Jan-March 2006 - Institute of Sikh Studies

COMPILATION OF SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB19widespread movement’. This, firstly, made Brahmins to lead adelegation to Emperor Akbar at Lahore. Akbar looked through thewidespread humanitarianism of the Sikh movement and madeBrahmins to apologise for their misdeeds. This led Brahmins to resortto the second course to pressurise some of the followers of GuruAmar Das to cause a schism. The existence of 22 major dioceses and52 pirhas came quite handy both for spread of Sikh movement and towin over some of the elements to play Brahminical game.During the lifetime of Guru Amar Das, some diverse elementsincluding the sons of Guru were worked upon to cause distortions inthe Sikh movement by straightaway causing a schism in Guru Nanak’sideology which was explicit in the mul mantra. They now attacked themul mantra, caused distortions in working out a new one to constitutean alternative centre of ideology, given in one of the rival Pothis.Ek oankar suti guru pursudu, sachu, namu, kartaru, nirbhau, nirikaru,akala, murat, ajuni, sambhauProf Pritam Singh, who made a special study of Ahyapur WaliPothi, is of the firm opinion that it was a parallel product, which camefrom a hostile source, and Guru Arjun Dev had nothing to do with it.Consequently, when time came, Guru Amar Das who had warnedagainst kachi bani, spurious hymns, ignored his sons and chose insteadhis son-in-law Bhai Jetha, known as Guru Ram Das as his successor.The first job of Guru Ram Das was to ensure the authenticity ofGuru Nanak’s mul mantra. Consequently, he made available severalcopies of Guru Nanak’s mul mantra and Japji in his own handwriting.Later, it was this writing that was used by Guru Arjun Dev whilecompiling Pothi Sahib which explicitly stated the source wherefromthe text came. Secondly, it served as a guard to keep an eye on thecoming schism.Guru Ram Das was a great exponent of Sikhism. Guru Nanak