Lehal Library

From the Pacifist Sikh to the Militant Khalsa 89 and the death of his own mother from shock. Gobind took the news with stoic calm.M 'What use is it to put out a few sparks when you raise a mighty flame instead?' he wrote.s. The news of the dastardly murders spread all over the countryside and thousands of Sikhs flocked to the Guru's camp at Kot Kapura Lo help him to avenge the crime. At Kot Kapura, Gobind got news that Wazir Khan• s forces were marching against execution. The current tradition is that they were walled in alive. Siiraj PraJw.i and Cur Biliis slate that they were decapitated. Wazir Khan and his adviser Sucha Nand (who exhorted him to put an end to the boys' Lives because 'the young ones of a snalce are as poisonous') were held by the Sikhs to be equally responsible for the murders. A part of the 'lafamama was apparently written before the news of the murder of these children was conveyed to Gobind, because verses 14 and 15 refer only w the death of two of his sons: 'It matters little if a jackal through cunning and rreache1y succeeds in killing two lion cubs, for the lion himself lives to inflict reLribution on you.• Subsequently, in verse 98, the 'lafamiimli mentions the death of all four children. 33 It is probable thru Gobind composed his famous lines hal murida.n dii. Kfl/1,:ia in a mood of despondence about this time. The poem is one of the very few he wrote in Punjabi. Beloved Friend, beloved God, Thou must bear Thy servant's plight when Thou an not near. The comfort's cloak is as a pall of pest, The home is like a serpent's neSL The wine chokes like the hangman's noose, The rim of the goblet is like an assassin's knife, But with Thee shall I in adversity dwell. Without Thee life of ease is life in hell. (Sabad Haz.iire) 34 ZAJarnama, verse 99. 81kb chronicles state that Emperor Aurangzeb sem for the Guru in the hJpe that since he had lost everything he would be willing to submit; ar.d chat the Guru sent him a reply-the 7,afamii:mii., or the epistle of vk.ory. It is further maintained that the contents of the 'lafamama touched the Emperor's heart so that he ordered free egress to the Guru nnd imited him to coun. This version cannot be correct, as the 7..afamiimii is defiantly offensive about the Emperor and could never have softened him towards the Guru. It describes Aurangzeb as a deceitful fox and an irreligious man whose oaths on the Koran were not to be trusted. The epistle that the Gum sent must have been in a different tone, because Aura.ngzeb was in fact induced by it to invite the Guru to meet him.