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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2009
kautak hetu karī kavī ne satisayi kī kathā eh pūrī bhae hai
jahi namitt parai suni hai nar, so niscai kari tahi dae hai.
For the thrill of it has the poet delineated the tale of the goddess.
My object is that whosoever reads or hears her story may be inspired with faith and determination.
Gurū Gobind Singh, the last of the ten Gurūs or prophet-teachers of the Sikh faith, succeeded to the spiritual seat of Gurū Nānak in AD 1675. His immediate predecessor, Gurū Tegh Bahādur (1621–75), died a martyr's death protesting against the religious intolerance of the rulers of the day. In the first decade of that century, Gurū Arjan (Nānak V) had laid down his life to uphold the principles of human dignity and freedom. The event had marked the fulfillment of Gurū Nānak's religious and ethical teaching. Gurū Arjan's martyrdom generated a strong impulse of resistance and inaugurated a new era of martial élan. Instead of the rosary and other saintly emblems, his son Gurū Hargobind, the sixth Gurū, wore a warrior's equipment for the ceremonies of succession. He put on two swords – one he called the sword of pīrī and the other the sword of mīrī. The former was declared to be the symbol of his spiritual and the latter that of his temporal investiture, emphasizing how in the Sikh faith the worldly and the other-worldly were not disjointed.
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