Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji

The Encyclopaedia gives this story in two versions. In its life of Sri Guru Ram Das Ji, a cousin named Sahari Mal asks Guru Ji to a wedding in Lahore. The two elder sons make excuses, and the youngest goes and stays on, with orders to serve the Sikhs until recalled.

Separated from his father, he sends letters in verse. Prithi Chand hides the first two. The third reaches Sri Guru Ram Das Ji and, being marked number three, reveals what has happened. On his return the young man adds a fourth stanza of joy, and his father names him successor.

Macauliffe, following the chronicles, says that Prithi Chand allied himself with Sulahi Khan, a Mughal revenue officer. When Sulahi Khan approached Ramdaspur, Guru Ji left for Wadali, where he had a large well dug. Sulahi Khan asked Prithi Chand where his younger brother had gone, and promised to deal with his conduct.

The Encyclopaedia completes the story: Sulahi Khan was on his way to attack Guru Ji when he fell by accident into a burning brick kiln and was killed.

The Gurbilas, as summarised in the Encyclopaedia, credits the birth to a blessing from Bhai Buddha. Mata Ganga brought food out to him one day, and he ate it while promising her a warrior son who would crush tyrants.

Here is who says what. Ghulam Muhayy ud-Din, known as Bute Shah, in his Twarikh-i-Punjab, says that the Sufi travelled to Amritsar when Guru Ji asked him, and set a brick on each of four sides and another at the tank's centre. Sohan Lal Suri's Umdat-ut-Twarikh has Guru Ji go to Lahore and ask Mian Mir for help with the buildings. Giani Gian Singh's Twarikh Guru Khalsa of 1896 says plainly that Mian Mir laid the foundation.

The Encyclopaedia calls the date of 28 December 1588 (1 Magh 1645 Bk) current tradition. Macauliffe gives the same Bikrami date, converts it to 1589, and says Guru Ji himself laid the first brick. He adds that a mason knocked it out of place, and that Guru Ji said the foundation would have to be laid again, which he connects with Ahmad Shah's destruction of the temple. Gupta tells the mason story but gives the foundation and the saying to Mian Mir.

The Encyclopaedia says that on 13 April 1590 Guru Ji began to turn a natural pond by the Delhi-Lahore road into a square tank, buying the land from the people of Khara. Digging ended on 19 March 1596, and building started on Sri Darbar Sahib.

Then a local official, Nur ud-Din, claiming imperial authority for a new roadside inn, seized the bricks and the kilns that were making them and sent his son to carry them away. Sri Darbar Sahib stayed unbuilt for generations. In 1768 Sardar Budh Singh took the district, tore down the inn and carried the bricks back. Lepers are said to have come to the site, and Guru Ji is remembered as caring for them.

The Akbarnama gives only a short notice, in Moosvi's translation. The emperor crossed the Beas on an elephant near Goindwal while his troops used a boat bridge. On that day he stopped at Guru Ji's house, accepting the invitation because it came from true devotion. Abu'l Fazl calls Guru Ji the leader of a Brahmanical faith, a slip that the editors explain by noting that he was not in camp at the time.

Sikh writers, as reported in the Encyclopaedia, add that Guru Ji asked for relief for peasants after a failed monsoon, and that Akbar cut the land revenue.

In the Encyclopaedia's telling, opponents complained to Akbar that the book spoke against Islam and other faiths. He called for it while camped at Batala, and Guru Ji sent Bhai Buddha and Bhai Gurdas with the volume. Akbar pointed to a place, the book was opened at random, and the hymn read out praised God, and the others tried did the same. He gave 51 gold mohars for the Granth and robes of honour for the two Sikhs and Guru Ji.

Macauliffe tells this with Chandu as the instigator, and has him insist that someone else who could read Gurmukhi should check the reading.

The later chronicles, as the Encyclopaedia and Mann describe them, say that Baba Mohan, son of Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, kept the old hymn collections at Goindwal and would not part with them. Bhai Gurdas was turned away, and then Bhai Buddha. So Guru Ji went himself, and sat in the street below the upper room with a tambura, singing to his uncle. Baba Mohan came downstairs with the books.

The Gurbilas adds a jewelled palanquin carried by Sikhs, with Guru Ji walking barefoot behind it because the books were the light of his predecessors. Mann shows that the later versions add a vision of Sri Guru Amar Das Ji warning him of the rough welcome.

The Gurbilas, as quoted by the Encyclopaedia, says that Guru Ji lay awake thinking about who should take charge of the Granth and settled on Bhai Buddha. At dawn the whole sangat walked from Ramsar, with Bhai Buddha bearing the volume on his head and Guru Ji behind him waving the whisk over it, while musicians sang.

In the inner sanctuary Bhai Buddha opened the book for the first time. The hymn that came up gave thanks for a task completed and for the tank full of nectar. Guru Ji directed that the book should rest each night in his own room, and slept on the floor beside it.

As the Encyclopaedia retells the Gurbilas, Guru Ji told Bhai Banno to take the book to Lahore for binding. He asked to show it first to the Sikhs of his village, and Guru Ji agreed, on the condition that he stayed no more than one night in any place.

Nothing was said about how fast he should travel. So he had paper bought, moved at about five miles a day and had his companions write through the days and nights. He added some apocryphal text as well. When he came back with two bound volumes, Guru Ji took only the one in Bhai Gurdas's hand.

Mahima Prakash and later chronicles, as summarised in the Encyclopaedia, tell how Balvand and Satta asked for all the Vaisakhi offerings of one year to pay for a family wedding. Guru Ji agreed, but the takings fell short, and they demanded more. When he refused they walked out, sure that the congregation would melt away without them, and spoke rudely of the house of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji when he came to them.

They were shunned, and the story says they fell ill with leprosy. A Sikh named Laddha pleaded for them. They were forgiven and cured, and their Var followed.

Jahangir says that Guru Ji came out to meet Khusrau where he had halted, told him things and marked his forehead with saffron, a sign considered lucky. Guerreiro, relaying Jesuit reports, turns this into a coronation: Guru Ji congratulated the prince on his new royal state and placed a tiara on his head.

The Mahima Prakash is modest by comparison: the prince was in trouble, Guru Ji gave him the hospitality of the kitchen, and he went on the next morning. Macauliffe has the prince ask for money at Tarn Taran, and has Guru Ji give him five thousand rupees. The Dabistan says only that Guru Ji had prayed for his welfare.

Jahangir writes of Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji with open disrespect, as a Hindu at Goindwal dressed as a holy man, who had won over simple Hindus and even foolish Muslims. They called him Guru. For three or four generations, the emperor says, they had kept this shop going, and he had often thought of stopping it or of bringing Guru Ji into Islam.

When he heard of the Khusrau meeting, he ordered Guru Ji brought before him, gave his houses and children to Murtaza Khan and confiscated his property. Then comes the order of death.

In the Dabistan, Guru Ji was arrested and fined for praying for Khusrau, and could not pay the huge sum demanded. He was held in the sandy tract of Lahore, where the summer heat and the torments inflicted by the collectors killed him.

Guerreiro's account of Jesuit reports is similar in outline but adds a wealthy Hindu who stood surety for a hundred thousand crusados. When the money did not come, this man stripped Guru Ji of his goods and, in the Moosvi summary, subjected Guru Ji to torture until martyrdom.

Jerome Xavier wrote from Lahore on 25 September 1606, in a letter quoted by the Encyclopaedia, that their good Pope had been overcome by suffering, torment and dishonour.

The chronicles, as the Encyclopaedia and Macauliffe tell it, say that Chandu Shah, a wealthy Lahore banker and revenue official, was looking for a husband for his daughter. A family priest proposed young Sri Guru Hargobind Ji. Chandu agreed, but said Guru Ji's house was beneath his own. Macauliffe's version has him compare his own house to an upper storey and Guru Ji's to a gutter.

Word of this reached the sangat in Delhi. They asked Guru Ji to refuse the match, and he did. Chandu became his enemy, and when Jahangir arrived in Lahore he used his chance. In this account Chandu takes over the sentence from Murtaza Khan and oversees the tortures personally. Macauliffe has him still pressing for the marriage at the end.

The Encyclopaedia summarises the Sikh account. Guru Ji was held for several days on a platform outside Lahore fort, near the Ravi. He was seated on red-hot iron, burning sand was poured over him and he was plunged into boiling water. Macauliffe gives speeches and hymns at each stage, and the offer of life if the Granth were changed to include praise of Muhammad and the Hindu gods.

Mian Mir came and offered to appeal to the emperor, but Guru Ji stopped him, telling him to accept God's will. In Macauliffe's version, Guru Ji explains his suffering as an example to others. At last he was taken to bathe in the cold river, and his blistered body could not bear it. Wrapped in meditation, he passed away.

Bhai Gurdas, who knew him, uses images from nature: the fish in the water, the moth in the flame, the deer that hears only the hunter's bell. The verse does not describe torments in detail, but it does speak of the hour of suffering.