijjri, 1708 A. D., by an Afghan, an old enemy of his, and his body was cremated according to Hindu rites. Ajit Singh, who was popularly known as his son and had been received into royal favour, remained with the Emperor. The Sri Gur Sobha by poet Sainapat, mentioned as Saina Singh by Bawa Sumer Singh in his Pothi Gur-bilas ki, was completed in 1768 Bikrami, 1711 A. D., i.e., within three years of the Guru's death. He was an old Sikh of his and had lived with him at Anandpur. His is the first book which could be said to have been a reliable biography of the Guru. His narrative was evidently based on the first-hand information rece- t For the fact that Bairagi Madho Das was formally baptized as a Singh by Guru Gobind Singh at Nanded in September 1708, see Ganda Singh's Banda Singh Bahadur (English, 1935), pp. 15-19; (Panjabi, 1964) 19-21; the Sikh Review, April 1961. GURU GOBIND SINGH S DEATH AT NANDED ived from the Sikhs who had returned from Nanded and had been eye-witnesses to what they had related to Sainapat. As far as we can see, the purity of his account, though brief in many places, is not muddied with the mixture of imaginary myths introduced later into the life of the Guru, beginning with the Gur-bilas Patshahi Das by Koer Singh, written in 1751, forty-three years after the death of the Guru. Mentioning the death of the Guru (xvm-34-37) without any poetical embellishment, the Sri Gur Sobha tells us that a day before the event the Guru had, in reply to a question of the Sikhs, said that he "had bestowed his physical form upon the Khalsa— bakhsh deeo Khalis ko jama (xvm-41)—and that the Limitless and the Eternal Word was the Satguru— Satguru hamara apar apard Shabad bichdrd ajar-jaran (XVIII-43). This was Guru Gobind Singh's last message and his final commandment saying in unmistakable language and clear words that he was not appointing any particular individual as the succeeding Guru and that the Khalsa under the guidance of the Divine Word — the Gur-bdnl— was to be the future physical and spiritual representative of the Guru. [Appendix II.] This has since become the accepted creed of the Sikhs as inculcated by Bhai Nandlal in his Rahit Nama. or the Rules of Conduct. Bhai Nandlal, as history knows, was a devoted Sikh of Guru Gobind Singh and had stayed with him for some time at Anandpur. According to the Amar Namah, line 42, Bhai Nandlal was present in the Emperor's camp at Nanded as one of his ministers during the Guru's stay there. He was a distinguished scholar of Persian and Panjabi and, out of his ten works known to us, eight — five in Persian and three in Panjabi — are commentaries on Sikh life and teachings. One of them, the Rahit-nama, which is written in the form of a dialogue between the Guru and the Bhai, lays down the rules for Sikh conduct. Therein, as already mentioned in one of the previous paragraphs, the Guru had told Bhai Nandlal that, in addition to his soul being a part of the Invisible Divine Soul (— Nirgun sarup—), his two other forms were the Granth — mera rup Granth ji jdn—embodying the Gur-bani, and the 23
24 AN EXAMINATION OF SUCCESSION THEORIES Sikhs (the Khalsa) deeply absorbed in it. This not only clarifies but also supports the Guru's last message and commandment to the Khalsa mentioned in the Sri Gur Sobha. The Gur-bilas Chhevin Patshahi leaves no doubt about the recognition by the Sikhs of the Guruship of Guru Granth Sahib after the death of Guru Gobind Singh. The Gur-bilas was begun by its author, poet Sohan, in May 1717 and was completed on July 22, 1718 (Sawan 22,Sudi 5, 1775 Bikrami), within ten years of the Guru's death. Its fourth chapter is devoted to the compilation of the holy book by Guru Arjun and the first twelve verses of the fifth chapter to its formal installation in the Darbar Sahib, Amritsar. Therein the author has invariably used the then accepted prefix Guru to the Granth and has called it the Guru Granth. The following verses of chapter IV are very significant indeed : HH »Ffw HS Tl\ H5 Hf3 W3 f^rjrg | Bra BTB HH H T ??1§ §5 7P 3
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