Lehal Library

From the Pacifist Sikh to the Militant Khalsa 93 Give me faith that victory will be mine, Give me power to sing Thy praise, And when comes the time to end my life, Let me fall in mighty strife..... The two hundred years between Nanak's prodamation of faith45 (AD 1499) and Gobind's founding of the Khalsa Panth (AD 1699) can be neatly divided into two almost equal pans.<lli In the first hundred years the five gurus pronounced the ideals of a new social order for the Punjab. The religion was to be one acceptable to both the Muslims and Hindus; it was to be monotheistic, non-idolatrous, and free of meaningless form and ritual. The social order was to embrace all the people; no class was to be beyond the pale, and even though the caste system continued to count when it came to making matrimonial alliances,47 it was abolished in mauers of social intercourse. The doors of Sikh temples were thrown open to everyone and in the Guru's langar the Brahmin and the untouchable broke their bread as members of the same family. The code of this new order was the nondenominational anthology of hymns, the Granth; its symbol, the Harimandir, an edifice whose first stone was laid by a Muslim, the rest being built by Hindus and Sikhs together. It is not surprising that the Sikhism of the first five gurus and the Granth found ready acceptance among the masses. They responded to it because it was eclectic, simple, and propounded by men who were LOO modest either to claim kinship with God 44 C,aiuf,i Caritr. 45 'The sword which carried the Khalsa's way to glory was undoubtedly forged by Gobind, but the steel bad been provided by Nanak, who had obtained it, as it were, by smelting the Hindu ore and burning oul the dross of indifference and superstition of the masses and the hypocrisy and phariseeism of the priests.' (Na.rang, Tran.sfonnaJiun of Sikhism.) 46 The Lbree gurus represent, as it were, the three aspects of the Hindu Trinity. Nanak, like Brahma, was the creator of Sikhism; Arjun, like VIShnu, its preserver; and Gobind, like Shiva, the destroyer of its enemies. 47 Neither the gurus nor any members of their families manied outside the Ksbatriya castes. As has been noted earlier, Nanak was a Bedi, Angad a Trehan, Ainar Das a Bhalla, and the remaining seven were Sodhis belonging to one family.