Empire of the Sikhs Read Online Free

family, friends and relations when he refused to wear the
janeu
or sacred thread of the Hindus which all male offspring are enjoined to wear from that age onwards, which consists of strands of cotton woven into a thin cord looped from the left shoulder around the right hip. Nanak asked the priest presiding over the ceremony to explain to him what difference wearing the thread would make to his life. If he was unconvinced it could make any real difference, he would prefer not to be a party to the ceremony. He then recited his own composition to him and the assembled guests:
    Out of the cotton of compassion
    Spin the thread of contentment
    Tie the knot of continence, and the twist of virtue;
    Make such a sacred thread,
    O Pundit, for your inner self. 7
    When he took his father’s cattle out to graze he would spend hours listening to the sages and mystics who have always been a part of India’s human mosaic. Although he was most attentive to what they had to say, he usually drew his own conclusions which were, more times than not, at odds with theirs.
    At the age of sixteen, on the persuasion of his adoring sister Nanaki, he moved to the town of Sultanpur, a hundred miles away from the parental home, to live with her and her husband, who worked for Nawab Daulat Khan Lodhi, the region’s powerful governor and a relative of the ruler of Delhi, Bahlol Khan. A refined and scholarly man, Daulat Khan was so impressed by Nanak that he offered him a job, which he accepted, even though a job wasn’t exactly what he was looking for in life.
    During his eight years in Sultanpur Nanak married at nineteen and became the father of two sons, Srichand and Lakhmidas.When he was barely in his twenties word spread about his saintli-ness and scholarly insights into the purpose and meaning of life and the code by which it should be lived. This drew people – even from distant places – to him, and they listened to him with growing reverence. But Nanak knew that he still had much to probe, question and absorb before he could meaningfully communicate with the disciples who had begun to gravitate towards him.
    At this stage he took an extraordinary decision: to visit all the centres of religious learning in his country that he could and to travel to those of far-off countries as well, to see and understand the essence of their beliefs and what helped to sustain them. He himself believed in the concept of one god and was increasingly of the view that only this could help a war-ridden, conflict-prone and utterly divided world in which millions of weak and demoralized victims of aggressors were left to their fate. He wished to meet the scholars and sages at the great religious centres and learn their view of these critical human concerns.
    Starting in 1496, Nanak’s travels lasted twenty-eight years. His journeys were a remarkable feat for those times. But Nanak’s gentle and saintly appearance belied his iron will. His travels in India took him from Hardwar to Benares, Kamrup (Assam), Jagannath (Orissa) and to southern India and Ceylon. In the next phase of his travels he visited Tibet, Kabul, Mecca and Baghdad. Each new encounter with men of learning and philosophical bent helped him to define more sharply the contours of the faith he was shaping in a number of newly composed hymns, in which he drew on the basic compassion of Hinduism and the essential brotherhood of Islam, rejecting the demeaning role of the caste system which, in his view, was no less pernicious than the destruction of temples and places of worship.
    The word ‘Sikh’ comes from the Sanskrit word
shishya,
which means a devoted follower. It was very much in tune with the new faith. After Nanak’s return from his travels he settled in a peacefulspot by the River Ravi, where he spent the last fifteen years of his life. There he built a village which he called Kartarpur, where his devoted disciples gathered in increasing numbers. Its idyllic