Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/457

 Reviews. 415

Teg Bahadur, the ninth Guru, being tortured and finally beheaded by orders of Aurangzeb. This atrocious act was avenged by Govind Singh, the tenth and last Guru, who organised his followers as a fighting power, called them Singh or " Lions," instead of Sikhs, and established their organisation under the name of Khdlsa, "the Elect." To him is due the Fdhul, or baptism to the dagger, which is still the rite of initiation. On the collapse of the Mughal power, the invasion of the Panjab by the Afghan Ahmad Shah Abdali, by the defeat of the Marathas on the field of Panipat in a.d. 1761, destroyed the last hopes of the establishment of an orthodox Hindu empire, and left the Sikhs free to pursue their national destiny. Ranjit Singh (1780- 1839) absorbed the Sikh Misls or confederacies, and established his Court at Lahore as ruler of the nation. This power fell before British attacks in the successive wars of 1845-6 and 1848-9, the latter involving the annexation of the Panjab. Since that date, under the guidance of a succession of able officials and stimulated by a remarkable series of prophecies delivered by their Gurus announcing the coming domination ot the white man, the Sikhs have become devoted adherents of the Empire. Their services in the Great Mutiny of 1857-8 have been repeated in many later campaigns, and we possess no Indian troops more conspicuous for loyalty and soldierly qualities. At present the Sikhs number nearly 2\ millions.

The characteristic teaching of the Gurus is the Unity of God. Their creed is thus given in the Japji of Nanak, a verse which every Sikh must whisper in the morning: — "There is but one God whose name is True, the Creator, Devoid of fear and envy, Immortal, Unborn, Self-existent, the True, the Great, the Bounti- ful." To adopt Mr. Macauliffe's summary of their beliefs (vol. i. Preface, p. xxiii), Sikhism "prohibits idolatry, hypocrisy, caste exclusiveness, the concremation of widows, the immurement of women, the use of wine and other intoxicants, tobacco-smoking, infanticide, slander, pilgrimages to the sacred rivers and tanks of the Hindus ; and it inculcates loyalty, gratitude for all favours received, philanthropy, justice, impartiality, truth, honesty, and all moral and domestic virtues known to the holiest citizens or any country." Its creed may be summed up in the formula, —