The Emperor received Jetha with great distinction, and inquired after the Guru’s health. The Brahmans and the Khatris, not deeming their representative capable of urging their complaints with sufficient force, decided, on further consideration, to appear personally before the Emperor. On their arrival they repeated verbally the charges they had made in writing against the Guru. It was reserved for them to give another complexion to their accusation. They said that the conduct of the Guru in diverting people from the old faith was likely to lead to political disturbance or insurrection. The Emperor then called for Jetha to reply to the charges.
Jetha said, “O Emperor, in the Sat, the Treta, the Dwapar, and the Kal ages God was worshipped under the names of Wasdev, Hari, Gobind, and Ram [p. 107] respectively. The Guru hath made out of the initials of these four names the word Wahguru, which is praise of God and the Guru. The Rikhis, who composed the Shastars, have written that whenever the saints meet together and repeat God’s name and praises, there are the Ganges, the Jamna, the Saraswati, the Godavari, and all the rivers of Hindu pilgrimage. It is true that by bathing at these the body is cleansed, but it is by associating with saints and repeating God’s name that the mind becometh pure. Better than the worship of idols is it to recognize God’s light in everybody, and vex no one’s soul ; for what place of pilgrimage is equal to mercy ? To bear no one enmity is tantamount to fasting. To renounce hypocrisy and repeat the Name are the main elements of our religion. The true Guru giveth honour to all while he himself remaineth humble. The Brahmans claim to be equal to God. The Guru maketh no such boast, for he well knoweth that he is God’s slave. Selfish and ambitious men roam and wander in pursuit of wealth ; but the Guru hath no worldly desires, and, knowing that God is in all creatures and everywhere diffused, is firm in his faith, harboureth no doubts, and renounceth superstition.’ Jetha then repeated the following composition of his own :—
God’s name is God’s treasure ; clasp it to thy heart under the Guru’s instruction.
Be the slave of God’s slave; subdue pride and evil passions.
They who have won the prize of human birth shall by the Guru’s favour never know defeat.
Blest, blest and very fortunate are they, Nanak, who ‘under the Guru’s instruction deem God the essence of all things.
God, God, God is the treasury of excellences.
Meditate on God, God under the Guru’s instruction, then shalt thou obtain honour in God’s court.
[p. 108]
Repeat, God, God, God, and thy face shall become bright and distinguished.
Nanak, he who hath obtained God’s name shall meet Him.
Jetha then said, ‘ If, however, my accusers desire to test my knowledge I will expound to them the gayatri, although I place no faith in its efficacy.’ On this Jetha was called upon to fulfil his promise. On hearing Jetha’s exposition of the famous Hindu text, the Brahmans and Khatris who came to complain were astonished at his learning and intimate acquaintance with their religion. They were put to shame in the presence of the Emperor, while the Sikhs who accompanied Jetha were as pleased as the lotus when it beholds the sun.
The Emperor then gave his decision: ‘I see no hostility to Hinduism in this man, nor do I find any fault with his compositions. To repeat or not to repeat the gayatri is at his own discretion. It certainly doth not concern me to cause the gayatri to be repeated or twilight devotions performed. Jetha’s words show how the mind may be purified and hypocrisy renounced. There is no difference between God and His darwesh. No man can vie with either. You complainants are enemies of truth, and are only causing needless annoyance. Reply to Jetha if you can ; if not, ask his forgiveness.’ The Brahmans could give no reply and departed from court thoroughly crestfallen.
Upon this the Emperor took Jetha aside, and told him to request Guru Amar Das, who before his conversion to Sikhism used to make a yearly pilgrimage to the Ganges, to make one pilgrimage more in order to divert the wrath of the Hindus. The Ikmperor added that he would issue an order that no tax should be levied on the Guru’s party.[1]
Gobind’s son took his discomfiture in the Marwaha’s land-suit so much to heart that he pined away [p. 109] and soon died. His mother believed that her son’s fate was the result of his hostility to the Guru, so, in order to save the family from extinction, she brought her surviving son, then a child, to the Guru, and prayed him to protect him. The Guru compassionately said, ‘ This son shall remain attached to the Guru, and from him many sons shall be born’— a prophecy which was subsequently fulfilled.
The Guru, in compliance with the Emperor’s suggestion, and also in order to have an opportunity of preaching his religion, set out for Hardwar. By the time he had crossed the river Bias and arrived in the Doab, he found himself accompanied by a great concourse of people. It had become publicly known that he and his retinue were exempted from the ordinary pilgrim-tax, so people flocked to him in numbers. They would have a sight of the Guru, they would perform their pilgrimage with singing and music, they would live on the Guru’s kitchen, they would be exempted from the pilgrim-tax, they would be protected from robbers, and they would have the advantage of bathing with all due ceremonial and observances at the renowned place of pilgrimage. For all these reasons several thousands followed in the Guru’s train. The Guru sometimes walked with a stick, but more generally rode, on account of his extreme age. Having crossed the Satluj he went to Pahoa, a place of pilgrimage not far from Thanesar or Kurkhetar, where in days long past, on the margin of the Saraswati, Rikhis and Munis performed painful penance and austerities. The Pandits and Brahmans of the place were well pleased to see the Guru, and they went and sat in his court. He then proceeded to Thanesar or the place par excellence of Shiv the destroyer. The Guru was asked whyhe had abandoned Sanskrit, the language of the gods, and composed hymns in the vulgar tongue. He replied, ‘ Well-water can only irrigate adjacent land, but rain-water the whole world. On this [p. 110] account the Guru hath composed his hymns in the vulgar dialect, and enshrined them in the Gurumukhi characters, so that men and women of all castes and classes may read them.” A Brahman replied, ‘ Clouds rain on the earth, but is there not water enough in the earth already ?’ The Guru replied as follows :—
You say, clouds rain upon the earth, but is there not water enough in the earth already ?
I reply—There is, it is true, water in the earth, but water only appeareth when the clouds rain.[2]
The Pandit said that religious instruction ought not to be communicated to every one, it being forbidden to instruct Sudars and women in the sacred lore. The Guru replied :—
O, father, dispel such doubts.
It is God who doeth whatever is done ; all who exist shall be absorbed in Him.
What is the effect of the union of female and male without the interposition of God ?
The different forms, O God, which appear are ever Thine, and at the last they shall all be resolved in Thee.
I have been led astray through so many births ; now that I have found Thee I am as if I had never strayed.
He who is absorbed in the Guru’s word, shall thoroughly know Him who made this world.
Thine is the Word, there is none but Thee ; where is room for doubt ?
Nanak, he whose essence is united with the essence of God shall not be born again.[3]
The Guru proceeded to the river Jamna, whose dark ripples delighted his eyes. There arose a slight unexpected difficulty. Every pilgrim endeavoured to escape taxation by saying he was a Sikh and follower of the Guru. The tax-gatherers waited on [p. 111] the Guru, and requested him to separate or name his own immediate followers, and they should pass free, but all others must pay. The Guru replied, ‘Tf you want taxes, I will give you whatever money you require ; but if, in obedience to the Emperor’s order of exemption, you do not tax my Sikhs, they shall all be known by their uttering “Sat Nam! Sri Wahguru!’’ None may be expelled from the Guru’s company ; whoever cometh as a friend is ever respected.’ When the Guru was crossing the Jamna, thousands of people who were not Sikhs accompanied him, crying out ‘Sat Nam! Sri Wahguru!’ and passed over untaxed.
After preaching at the Jamna the Guru proceeded in the direction of Hardwar. He rested under a tree on the way at a place called Kankhal, three miles to the south of the great Hindu source of cholera and devotion. As he approached Hardwar the crowd which gathered round him assumed still vaster proportions. When the tax-gatherers tried to impose a tax on any of them, they were met with the angry reply, ‘ Have I not said Wahguru ? Am I not the Guru’s Sikh ?’ Thus there was not even a farthing put into their boxes, and they went to their homes without the usual receipts.
The Guru availed himself of the opportunity to read a brief homily to his followers: ‘As the taxgatherers have not been able to prevail against you, so Death, another tax-gatherer, shall have no power against those who repeat “Sat Nam! Sri Wahguru!’’ This is an example to hand of the way to escape from Death.’
Suraj Parkash, Ras I, Chapter 44. The jaziya or tax on ‘infidels’ was subsequently abolished by Akbar in a.p. 1579. ↩︎
In this allegory the water in the earth means recondite Sanskrit literature; the water from the clouds, the Guru’s instruction, which is continually poured down for the benefit of the world. ↩︎
Gauri. ↩︎