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

70 AN EXAMINATION OF SUCCESSION THEORIES
15. BHAIKAHAN SINGH'S BELIEFS
It is sometimes alleged that Bhai Kahan Singh used
to recant under pressure his controversial statements. This
does not apply, at least, to the Baba Ajapal Singh controversy.
At no stage did Bhai Kahan Singh ever express it as his own
belief that Baba Ajapal Singh was Guru Gobind Singh.
Throughout the period from 1912 to 1933 when this question
was brought up one way or other, he had been consistent in
his belief that Ajapal Singh was only a devoted Singh of the
Guru from whom he had received the Amrit and that he
had lived with the Guru for the greater part of his life, that
he had never narrated his life-story to anyone and also that
before his death Guru Gobind Singh had installed the Guru
Granth Sahib to be the Guru after him. He has, in fact,
contradicted the belief of the nikat-vartis of Ajapal Singh
by saying that nobody knew who the Baba was beyond his
receiving Amrit from the Guru. He even goes to the
extent of saying that no one knew who his five
nikat-varti Singhs were. With this there is no possibility
of the corroboration of their statement and belief,
making the confusion about Baba Ajapal Singh worse confounded.
Bhai Kahan Singh did not believe the statement
of the nikat-vartis of Ajapal Singh and he could not. therefore,
form any firm opinion on the subject, as he himself says.
[Phulwari, April 1927, p. 461, Appendix XIV (a), (b).]
From what I knew of him during the years 1931-38,
when I occasionally met him at Amritsar, Baramula and
Nabha, I can say with confidence that, like a genuine
scholar, he was always open to conviction and he would
not unnecessarily take a rigid stand on false prestige.
He never considered himself to be infallible. In the 1935
controversy over the birthplace of Maharaja Ranjit Singh,
raised by a letter of enquiry published by Mr Edward H.
Lincoln, the Deputy Commissioner of Gujranwala, in the
Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore on September 27, 1935,
Bhai Kahan Singh readily accepted the facts of history in
favour of Gujranwala against the hearsay statements of the
GURU GOBIND SINGH S DEATH AT NANDED 71
elders of Badrukhan. [Civil & Military Gazette, November
23, 1935; Bhai Kahan Singh's letter of November 4, 1935.]
Under the heading 'Guru Granth Sahib' in his well
known book the Gurmat Martand, vol. I, p. 411, he refers
to the holy book as Sri Guru Granth Sahib and tells us on
page 415 that the use of the word 'Guru 1 with Granth Sahib
began in Samvat 1765 Bk. (A.D. 1708) when Guru Gobind
Singh invested the Granth, the basic scripture of the Sikh
faith, with Guruship at Abchalnagar(Nanded in the Deccan).
Bhai Kahan Singh has also answered the question of
those who at times ask about the volume which was invested
with Guruship. He writes on page 415 of the book mentioned
above :
We believe that it was that volume which the Tenth Guru had
completed at Damdama Sahib after including therein the
compositions of the Nineth Guru and which was lost during
the Great Holocaust ( Wadda Ghaliighara) and of which Baba
Dip Singh had previously prepared several copies. But even
if no volume was available at the time of the death of the Tenth
Guru, could there be any difficulty in the investiture ? Was
Guru Tegh Bahadur present at Delhi at the time of the death
of Guru Har Krishan [who invested Guru Tegh Bahadur with
Guruship] ? The Guruship could be entrusted by mental
contemplation or through Word (of the mouth).
These statements and writings of Bhai Kahan Singh
leave no doubt about his belief that
(i) Guru Gobind Singh did not appoint anyone to succeed
him as Guru, A
(ii) the Tenth Guru had invested the Guru Granth Sahib
with Guruship,
(iii) Baba Ajapal Singh was not Guru Gobind Singh but
a Sikh of his,
(iv) Baba Ajapal Singh never told his life-story to
anyone,
(v) nobody knew anything about the identity of Baba
Ajapal Singh or of the five Singhs closest to him, and
that
(vi) there is no evidence or proof of Baba Ajapal
Singh having at any time visited or lived at Jind,
Patiala or Hazro.