Khalsa

“ The dream of her tenth and last gooroo was realized, the Khalsa was at her height of worldly prosperity, but her life was no longer the spirit life which had been revealed to her first founder.
And so under Asiatic skies as well as amid European civilization, man laboured to redeem the world, making frantic war on the lying creeds of past ages and proclaiming the merits of his latest discovery.
It is a strange development of human nature this animosity to creeds no longer our own. Why, if I suffer the loss of faith and hope, must I hasten to introduce my brother to my sad plight? ”

“ Her mocking tone brought the blood to Atmâ's cheek, he scarce knew why.
[Pg 43] "It is the high calling of a Sikh," said he, "to encounter danger, and by the sword to confirm the Khalsa."
"It is a training that makes good soldiers," returned the Ranee, "but as my claims may prove less potent than those of the Khalsa, I promise that on your successful return you shall receive from my hands rare and costly jewels, and gold whose yellow lustre will bid the treasuries of the world to open." ”

“ GOVIND SINGH'S ARMED DISCIPLES.
The Early Soldiers of the Khalsa.
addressing them he commenced by praising God as the Omnipotent, Almighty, Invincible, and Merciful, who must be worshipped in truthfulness and sincerity, and that no material resemblance must degrade Him. He could only be beheld by the eye of faith in the general body of the Khalsa. All Sikhs must be united in one chain of brotherhood. "Ye Sikhs are all brothers, all equal; there must be no caste among you, you must all be equal, no man greater than the other. All must eat together and drink from the same cup. ”

“ Not less important will be the result of Sikh teachings on the minds of religious Europe and America. Already the Khalsa has achieved a world-wide renown in the matter of bravery. In the matter of religion, too, the name of the Khalsa will shine resplendently when the glorious deeds of our illustrious ancestors in the moral and religious world are made known far and wide. ”

“ In their efforts to reach the right bank, through the deepened water, they suffered from our Horse-artillery a terrible carnage. Hundreds fell under this cannonade; hundreds upon hundreds were drowned in attempting the perilous passage. Their awful slaughter, confusion, and dismay, were such as would have excited compassion in the hearts of their generous conquerors, if the Khalsa troops had not, in the early part of the action, sullied their gallantry by slaughtering and barbarously mangling every wounded soldier whom, in the vicissitudes of attack, the fortune of war left at their mercy. ”

“ The Khalsa, as the Sikh commonwealth was styled, was full of zeal for its creed, a reformed Hindooism. The race was hardy and vigorous, and Runjeet Sing, taking into his service many French and other adventurers, had given his army a discipline and cohesion never before approached by any oriental troops. He had conquered several provinces from the Afghans, though not uniformly successful against them, and by carefully respecting the prejudices of his people had won complete ascendancy at home. ”

“ By this time the army of the Khalsa were masters of the state—the prætorian guards of the Punjab. It was dangerous to the Sikh government, and was only kept quiet by money and concessions. It demanded more pay, and got it. The French officers fled for their lives. The Sikh officers were compelled to obey certain little Khalsas, which by this time had come to be elected by the soldiery in every corps, and were supposed to be animated by the invisible but presiding spirit of Guru Govind. ”

“ King and political head of the Punjab, as well as chief of the Khalsa, he aimed at reconciling the varied divisions of race and creed among his subjects by employing all in his service. He kept up, however, the theory of the Khalsa, attributing every success to the favour of the Guru in the name of the Lord. "God the helper—Ranjit Singh," was his sign-manual. The Sikhs retained special privileges as the ruling race, the heart and soul of the military nation—the favoured of the State. ”

“ Govind then took the pahal from their hands in the same manner and exclaimed, "The Khalsa arose from the Guru and the Guru from the Khalsa. They are the mutual protectors of each other." All the rest of the disciples present were similarly baptised and declared Singhs. The Guru then announced that wherever five Sikhs should be assembled together, it should be considered as if the Guru was himself present; that those who wished to see the Guru would see him in the Khalsa. ”

“ There were as many rumours as there were men in the ranks, and each rumour was an enemy. To the Dogras there was the suggestion of violated caste in foreign lands; to the Sikh the pleasant whisper that the Raj feared the Khalsa and was carting the Sikhs away in ships to sink them; to the Pathan the assertion that the German Emperor and his Army were of the Mahomedan faith. ”

“ The inhabitants are a robust and athletic race, of sinewy limbs and tall stature. The genuine Khalsa, or Sing, knows no occupation but war and agriculture, and he more affects the one than the other. No race of people could have been better constituted to firmly uphold their go [286] vernment; and, with ambition and patriotism (if I can use the word) equal to their power, they are a sufficiently numerous body to defend it. Their ascendency as a nation continues to increase, the numerical strength of the tribe ”

“ Ranjit Singh's star set in red anarchy. Anti-British feeling ever since his death prevailed as the remedy to distract the Khalsa. The moment they thought was favourable to take the fatal step to occupy the Cis-Sutlej Sikh states, to rally their population to the blood-and-plunder cry. The British were nearly caught by their own unwillingness to move—to believe that the Khalsa was in earnest. Dilatory measures to move up troops to meet the menace being deemed expedient by the political authorities, the strong men armed were within our gates when the assembly sounded ”

“ Sikhs must have one form of initiation, sprinkling of water by five of the faithful; they should worship the one invisible God and honour the memory of Guru Nanak and his successors; their watchword should be, “Sri wah guru ji ka khalsa, sri wah guru ji ki fatah” (Khalsa of God, victory to God!) , but they should revere and bow to nought visible save the Granth Sahib, the book of their belief; they should occasionally bathe in the sacred tank of Amritsar; their locks should remain unshorn; and they should name themselves singhs or lions. Arms should dignify their person ”

“ The first of this despised sweeper class to attain distinction were the three whom Guru Govind admitted into the Khalsa as a reward for their fidelity and devotion when they rescued the body of Tegh Bahodur, the murdered ninth Guru, from the fanatical Moslem mob at Delhi. When Sikhism was fighting for its life, these outcasts were caught up in the wave of chivalry and "gentled their condition;" but as soon as the Khalsa were dominant in the Punjab the Mazbhis found that the equality their religion promised them existed in theory rather than fact. ”

“ The raising of the Panjáb to the full rank of an Indian province was the fitting reward of the great part which its people and its officers, with their cool-headed and determined chief, had played in the suppression of the Mutiny. The overthrow of the Khálsa left the contending parties with the respect which strong men feel for each other; the services of the Sikhs in 1857 healed their wounded pride and removed all soreness. ”

“ The Khalsa, the one united power left, became prætorian in character, selling their services to the highest bidder. Army delegates decided in Council the fate of king and country, making and unmaking their rulers and officers. Murder was to settle every claimant, whether as Maharaja or Wuzir. There is not to be found in the annals of any country a more blood-stained record of relentless struggles for power than that of this epoch in Sikh history, when three Maharajas, three Wuzirs, and other aspirants to power in quick succession met violent deaths. ”

“ Although, as a true Sikh, Atmâ worshipped an Idea, and held in scorn all material semblance of the supernatural, he knew that magic was largely practised by professed adherents of the Khalsa, and so heard her errand without surprise, though guessing that its timely performance had in view some other purpose concerning himself. ”

“ Veterans of Runjeet Singh's Khalsa army, the men who had withstood us on equal terms in many sanguinary battles, animated by intense hatred of the Poorbeah sepoy, enrolled themselves in the ranks of the British army, and fought faithfully for us to the end of the war. Their help was our safety; without these soldiers, and the assistance rendered by their chieftains, Delhi could never have been taken; while, on the other hand, had they risen and cast in their lot with the mutinous sepoys, no power on earth could have saved us from total annihilation.
The Sikhs are the beau-ideal of soldiers. ”

“ He told Mackeson, before the arrival of Macnaghten’s Mission, that the Khalsa entertained very strong prejudices against that kind of warfare, of which it may be added, both he and his chiefs had the vaguest possible idea. He believed that to force the Khybur Pass was to push a column of troops into it, somewhat as you would push them over a narrow bridge, the men in the rear stepping over the bodies of their slaughtered comrades. ”

“ The Gurus shall dwell in the society of the Khalsa, and wherever there shall be five Sikhs gathered together there the true Guru shall be present also." They must have "firm belief in one God, and look to the 'Granth' as His inspired law." Feeling faint, he said to his disciples, "Bathe me, put on me new clothes, and arm me with all my weapons. ”

“ The Khalsa army reeled back, broken and despairing, and sought the river, in the vain hope that they might manage to cross by fording or by boats. The rapid movements of the British turned the retreat of the enemy into a disorderly and desperate flight. The sirdar had, however, made some provision for defeat; he had occupied strongly the village of Bhoardec, so as to cover the retreat to the river, and if possible to cover also the passage. Here the 16th Lancers behaved splendidly. The enemy had a strong force of infantry drawn up on one flank of the village ”

“ By converting a horde of undisciplined peasants into enthusiastic soldiers animated with religious fervour, by inuring them to warfare, and by his new ordinances moulding them into the distinct community of the Khalsa,—the Commonwealth bonded together to fight until they triumphed,—Govind Singh contributed much to the weakening of the Mahomedan power at a time when the Emperor Aurangzeb, by his bigotry towards Hindus, was paving the way for the disintegration of his Empire. Under his strong hand the Sikhs rose by a feeling of nationality among a people who had none. ”

“ The Sikhs had now reached nationhood under an able king fully equipped with confidence and energy, who, by transforming the Khalsa into a territorial power, decided once and for all whether the Sikh or the Afghan was to rule the Punjab. ”

“ Sir Henry Hardinge, who was raised to the peerage before the close of his administration, succeeded to the office of Governor-General, and waited anxiously for the breaking of the storm which his predecessor had seen gathering. The Sikhs, the Puritans of India [see SIKHS] , who were not strictly speaking a nation, but a religious brotherhood of warriors called the Khalsa, were animated by two passions equally dangerous to the peace of those around them, a fierce enthusiasm, half military, half religious, for the glory of their order, and an insatiable desire for plunder. ”

“ Apart from this, a great deal of the misunderstanding that now obtains about the work of our Gurus and Martyrs will be removed, and the thinking public will see with their own eyes the drift of Sikh teachings. The trade of traitors among us who to please our wealthier and more influential neighbours, compromise our beliefs by ascribing to our great men thoughts that they never conceived and deeds that they never did, will languish, the promiscuousness in Sikh ideas will vanish, and Tat (pure) Khalsa will begin to start on a new career. ”

“ Accordingly the Sikh warriors of the Khalsa, the very men who had fought against British supremacy at Chillianwalla and Goojerat, were now anxious to join the Europeans in putting down the revolt at Delhi and sacking the capital of Islam in India.
Mutinous spirit of sepoy garrisons.
John Lawrence had thus nothing to fear from the Sikhs. Nor had he anything to fear from the Mohammedans, for they were only anxious for protection against the Sikhs. The Hindus of the Punjab cared for no one but themselves ”

“ Among them I may be allowed to give the following from The Khalsa, a Sikh publication :—
There can be no denying the fact that the publication of Mr. Macauliffe's work will be the introduction of a new era in our history. Our Scriptures, though written in our own language, have been so much neglected by our people, that it will be no exaggeration if we say that ninety per cent, of our co-religionists do not understand them. The Community receiving English education are without any idea of the sublime truths contained in the Granth Sahib. ”