Guru Gobind Singh's Death at Nanded Examination of - Vidhia.com

34 AN EXAMINATION OF SUCCESSION THEORIES
This is a simple and straigthforward account of the
death of Guru Gobind Singh with no mystery or embellishment
enshrouding it. And it agrees in all its essentials with
the contemporary and the earliest known accounts.
According to Vir Singh Ball, the author of the Singh
Sqgar completed in January 1828, Guru Gobind Singh died
at Nanded due to excessive bleeding after he pulled the stiff
bow received from Lahore. In a poetical vein the author
tells us that, like Guru Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh also disappeared
from under the sheet that was covering his dead
body in the presence of a multitude of Sikhs. His light, he
says, blended with the Light of God and he went to heaven,
the abode of the All-Truth—the Sach-khcmd—and his clothes,
like those of Guru Nanak, were cremated according to the
prevalent rites. He makes no mention of any wood-cutter,
sadhu or anyone else seeing him afterwards. Evidently, Vir
Singh had no belief in the after-death legends associated with
Guru Gobind Singh. For him, death was the end of the
Guru's life like that of the first Guru. [Appendix VIII. J
The Prachin Panth Prakash by Bhangu Ratan Singh
Shahid, completed in 1841 A.D., is mostly devoted to the
history of the Sikhs after the death of Guru Gobind Singh to
the rise and development of Sikh political power by the third
quarter of the eighteenth century. Except for a brief account
of the Guru period, it primarily deals with those events
wherein the author's own ancestors played a prominent part.
Since the author confines the account of the Guru at
Nanded only to his visit to the hermitage of Bairagi Madho
Das and his conversion to Sikhism and departure for the
Panjab, the Prachin Panth Prakash contains no reference to
the Guru's last commandment and message about future
Guruship.
The Gur-pratap Suraj Granth, popularly known as the
Suraj Prakash, by Bhai Santokh Singh, completed in 1900
Bikrami, 1843 A.D., is one of the greatest epical compositions
of India. It is written on the lines of Rishi Valmiki's
Ramayana which the poet had translated earlier in 1891
GURU GOBIND SINGH S DEATH AT NANDED
Bikrami, 1834 A.D. The Suraj Prakash deals with the lives
of the Sikh Gurus and may be classed as hagiological literature
wherein lives and legends are so closely interwoven that
they cannot be easily separated. And therein lies the beauty
of the art of poetry where prominence is given to imagination
and personal idiosyncrasy and not to impartial transcription
of historical realities. History is the faithful record of events
as they actually took place. It has no place for legends and
myths which figure so prominently in the Suraj Prakash, They
are mostly borrowed from earlier hagiographs and freely
expanded by Bhai Santokh Singh with his embellishments in
which he hardly has a parallel in the Braj poetry. As such,
his account of the last days of Guru Gobind Singh cannot be
accepted as truly historical in all its details.
Some time before his death, Guru Gobind Singh is
said to have declared that he had transferred his Light to the
Khalsa—that the Guru was Khalsa and the Khalsa was the
Guru. The Guru, fully dressed and armed, then walked to the
place of cremation and mounted the pyre. But the flaming
fire did not touch'.his body. He then, like the supernatural
yogis of old, produced fire ( Yog-agni) from within himself and
set out for heaven where he was welcomed and received by all
the ancient Hindu gods. This happened, says the poet,
onKatik Sudi 5, 1765 Bikrami, October 6-7, 1708 A.D.
After the departure of the Guru for heaven, the great
poet also narrates the stories of his having been seen in the
neighbouring jungle by a wood-cutter and a sadhii. In doing
so he has only repeated the legends of the earlier writers like
Koer Singh and Sukha Singh.
It will be interesting to note here that, unlike, all other
writers on the subject, the author of the Suraj Prakash mentions
the installation of the Holy BorJk, the Guru Granth Sahib,
as Guru during the last days of Guru Har Krishan as also
of the Bdbd of Bakala. [Rds 10, Ansu 51, No. 26-29; Ansu 55,
No. 20-23.]
Munshi Sant Singh, a vakil of the Bedis, wrote an
account of the Bedi family of Una under the title of the
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