Pashaura Singh notes in his analysis of these earliest manuscripts that, while compiling the Adi Granth in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Guru Arjan recognized the high regard exhibited by the rural population of the Punjab for the heroic ballad (var) and himself selected the epic tunes (dhuni) of these ballads at the beginning of the vars in different rag sections of the Adi Granth. This is, of course, a logical conclusion since, according to Sikh tradition, Guru Arjan was clearly the moving force behind the creation of a Sikh scripture. He states that the inclusion of heroic ballads in the scripture begins not with the sixth Sikh Guru, Hargobind, as general Sikh tradition maintains, but with Guru Arjan. In just such an examination, Pashaura Singh has come to a conclusion significant for these traditions. And although they lack the support of any explicit evidence in contemporary sources, there may nevertheless be available for them implicit reinforcement, derived from an investigation of the earliest manuscripts of the Adi Granth. These are indeed important traditions, traditions that have helped shape the direction and destiny of the Sikh Panth during this last century. Firstly, that Guru Arjan himself conceived of his imminent demise as that of an heroic martyr and, secondly, that the Sikhs of the fifth Guru’s day likewise shared this understanding of his death. In popular Sikh historiography, the implications of Guru Arjan’s claim to martyrdom are made obvious.
On his refusal to pay the fine the Guru was quickly executed in Lahore on Jahangir’s orders. According to Sikh tradition, the Guru incurred the displeasure of the Mughal emperor Jahangir by supporting the emperor’s recalcitrant son Khusrau’s claim to the throne, an act which saw Guru Arjan jailed, beaten, and subsequently fined. To become a sacrifice for the sake of the Guru is the service of God.įOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF contemporary Sikh scholars, the tradition of martyrdom (sahidi) in Sikhism begins with the execution of the fifth Sikh master, Guru Arjan, in 1606 A.D. This paper turns a critical eye towards these sources and speculates as to how Sikhs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in fact understood Guru Arjan’s demise. Yet the fact that this event is not mentioned either in the Bachitar Natak, the first Sikh text to allocate privileged space to martyrdom, nor in subsequent eighteenth-century Khalsa Sikh literature of the gur-bilas genre, makes such a claim very difficult to sustain.
Popular Sikh histories of today are united in their claim that the execution in 1606 of the fifth Sikh Master, Guru Arjan has always been understood as an heroic martyrdom.
FENECH, LOUIS E., The Journal of the American Oriental Society, January 1, 2001 MARTYRDOM AND THE EXECUTION OF GURU ARJAN IN EARLY SIKH SOURCES.
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