Guru Arjan Dev Jee was born April 15,1563 at Goindwal (Amritsar) in the house of fourth Master of the Sikhs Guru Ram Das Jee and Mata Bhani Jee, He had two brothers, Pirthi Chand and Maha Dev. He married to Ganga Jee and was blessed with a lone son, Hargobind. His date of assumption as Guru was September 1,1581, at Goindwal at the age of 18.. His Gurbani is Gauri Sukhmani, Bara Mah, Bawan Akhari with a total of 2312 Shabads in 30 Ragas. He obtained Martyrdom in 1606 at the age of 43.
Guru Arjan, the fifth Master of the Sikhs, supervised and completed the construction of the Golden Temple. He too compiled the first holy book of the Sikhs in 1604 and it installed in the Golden Temple with Bhai Buddha as the first head priest of the temple.
Guru Arjan expanded the mission of Guru Nanak i.c., equality, liberty, fraternity and service of humanity through his preaching. He inspired many people of different faiths and cultural background to embrace Sikhism. The jealous Muslim ruler, Jahangir, wanted to stop the increasing popularity of Arajan and thus ordered his arrest. Arjan was slowly tortured for five days, Guru Arjan remained calm by the will of God and peacefully sacrificed his life.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 2, 1992
