Religion in India: A Historical Introduction

Na ̄nak once wrote:

The guru is the ladder, the dinghy, the raft by means of

which one reaches god;

The guru is the lake, the ocean, the boat, the sacred

placed pilgrimage, the river.

If it please thee I am cleansed by bathing in the

lake of truth.^43

Na ̄nak’s immediate successor was Angad(1539–52) who started collecting
the scripture of the community, the A ̄di Granth, later known as the Guru ̄
Granth Sa ̄hib, based on the poems of the guru ̄s. He also established the langar
(common kitchen), a symbolic representation of the idea that all persons
were equal and could eat food prepared by any member of the group (an
explicit critique of brahmanic culinary fastidiousness).^44
Amar Da ̄s(1552–74), successor to Angad, emphasized egalitarianism
further, and expressed concern for the social well-being of the community.
Ascetism was discouraged in favor of altruism and community life. A caste
group known as ja ̄ts(farmers and warriors) was beginning to be attracted
to the community; Amar Da ̄s therefore instituted certain rituals intended to
develop a sense of community and identity. Rituals for marriages and
funerals, for example, though borrowed largely from Hinduism, were
intended to provide a uniquely Sikh way of being in community. Not least
important, this guru ̄identified Amritsar as the place where the Sikhs would
be centered and which, with the construction of a temple, would become a
Sikh pilgrimage center.^45
It was left to his successor Ra ̄m Da ̄s(1574–81) to raise funds for and start
the building of the famed Golden Temple at Amritsar (the lake of amr.t[the
nectar of immortality]). The fifth guru ̄, Arjun (1581–1606), completed
construction of the Amritsar temple and made it a pilgrimage center with
a distinct language and ritual tradition. Arjun also continued compiling the
sacred scripture of the community, the Guru ̄ Granth Sa ̄hib.
By now tensions were growing between the Sikh community and the
Mughals, largely because Jaha ̄ngı ̄r, the son of Akbar, reversed Akbar’s policy
of tolerance to all faiths. In addition, Sikhs had supported Jaha ̄ngı ̄r’s son
in revolt against his father, thereby initiating a perpetual tension with the
Mughal court. Jaha ̄ngı ̄r honored Islamic figures, ignoring Sikhs and other
saintly figures. The Mughals perceived Sikhs, who were becoming more
powerful in the valleys of Panja ̄b, as a threat. The result: Arjun was executed
in 1606 and the Sikhs and Mughals were at odds with each other.^46
Hargobind(1606–45) became guru ̄at the age of eleven. He was the first
to assemble a military force and take up arms as a defense against the

156 Developments in the Late Medieval Period