Guru Govind Guru Govinda : (1666-1708), the tenth & last Guru of the Sikhs, who succeeded his father Tegh Bahadur in 1675. His sayings were later collected & formed a supplementary grantha to the Ādi Grantha Sahib compiled by Guru Arjan Singh (1581-1606). Guru Govinda retained the old theology but altered the whole genius of the Sikh brotherhood & turned the Sikhs from a passive religious group into a dynamic socio-political body & a military power. He instituted the ceremony of pahul consisting chiefly of drinking consecrated sweetened water stirred with a sword or dagger followed by the partaking of Prasād made of flour, sugar, & butter intended to break the bonds of caste. The brotherhood so constituted was called the Khālsā (Pure) & every member bore the title of Singh (lion). He also required the brotherhood to abjure from tobacco & wear kesh (long hair & beard), kaṇga (comb), Kucchā (underwear), Kadā (iron bangle) & Kirpān (dagger). He fought many battles against the Moguls even after losing his two sons who were most cruelly killed by Wazir Khan, the faujdār (general) of Sirhind. In the war of succession that erupted on Aurangzeb’s death in 1707 among his sons, Govinda Singh supported the second son Mu’azzam who, after killing his brothers & ascending the throne, assumed the name Bahadur Shah I or Shah Alam (8th Mogul emperor). The next year Guru Govinda Singh was murdered at Nander in the Deccan by an Afghan. Out of reverence for him the Sikh community abolished the office of Guru. [See Sikhism/ Sikhs]
... the Marathas and Sikhs in the eighteenth century was due to the policy of Shivaji and Guru Govind which called the whole nation into the fighting line. They failed only because the Marathas could not preserve the cohesion which Shivaji gave to their national strength or the Sikhs the discipline which Guru Govind gave to the Khalsa. Is it credible that a foreign rule would either knowingly foster or ...
... preferred death to conversion, was beheaded by Aurangzeb. So it was left to Tegh Bahadur's son, the tenth and last Guru, Govind Singh (1675 1708), to make the Sikh sect into a militant body, the Khalsa (or Pure), determined to resist Muslim atrocities and forced conversions. Guru Govind was himself treacherously assassinated by an Afghan Muslim. Page 62 wealth of the land." 1 Indeed ...
... important work which the Karmayogin sets for itself, to popularise this knowledge. The Vedanta or Sufism, the temple Page 20 or the mosque, Nanak and Kabir and Ramdas, Chaitanya or Guru Govind, Brahmin and Kayastha and Namasudra, whatever national asset we have, indigenous or acclimatised, it will seek to make known, to put in its right place and appreciate. And the second thing is how ...
... intellectualise and logicise my "wooden head". But that would be a very short-sighted human view of the Divine's multi-dimensional work. I am reminded, however, of a narrative poem by Tagore about Guru Govind Singh. The Sikh Guru adopted a Pathan boy whose father he had killed in a flare of temper. He brought him up well-versed in all Shastras and proficient in the art of warfare. Every morning and evening ...
... have given us so much national vitality. I think rather it was its spirit. I am inclined to give more credit for the secular miracle of our national survival to Shankara, Ramanuja, Nanak & Kabir, Guru Govind, Chaitanya, Ramdas & Tukaram than to Raghunandan and the Pandits of Nadiya & Bhatpara. The result of this well-meaning bondage has been an increasing impoverishment of the Indian intellect, once ...
... every way the head of society and of the nation; and the peoples which having achieved national self-consciousness came nearest to achieving also organised political unity were the Sikhs for whom Guru Govind Singh deliberately devised a common secular and spiritual centre in the Khalsa, and the Mahrattas who not only established a secular head, representative of the conscious nation, but so secularised ...
... fixed tradition with latitude of powerful and vivid change. A more striking instance was the founding of the Sikh religion, its long line of Gurus and the novel direction and form given to it by Guru Govind Singh in the democratic institution of the Khalsa. The Buddhist Sangha and its councils, the creation of a sort of divided pontifical authority by Shankaracharya, an authority transmitted from generation ...
... Shams-ul-Alam, Maulavi, 309,321,365ff Sharma, Balai Dev, 252 Shelly, P. B., 30, 31, 177 Shivaji, 115ff, 190,257,280,293,498 Shore, F. J., 12 Singh, Guru Govind, 257 Singh, Karan, 47fh, 256fn Singh, Prithwi (Nahar), 578 Singh, Sardar Ajit, 234, 235, 242,269,376 Sircar, Mahendranath, 13 Siva, Subramania, 299, 375 ...
... by Moghul or Briton, but from a small privileged class. On the other hand, the strength and success of the Marathas and Sikhs in the eighteenth century was due to the policy of Shivaji and Guru Govinda which called the whole nation into the fighting line. 27 When that cohesion or that discipline failed, the Mahratta and the Sikh power also dissipated itself. Then alien rule could thrive ...
... of saints and ecstatics alone, but includes also poets, sculptors, painters, scientists, polymaths, rulers, statesmen, conquerors, administrators. Asoka, Chanakya, Chandragupta, Akbar, Shivaji, Guru Govind Singh, these are in the golden roll-call as much as Gautama Buddha, Mahavira, Sankara, Ramanuja, Chaitanya, Nanak: All this mass of action was not accomplished by men without mind and will ...
... Alexandria, and the figures of the Upanishads and the sayings of the Buddhists were re-echoed on the lips of Christ. Pataliputra has played an important role in the history of ancient India. And Guru Govind Singh, the tenth guru of the Sikhs, was born there in 1669. Fittingly enough then, - Dr Rajendra Prasad (1884-1963), the first President of independent India, hailed from there. He was ...
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