Sikhs

Jahangir punished it with a fine of two lakhs of rupees, which Arjan was unable or unwilling to pay and so he was, it is said, tortured to death in 1606. To his son Har Govind, who succeeded him without contest he left a behest to maintain his throne by arms. Guru Har Govind was installed with turban and necklace only but added an aigrette to the one and for the other substi tuted a sword-belt. The Guru-ship was now launched on a new adventure—the foundation of a militant sacred dynasty. The Gurti founded the first Sikh stronghold, enlisted horse and foot, and encouraged his disciples to eat flesh to improve their physique.

After 12 years' imprisonment in the fortress of Gwalior Har Govind obtained his freedom, probably by paying the fine imposed on Arjan. This imprisonment must have preceded his military activities. By them he was enabled to resist Shah Jahan (1627 66) and claimed three victories over the imperial troops. But he died in 1645 in a remote valley of the lower Himalayas at Kirat pur on the upper Sutlej, which indicates that he had found it safer than Amritsar. Shah Jahan, who had destroyed many Hindu temples, appears to have taken no special measures against the Sikhs. Har Govind's grandson, Har Rai, who succeeded him, was undoubtedly a supporter of the unfortunate Dara Shikoh, who had the Upanishads partly done into Persian and professed mystical Safi heresies. On that prince's execution in 1659 Har Rei was summoned to Delhi but sent his elder son Ram Rai instead, and on his death two years later Ram Rai was excluded from suc ceeding him as being a hostage or prisoner, his younger brother Har Kishen assuming the Guru-ship, though still a child. His death in 1664 left the direct line extinct and the inheritance reverted to Teg Bahadur, Har Govind's second son, but he was executed by Aurangzeb in 1675 for having refused to accept Islam. His prophecy that Europeans were coming from beyond the seas to destroy the Moghul empire became the Sikh battle-cry at the siege of Delhi in 1857.

Middle Period.

The tenth and last Guru was his son, Govind Rai, who took the affix Singh, "lion," in lieu of Rai and re modelled the Sikh organization which he renamed Khalsa, "pure." He made the Sikh initiation (pallid) a rite of admittance into a militant order. In that rite, with a two-edged dagger (khanda) sugar is stirred up in water, which the novice drinks and with which he is lustrated five times. He then utters the Sikh war-cry vowing adherence to the Sikhs' tenets. Thenceforth he must wear the five k's, the kes, unshorn hair, the kachh, drawers reach ing only to the knee, the kara, iron bangle, the kirpan, sword (or khanda, small dagger) and khanga or hair comb. Of these the first four have soldierly uses, the long hair rolled round steel rings serving as a helmet and so on. But they have also a spiritual meaning, e.g., the kachh, symbolizing self restraint, the bangle obedience, and the comb purity of mind. The use of flesh and liquor is permitted as to a warrior, but tobacco as a narcotic is prohibited. Govind Singh also instituted the karii parsheid, a kind

of communion at which flour mixed with butter and sugar is eaten by all castes together.

Govind Singh waged an active defensive against the Moghul power but his levies were dispersed and his two sons put to death by the governor of Sirhind. On Aurangzeb's death, however, he aided Bahadur Shad, but in 1708 he was assassinated at Nander in the Deccan. Sonless and mistrustful of Banda Bairagi, who claimed to be the eleventh Guru, Govind Singh declared the line of Gurus extinct and the Guru-ship vested in the Granth Sahib as God's representative on earth. Sikhism was thenceforth to be a militant theocracy, but it soon formed a mass of military bands under Sirdars ("chiefs"). The earlier military organization of the Sikhs is obscure. Banda seems to have formed an almost regular army, but after gaining notable successes against the Moghuls, sacking Sirhind and compelling the allegiance of the Hindu hill-rajas who had generally refused to submit to the Gurus, he had to cede Amritsar to the true Singhs, the Tat Khalsa, elect of the elect, and was finally executed in 1716. His death left the Sikhs leaderless, but they were strong enough to extort grants of land from Farrukhsiar and formed two armies, a veteran and a younger. The latter comprised five companies, including the militant order of shahids, which carried its forays in Rajputana. On the Punjab, thus distracted, fell Nadir Shah's invasion of 1738 39. Its last great Moghul governor, Adina Beg, recovered part of the province, but on his death in 1758 the Sikhs mastered the central and north-east Punjab. They now appear as better organ ized. Besides the Shahids, three new orders were formed with eight mis/s or confederacies. Under Jassa Singh (elected head of the Ahluw5.1ia miss; badshei ["monarch"] , to his own followers, and by caste a potter on the earlier Sikh coins) there materialized as it were a cabinet of gurus, the gurii matte "sacred council," convened by the Akalis or the granthis about 1762 at Amritsar. South of the Sutlej the reversion to kingship was accelerated when Ala Singh of Patiala leased the province of Sirhind from Ahmad Shah with the title of king (raja) of kings, and the lessor's retreat from the Punjab left the Sikhs its masters from the Jamna to the Indus in 1767. But in 1808 Ranjit Singh suppressed the confederacy which bore the standard of the Khalsa; and the dissensions of the other mis/s enabled him, then merely the chief of the territorial confederacy, to absorb the rest, conquer Kash mir and Peshawar, subdue the hill states and set up a hereditary monarchy, though he still minted Sikh coins and upheld Sikhism as the state religion. But he appointed Mohammedan qazis and muftis ("judges and law-officers"), and protected Muslim states like Maler Kotla and many institutions of that creed, which had befriended Sikhs from time to time.