A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

50

HISTORY OF THE SIKHS

CHAP. III

1552-74. Sri Chand, the son of Nanak, had hitherto been regarded
as almost equally the disciples of the first teacher with the
Separates direct adherents of Angad; but Amar Das declared passive
the Sikhs
from the and recluse ' Udasis ' to be wholly separate from active and
Udasis. domestic 'Sikhs', and thus finally preserved the infant
church or state from disappearing as one of many sects.l
In the spirit of Nanak he likewise pronounced that the
His views 'true Sati was she whom grief and not flame consumed,
with regard
to' Sati'. and that the afflicted should seek consolation with the
Dies 1574. Lord'; thus mildly discountenancing a perverse custom,
and leading the way to amendment by persuasion rather
than by positive enactment.2 Amar Das died in 1574, after
a ministration of about twenty-two years and a half.3 He
had a son and a daughter, and it is said that his delight
with the uniform filial love and obedience of the latter led
him to prefer her husband before other disciples, and to
bestow upon him his 'Barkat' or apostolic virtue. The
fond mother, or ambitious woman, is further stated to have
obtained an assurance from the Guru that the succession
should remain with her posterity.
Ram Das Ram Das, the son-in-law of Amar Das, was a Kshattriya
succeeds of the SodhI subdivision, and he was worthy of his master's
and
establishes choice and of his wife's affection. He is said to have been
himself at held in esteem by Akbar, and to have received from him
Amritsar.
a piece of land, within the limits of which he dug a reservoir,
since well known as Amritsar, or the pool of immortality;
but the temples and surrounding huts were at first named
1 Malcolm (Sketch, p. 27) says distinctly that Amar Das made this
separation. The Dabistdn (ii. 271) states generally that the Gurus
had effected it, and in the present day some educated Sikhs think
that Arjun first authoritatively laid down the difference between an
Udasi and a genuine follower of Nanak.
2 The Adi-Granth, in that part of the Suhi chapter which is by
Amar Das. Forster (Travels, i. 309) considers that Nanak prohibited
Sati, and allowed widows to marry; but Ninak did not make positive
laws of the kind, and perhaps self-sacrifice was not authoritatively
interfered with until first Akbar and Jahingir (Memoirs of JahdngTr,
p. 28), and afterwards the English, endeavoured to put an end to it.
3 The accounts agree as to the date of Amar Das's birth,
placing it in 1566 Sambat, or A. D. 1509. The period of his death,
1631 Sambat, or A. D. 1574, seems likewise certain, although one
places it as late as A. D. 1580.