| Script :
Mala Dayal (nee Singh)
Illustrator : Ram
Waeerker
ISBN : 81-7508-133-3
Vol. No : 588
The empire of the Mughals
founded in the early years of the sixteenth century began to break up in
the later years of the seventeenth century. Two people who hastened its
end were Shivaji and his Marathas in the Deccan and Guru Gobind Singh and
the Sikhs in the north.Guru Gobind Singh’s short career was not marked
by any spectacular achievement in the battlefield. His chief contribution
was to convert a pacifist, passive and fatalist community of Punjabi Sikhs
into a militant, aggressive and determined brotherhood of the Khalsa. It
was he who gave Sikhism its five sacred symbols, including the unshorn
hair and beard, which made the Sikh members of one casteless family – the
Singhs. He was the chief proponent of the Dharmayuddha philosophy – war
for the sake of righteousness – to which he committed his four sons and
his following. Guru Gobind Singh was the last of the ten Gurus and one
of the greatest poets of the Punjabi language. The qualities that distinguish
the Sikhs of today can be traced back to the tradition started by the Guru
Gobind Singh.
|
