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

60

HISTORY OF THE SIKHS

CHAP. III

1606-45. never forgot his genuine character, and always styled himself ' Nnak', in deference to the firm belief of the Sikhs,
that the soul of their great teacher animated each of his
successors.1 So far as Har Gobind knew or thought of
His philo- philosophy as a science, he fell into the prevailing views of
sophical the period: God, he said, is one, and the world is an
views.
illusion, an appearance without a reality; or he would
adopt the more Pantheistic notion, and regard the universe
as composing the one Being. But such reflections did not
occupy his mind or engage his heart, and the rebuke of
a BrShman that if the world was the same as God, he, the
Gurui, was one with the ass grazing hard by, provoked a
laugh only from the tolerant Har Gobind.2 That he thought
conscience and understanding our only divine guides, may
probably be inferred from his reply to one who declared
the marriage of a brother with a sister to be forbidden by
the Almighty. Had God prohibited it, said he, it would be
impossible for man to accomplish it.3 His contempt for
idolatry, and his occasional wide departure from the mild
and conciliatory ways of Nanak, may be judged from the
following anecdote: One of his followers smote the nose
off an image; the several neighbouring chiefs complained
to the Guru, who summoned the Sikh to his presence; the
culprit denied the act, but said ironically, that if the god
bore witness against him, he would die willingly. 'Oh,
fool! ' said the Raijs, ' how should the god speak? ' 'It
is plain', answered the Sikh, 'who is the fool; if the god
cannot save his own head, how will he avail you? ' 4
Har Rai Gurdit, the eldest son of Har Gobind, had acquired
succeedss a high reputation, but he died before his father, leaving
Gurl, 1645.
The dates would rather point to Shah Jahan as the emperor alluded
to than Jahangir, as given parenthetically in the translated text of
the Dabistan. Jahangir died in A. D. 1628, and Muhsin Fani's acquaintance with Har Gobind appears not to have taken place till towards
the last years of the Guru's life, or till after A. D. 1640.
1 Cf. the Dabistdn, ii. 281. 2 Cf. the Dabistdn, ii. 277, 279, 280.
3 The Dabistan, ii. 280. [Cicero seems to have almost as high an
opinion of the functions of conscience. It points out to us, he says,
without Divine assistance, the difference between virtue and vice.
(Nature of the Gods, Francklin's translation, p. 213.)-J. D. C.]
4 The Dabistan, ii. 276.