Kashmir Under The Sikhs [1819AC to 1846AC]

A brief account of the earliest Sikh contact with Kashmir Also the Sikh Gurus

In order to know Sikh contact with Kashmir, we shall briefly refer to the visit of Guru Nanak to the valley. Nanak- the contemporary of Martin Luther about the end of the 15th century AC – was born in 1469AC, in Bahlul Lodi’s time, in Talwandi, re-named by Ranjit, or according to another tradition, during the days of the Misls before Ranjit, as Nankana Sahib, in the Shaikhupura District of the Punjab.

The Guru died in Humanyun’s days at, what the Guru himself called, Sri Kartarpur, commonly known as Dera Baba Nanak in the Gurdaspur District, East punjab, in 1538AC.

In 1485 Nanak married Sulakhni, daughter of Mulla, a Khatri of Pakhoki, in the old Batala Tahsil of the Gurdaspur District. From his two sons by this marriage- Sri Chand and Lakhmidas – are sprung, by spiritual descent, the two sects of Udasis and Bedis. Nanak seems to have lived a great deal at Pakhoki on the south bank of the river Ravi, his wife’s village, but he died in 1538 at Kartarpur, on the opposite bank of this river, some four miles off where a small shrine exists. This Kartarpur should not, however, he confused with Kartarpur on the railway line (near Kapurthala), where also some Sikh shrines exist. “It was there (i.e., at Kartarpur on the Ravi) that the celebrated dispute occurred between his Hindu and Muslim followers as to whether his (Nanak’s) body should be burnt or buried, which was solved by the body itself disappearing.” Dera Nanak, or Dera Baba Nanak is now a town in the Batala Tahsil of the Gurdaspur District, on the south bank of the river Ravi, 22 miles from Gurdaspur town. Nanak’s descendents, the Bedis lived at Pakhoki until the Ravi washed it away about 1744. They then built a new town further south of the river and called it Dera Nanak. The Dera has the Udasi shrine called the Darbar Sahib.

The anonymous author of the Dabistan – be he Muhsin Fani Kashmiri, or Zulqadr Khan alias Zulfiqar Ardistani, who met the 6th Guru, Hargobind, at Kartarpur in 1053AH= 1643AC and who was the personal friend of the 7th Guru, Har Rai – notes that “a darvish came to Nanak and subdued his mind in such a manner that he (Nanak) having entered the granary of Daulat khan Lodi, Ibrahim Lodi’s Governor of the Punjab, in whose service Nanak was a grain factor at Sultanpur, gave away the property of Daulat khan and his own and abandoned his wife and children. According to Max Arthur Macauliffe, “Guru Nanak was accompanied by Hassu, a smith and Sihan, a calico printer. The party went as far as Srinagar in Kashmir and made many converts.” A meeting is recorded to have taken place between the Guru and Brahma Das, a notable Kashmiri Pandit, represented as ultimately falling at the feet of the Guru. The Guru thereafter went further into the Himalayas. Macauliffe is inclined to accept that Nanak was a fair scholar of Persian, but some Sikhs and Hindus reject this idea.

Guru Angad, who was responsible for the first biography of Guru Nanak, written in Gurmukhi characters – the common script of the Sikhs- was installed at his successor by Baba Nanak. Guru Amar Das was the third successor and the founder of the diocesan gaddi or the manja, which latter literally means a bedstead. Amar Das cultivated friendly relations with Akbar, who visited the Guru at his own residence in Goindwal, on the Beas, about 5 or 6 miles from Taran, in the Amritsar District and granted him a large estate of twelve village. Guru Ram Das was the fourth Guru and son-in-law of Guru Amar Das. He excavated the tank or rather reconstructed the old village pool for devotional ablution on the large plot of land given to him by Akbar, and called it Amrit-Sar ‘The Pool of Immortality’ in 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada. Gyani Gyan Singh’s Tawarikh Guru Khalsa, the first edition, p.88, says that the Muslim saint, Miyan Mir of Lahore, laid the foundation of the temple, Sri Darbar Sahib, at Amritsar.

Guru Amar Das and Guru Ram Das do not seem to be especially concerned with Kashmir. We, therefore, come to the time of the fifth Guru, Arjun Dev (1581-1606 AC) in Akbar’s reign. The gaddi or the manja (the see) henceforth remained in its founder’s family. Arjun Dev’s chabutra or the dias later became the Akal-Takht or the ‘Imperishable Thorne’ of Guru Hargovind in 1608. Guru Arjun Dev was consquently called the Sachcha Padshah or the ‘True King.’ The Guru accordingly sent Madho Sodhi on that important errand. He commissioned Madho Sodhi to instruct the Kashmiris “to rise before day, perform their ablutions, repeat and sing the Guru’s hymns, associated the whole men, observe the Guru’s anniversaries, distribute sacred food, give a tithe of their earnings to the Sikh cause, Share their food with others, speak civilly, live humbly, and adopt the rules and observances of the Sikhs.”

Guru Arjun’s son and successor, Guru Hargobind- the contemporary of Mulla Muhsin Fani Kashmiri – provoked Shah Jahan, according to Sir jadunath Sarkar, by encroaching on the Emperor’s game preserve and attacking the servants of the imperial hunt. Guru Hargobind died a refugee in the Kashmir hills in 1645AC, where he is stated by a  Sikh scholar to have reconverted many Hindus who had gone over to Islam. Then followed the Guru in this order: (1) Har Rai, the grandson of Hargobind. (2) Harkistan superseded his elder brother Ram Rai who complained to the Emperor against Harkishan. In the meantime, Harkishan died of small-pox. (3) Tegh Bahadur, the youngest son of Hargobind. (iv) lastly the tenth of the line was Guru Gobind Singh, Tegh Bahadur’s son, born at Patna in 1666. Guru Gobind Singh gave to the Sikhs, collectively, the name of the Khalsa, i.e., ‘Pure’. Khalisa is a Persian word signifying ownership by the highest power in the land, but the spelling of the same word adopted by the Sikhs is Khalsa. And this subsequently gave rise to the slogan that the Sikhs were born to rule – Raj Karega Khalsa. The mode of salutation introduced was Wah Guruji Ka Khalsa, Wah Guruji Ki Fateh (correctly Fath): The Lord is the Khalsa, the Lord’s be the victory. The adoption of distinctive symbols like (1) The Kes (long hair), (2) the Kangah (a comb), (3) the Kirpan(a dagger), (iv) the Kachch (short drawers) and (v) the Kara(a steel bracelet) by the Sikhs is also due to Guru Gobind Singh. Guru Gobind Singh lies buried at Nanded, originally Known as Nau Nand Dehra, or the dwelling of the nine Rikhis in pre-historic times, but called by the Sikhs Abchalanagar, in the Deccan, where the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah, had appointed him to a military command. The land was given by Bahadur Shah on which the Guru’s Shrine was raised. Bahadur Shah also sent his surgeon to attend to the Guru’s injuries and the Guru recovered. But one day while bending a bow the wound burst open. Blood flowed copiously and the Guru breathed his last.

Educated Sikhs and others often mention the help given in a very critical moment of his life to Guru Gobind Singh by Sayyid Badr-ud-Din Qadiri Jilani, commonly known as Buddhu Shah of Sadhaura in the Ambala district of the East Punjab, which formed a link of affectionate friendship between the two. But it is said that the Guru’s successor, Banda, slaughtered the family of the Sayyid, looted the locality and burnt the bones of Buddhu Shah’s great ancestors.

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