By Prof.Harbans Singh

In the life of Guru Nanak, one significant fact is the nomination of a successor. Lehna, who had come as a seeker, was in the end chosen by the Guru to succeed. He when installing him in the position of Guru, Guru Nanak called him Angad, part and parcel of his own being and, as says the Janamsakhi, placing five copper coins before him he made obeisance at his feet. The nature of the succession is also significant. The successor ‘was from among his disciples. In this choice, the Guru’s ‘own sons were bypassed. The disciple chosen was made by the Guru equal with himself. He transmitted to him his responsibilities and, as sang the poets, his light as well. He saw the disciple in his own image and paid him the reverence due to the Guru when he proclaimed his succession. The procedure was repeated successively over eight generations. The Sikh faith thus had ten spiritual guides succeeding one another, who are regarded with equal adoration and honor by the followers as manifesting the same spirit and message the succeeding Gurus were themselves conscious of the inheritance that had come to them from the First Guru. They were ‘witnesses to the continuing presence of Guru Nanak so was the community which was developing in their care.

Of this subtle relationship and the pervasive influence of Guru Nanak there is interesting contemporary testimony. Interesting because it authenticates the living Sikh belief that all the ten Gurus partook of the same spirit and worked for the implementation of truths brought to light by the First Guru, Nanak. This belief, as is manifested by this evidence, is not a matter of reading history backwards. Satta and Balwand, the minstrels who recited the holy hymns for the Second Guru, Angad, thus sang in an ode which is preserved in the Guru Granth, “Guru Nanak invested Lehna with the mark of guru ship. He, i.e., Guru Angad had the same light, the same method, it is the Master who had changed his body”. About the Third and Fourth Gurus, Amar Das and Ram Das, they said, “The wise being, Guru Nanak, descended in the form of Amar Das. The sect was astonished to see Nanak’s canopy over Amar Das’s head. Guru Amar Das obtained the same throne, and the same court, Hail, hail, guru Ram Das, God who created thee hath Thou art Nanak; Thou art Lehna; Thou art Amar Das”.

Bhai Gurdas, who is much revered in Sikh learning and piety and whose compositions were designated by the Fifth Guru as the key to the Scripture, said in one of his odes, “In his lifetime Nanak installed Lehna and Conferred on him the regalia of Guru Nanak turned himself into Angad by blending his light with him Angad had the same mark, the same umbrella over his head and Was seated on the same true throne as Guru Nanak. The seal from Guru Nanak’s hand passed on to Guru Angad’s and thus was his sovereignty proclaimed.. Lehna tained the gift from Nanak and to the house of Amar Das it must descend”. and, then, on to Ram Das, Arjun and Hargobind. “Arjun”, says Bhai Gurdas, “transformed Hargobind and chiseled his own image upon him”.

 

This awareness of the personality of Guru Nanak acting amidst them through the successor Gurus was so permanent among the Sikhs that Mobid Zulfikar Ardas tani (d. 1670) writing a century after him in his Persian work Dabistanul Mazahib said, “The Sikhs say that when Nanak left his body, he absorbed himself in Guru Angad who was his most devoted disciple, and that Guru Angad is Nanak himself. After that, at the time of his death, Guru Angad entered into the body of Amar Das. He in the same manner occupied a place in the body of Ram Das and Ram Das in the same manner got united with Arjun. They say that whoever does not acknowledge Guru Arjun to be the very self of Baba Nanak becomes a nonbeliever”.

Guru Gobind Singh, last of the Gurus, himself wrote in his poetical autobiography called Bachitra Natak. “Nanak assumed the body of Angad. Afterwards, Nanak was called Amar Das, as one lamp is lit from another. The holy Nanak was revered as Angad. Angad was recognized as Amar Das. And Amar Das became Ram Das…When Ram Das was blended with the Divine, he gave the Guru ship to Arjun. Arjun appointed Hargobind in his place and Hargobind gave his seat to Har Rai Har Krishan, his son, then became Guru. After him came Tegh Bahadur”.

This oneness, this unity of the Gurus came home to the Sikhs through their belief in the presence of Guru Nanak in them. For the Gurus themselves this presence was a constant reality, an inspiration and the norm in the exercise of their spiritual office. They wrote religious verse in the name of the First Guru. All their hymns in the Guru Granth bear the no deplume of Nanak. Thus we have the compositions of the Nanak I, Nanak II, Nanak III, and so on. They have a remarkable correspondence of tone and concept; in both utterance and deed later Gurus, Nanaks themselves as the Sikhs believe, were acting out the intuition meditated to them from Guru Nanak.

The memory of Guru Nanak was in this manner operative in the subsequent Sikh development. The interplay of the original impulse and the exigencies of contemporary social environment set the course of this evolution. Challenges arose new situations demanded and elicited new answers. Points of transfiguration were reached and worked out: yet it is possible to discern in this process a basic harmony and continuity attributable primarily to the ever present Nanak legend.

Each of the successor Gurus contributed towards the evolution of the creed and civil organization in accordance with the spirit of the teaching inherited from Guru Nanak and the existing historical factors. The Fifth Guru, Arjun, for instance gave the Sikhs their Holy book, the Granth Sahib, and their Mecca, the Harmandir, now the Golden Temple of Amritsar. In the Holy Book which he compiled he included the hymns of his predecessors and. his own and of some of the saints of medieval India, both Hindu and Muslim. Among the latter were Raman and, Kabir, Namdey and the Sufi mystic Shaikh Farid. The foundation of the Sikh shrine at Amritsar was laid at the request of the Fifth Guru by the well-known Muslim Sufi Mian Mir. To the growing intolerance of the ruling authority Guru Arjun responded by resignedly accepting martyrdom with extreme torture; his successor sanctioned the use of arms. Seeing how peaceable means had failed to secure the rising sect immunity from oppression the latter recognized this as a lawful alternative. He chose himself a warrior’s equipment. For the ceremonies of succession and put on two swords declaring one to be the symbol of his spiritual and the other that of his temporal investiture. The Ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, was the second of the Gurus to be executed under Imperial orders.

History from henceforward takes a more decisive turn. The events are well known. What might bear mentioning here is the point that, in this period of stress, hold was maintained on the insights which had till then been the guiding principles. The struggle in which Gurn Gobind Singh became involved was regarded as God’s way of fulfilling Guru Nanak’s mission Guru Gobind Singh’s own verse, no different from Guru Nanak’s in its transcendental quality, bears witness to this. In practice, a strictly ethical and moral discipline was evolved and adhered to. No distinction was made between the Hindu, and the Muslim. Several staunch followers of Islam did, in fact, align themselves with the Guru against the Imperial armies. Pir Buddhu Shah, a Muslim leader of considerable religious influence, took part in battle on his side along with his sons and disciples. A joint harmonious Hindu Muslim being was as much a reality in Guru Gobind Singh’s vision as in Guru Nanak’s.

Sensitivity to contemporary reality was not alien to Guru Nanak’s own contemplation. In spite of the pacific temper of his teaching there is noticeable in it a note of sternness towards injustice, oppression and cruelty. Deeply telling was the reference, in his shabads known as Babarbani, to the invasion of India by Babar’s armies. The agony of the situation and the sufferings of both Hindus and Muslims were tendered by him in accents of intense power and protest. What happened in the time of Guru Gobind Singh was a natural consequence of the interaction of the impulse on which the emerging faith had been nurtured and the peculiar situation be was confronted with.

Guru Gobind Singh ended the line of personal Gurus and passed on the succession to the Holy book, the Guru Granth. He declared to the Sikhs at the time of his death the Word as embodied in the Granth would be the Guru: after him. “The Guru’s spirit”, said he, “will henceforth be in the Granth and the Khalsa. Where the Granth is with any five Sikhs as representing the Khalsa there will the Guru be”. Then, in confirmation of the new rank bestowed upon it, he bowed before the Guru Granth and made offering to it.

For Sikhs the Guru Granth has since been the manifestation of the Guru’s spirit. Through it Guru Nanak lives on in the Sikh faith and tradition as a reality transcending the time and space setting. This awareness of the indwelling presence of the Guru has been of crucial importance to the Sikhs community as a whole as well as to its members individually. It has been an impelling factor in their history; it has been their strength, hope and inspiration.

It has given them unity, coherence and a sense of purpose and molded their ideals, institutions and customs through the centuries their ideals, institutions and customs through the centuries singly and in groups they practice this presence daily when, in their homes and in the congregations in Gurdwaras, they conclude their morning and evening prayers or prayers said at any other time as part of personal piety or of a ceremony with the words: Nanak namchardi kala tere bhane sarbatt ka bhalain Nanak’s name, Thy glory, O God, be ever in the ascendant, and, in Thy will, may peace and happiness come to one and all in the world.

The Gurpurb will be celebrated on November 26.

Article extracted from this publication >>  November 17, 1989