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

44 AN EXAMINATION OF SUCCESSION THEORIES
Emperor Bahadur Shah to the Deccan] by a Pathan soldier and
he died of his wounds in 1708 at the town of Nandere without
leaving any male issue; and a tradition delivered to the Sicques,
limiting their priests to the number of ten, induced them
to appoint no successors to Govind Sing.
[Vol. I, pub. 1798, p. 263.]
Talking about the change in the inscription on the
Sikh coins, Major James Browne has casually referred to Guru
Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh as the first and the last
Gurus of the Sikhs, respectively, and has indirectly given us
the confirmed belief of the Sikhs of about 1787-88. He
says in his History of the Origin and Progress of the Sicks,
published in 1788 :
...but after they had been current about fifteen years, the
grand Diet of the Sick chiefs (called Goormutta) determined to
call in all those rupees, and to strike them in the names of
Goowo Nanuck and Gooroo Gobind Singh, the first and last
of their Gooroos or religious leaders. [ Pp. vi-vii.]
In referring to the historians of the nineteenth century,
we would prefer to mention at first the Indian writers who
should presumably be better informed about the Sikh Gurus
than Europeans. It may, however, be mentioned that some
of the Indian writers wrote their books at the instance of
Europeans who were at this time feeling interested in the
history and religion of the Sikhs with whom they expected to
come in close political contact in the near future. For this
purpose they desired to obtain as correct and reliable
information as possible.
Khushwaqt Rai's Tarlkh-i-Sikhan, also called the
Kitab-i-Tawarikh-i-Panjab, was written in 1811. Therein he
says that "at Afzal (Abchal) Nagar [Nanded] the Guru purchased
a piece of land and moved in all happiness from this
transitory world to the world Eternal. The disciples of the
Guru collected from all sides and cremated his dead body with
aloe and sandalwood with all the necessary rites. This event,
that is his death, took place on Katik Sudi 5, 1765 Bikrami.
The generation (of Gurus) of Guru Nanak up to Guru Gobind
Singh came to an end, [Pp. 36 b -37 a, Appendix XVIII, viii.]
GURU GOBIND SINGH's DEATH AT NANDED 45
In 1233 al-Hijri, 1817^18 A.D. was completed Ahmed
Shah Batalia's Tawarikh-i-Hind : Bayan-i-Ahwal-i-Mulk-i-
Hind-wa-Maluk-i-an az Zumani-qadim ta 1233 Hijri, a part of
which, the Zikr-i-GurMn wa ibtida-i-Singhdn wa Mazhab-ieshdn,
forms an appendix to Daftar I and II of the Umdat-ut-
Tawdrikh by Munshi Sohan Lai Suri. In it Ahmed Shah
tells us that Guru Gobind Singh, who had accompanied Emperor
Bahadur Shah to the Deccan, died at Nanded in 1765
Bikrami, 1708 A.D., and that the place was known as Abchal
Nagar. He says that some Sikhs also lived there, and that the
Nizam of Hyderabad had fixed a daily allowance for them.
In addition to it, Maharaja Ranjit Singh also made
handsome donations for the upkeep of the sanctuary and the
maintenance of its custodians. [P. 11, Appendix XVIII, ix.]
The Umdat-ut-Tawdrikh of Lala Sohan Lai Suri is a
very important work on the the reign of Maharaja Ranjit
Singh and his successors up to 1849. Although its first volume
dealing with the Guru and the Misal periods was published in
1885, it was originally begun in the form of notes somewhere
in the middle of the eighteenth century during the time of
Sohan Lai Suri's grandfather and father Lala Hakumat Rai
and Lala Ganpat Rai. It tells us that during the last moments
of Guru Gobind Singh's life a disciple of his asked him as to
whom he had appointed as Guru after him. Thereupon the Guru
replied that "the Guru is Granth ji. There is no difference
between the Granth and the Guru. From the darshan of
Granth ji one shall have the happy darshan of the Guru Sahib."
[Vol. I, pp. 64-65 Appendix XVIII, x.]
So intense was the faith of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in
Guru Gobind Singh and so ardent was his desire to raise a
befitting memorial on his last resting place at Nanded that he
occasionally sent large sums of money and a number of his
men for the purpose all the way from the Panjab. The name
of one Sardar Chanda Singh is mentioned in the Umdat-ut-
Tawdrikh (Vol. Ill, part iii, p. 355) as having been deputed by
him on the 1st of Magh, 1893 Bikrami, to proceed to Abchalnagar
with twenty-five thousand rupees, with promise to remit