Guru Gobind Singh — The sentinel of pristine culture By Mohindar Pal Kohli

GURU GOBIND SINGH could be safely termed as an epitome of the ancient wisdom inherent in our culture, which laid stress of selfless service, renunciation and higher values of life. The process of revitalising the society, which started with Guru Nanak in the Punjab during dark days of the Mughal rule, passed through near consummation in Guru Tegh Bahadur, which through the Divine Will was carried ahead with renewed vigour by the tenth master.Guru Gobind Singh With a little variation he re-enacted the drama of the Katha Upanishad. Rishi Vajasrava sent his son to Yama to get lessons in truth; Gobind sent his father to the lord of death, then his sons and, finally, he himself offered to die to defend Dharma. Rarely do we find such a miracle performed anywhere in the world in the chronicle of time. Unsurpassed in courage and confidence, he was a Prometheus of rare dignity.

Guru Gobind Singh, besides being a saint-soldier, was a writer of epic dimensions. The ancient past with all its pristine polity, preserved through the millennia, ran in his blood. Retiring into the seclusion of Naina Devi hills, he mediated and pondered over the way to integrate loose semi-tribal values of his people with the high moral, spiritual and conceptual values enshrined in our heritage. A great poet and thinker as he was, he summoned to his pen the heroic exploits of Rama, Krishna and Durga; for by his acute perception he had realised that the awareness of situation which confronted them could be created in mythical terms.

He created a new metaphor - the metaphor of the sword, a symbol of shakti and God Himself. This mythical thinking had a role in maintaining the internal cohesion. He infused among his people a lifestyle and thinking as he declared in Bachittar Naatak to promote Dharma, to redeem the saints and to uproot the evil from the land. The stories, which had become conventionally blase and repetitively lifeless, became in his hands meaningful in the furtherance of the cause.

Bachittar Naatak or Wonder Drama, a poetic autobiography of the Guru sets the tone and tenor of his whole range of writing. Tracing his lineage and that of Guru Nanak from the Suryabansi Ram, Luv and Kush, he mythologically and mystically affirms the uninterrupted continuity of tradition and unbreakable link with the past which runs into propagated compassion and charity, self-controlled upanishadic humility as the cardinal virtues of a religious man. He talks about the avatars and their missions, the concept of moksha, the metaphysics. Associating himself with the avatars, saints and rishis of the land, he established his credentials as a great hero of the masses. For where Dharma is, there is God and where God is, there is victory, says Rishi Vyas. As a crusader of Dharma, he presented his manifesto:

Hun eh kaaj jagat me aayai/Dharam het Gurudev pathayai

Jahan jahan tum Dharma bithaaro/Dusht dokyan pakar pachharo

Yaahi kaaj hum janamam/Samajh leh sadhu sabh manmam

Dharm chalaavan sant ubaaran/Dushat sabban ko mul upaaran

Freely translated it means that the sole purpose of his life in the world was to establish the reign of Dharma and to protect the virtuous men from Adharma.

In the great classic tradition, the Guru resurrected from the past the literary treasure that had an abiding value for the nation in its hour of need.

He realised that the history and mythology could be exploited in the language within the comprehension of the common people in order to resuscitate the decadent Hindu society. He adopted the Braj language, the lingua franca of India, to express what he thought was the need of the time. He sets forth his aim in clear tone:

Dasam Katha Bhagaut ki/Bhakha kari banayai

Avar wasna nahin kishh/Dharm yudh ka chayai

He was a veritable sentinel of Dharma, who restored to us our ethics, our values and our dignity through his Chaubis Avatar, which includes, besides others chronologically, the stories of Rama and Krishan. His heroes time and again cross the hurdles by performing great deeds and are able to defeat the evil forces and finally build the citadels of undying Dharma. The Chandi Charitra and Chandi di Vaar, based upon Markandaya Puran depict the fight between the gods and the demons and the final victory of the gods with help of the goddess Durga, the symbol of divine shakti, metaphorically represented by Khanda, with which he initiated his disciples to great deeds and had them, as Vivekananda described to his companions once, "filled with such wonderful heroism" that it prompted them to great deeds. While narrating the story of the Guru, the companions tell us, Swamiji’s eyes dilating with enthusiasm seemed to be emitting fire, and his listeners, dumb-stricken and looking at his face, kept watching the wonderful sight. "He was a great worshipper of Shakti," said Vivekananda, "Yes, in Indian history, such an example is indeed very rare." While engaged in writing the exploits of Durga, it appears that the Guru was himself fighting on the side of the gods, at the same time no less belittling the power of the rakshashas.

In addition to the inspiring verse, the master wrote Jaap Sahib in 199 Chhandas, Sudha Swayya, Chaupayees and Akaal Ustat. In the classical measures, he described the attributes and the glory of the Almighty through the visionary concept of the warrior - saint, who enjoys the sublime and the great and who promises the validity of truth with an unconcern of the liberated soul enjoying the world as a play - jagat tamaasa. Zafarnaama or the Epistle of Victory, is a letter in Persian verse, supposed to have been addressed to Aurangzeb telling him that he was compelled to take recourse to the sword when all other means passed beyond the realm of diplomacy.

It is simply surprising that the Guru, like the Roman king Marcus Aurelius, utilised each leisure moment that he could spare from the martial and organisational routine, devoted to such literary ventures that transcended his personal tribulations. There is ample evidence now available that about fifty two poets and thirty scribes had assembled around him and were constantly engaged in literary pursuits. The principal Upanishads, Bhagvad Puran, Vedantic texts and many Sanskrit literary texts were translated into Bhasha by these devoted bards. Tahkan Chopra translated the Mahabharata of which Jaimni Parva portion is still available, though much of this literature was lost because of the intermittent migration during the battles with the Mughal forces.

Guru Gobind Singh lived with mission and wrote with a mission. He sought the blessings of the Omnipotent Lord to fight for the virtuous cause and die for Dharma in concluding the first part of Chandi Charitra with the moving strain:

Deh Shiva bar mohe ehai

Subh Karman te kabhun na tarun

(Grant me, O Lord, this boon, may I never falter in doing noble deeds.)

Not all the poets in that great assemblage were amritdharis. The legend says that Bhai Nand Lal Goya was a Sikh, not an amritdhari. There is also a legend that he had convened a meeting of the hill chieftains at Riwalsar, situated about twenty kilometres west of Mandi, to chalk out a comprehensive programme to form a united force to fight against the anti-Dharma forces and at the same time recreate inspiring literature on the foundations of the classics of the yore.

Here was a unique titanic, preserver- protector of ancient values and promoter of revolutionary ideals, who created the institution of Khalsa - the pure- to suit the dynamics of change. In the right classical tradition, the Guru felt the muffled steps of the everlasting past in his blood, ‘the stories of our fathers in the pages of our destiny’, as Rabindranath Tagore put it. He sacrificed his all, so that our countrymen may live, so that Dharma may survive.