Ranjit Singh

Sir Lepel Henry Griffin · 1892 · Public domain (published pre-1930) · archive.org ↗

1THE SIKH THEOCRACY 47

2After Guru Govind had baptized his five disciples,

3a number significant in the EMlsa as forming a

4special congregation in which the Guru promised

5that his spirit should be ever present, he caused them

6to administer to him the same initiatory rite, taking the

7title of Singh, which was enjoined to be added as a

8baptismal name to all new professors of the faith.

9In the present day the Singhs are the only Sikhs who

10are accepted as such in popular estimation, and the

11N&naki Sikhs are considered to have lapsed into the

12body of the Hindu population.

13Govind Singh's next step was to adapt the Sikh

14scriptures to his own views, and with this object he

15endeavoured to induce the guardians of the Adi

16Oranth at the sacred city of Kart&rpur to permit

17him to make additions to it; but the Sodhis, the

18Sikh priests who had the guardianship of the sacred

19volume and who were the descendants of Guru R&m

20D&s, refused to accept the authority of the new leader.

21They, with their great establishments at Anandpur and

22Kart&rpur, had already become the Br&hmans of the

23Sikh creed, with the unbounded spiritual pride of their

24prototypes, and when they understood that the object

25of Govind Singh was to preach the democratic doctrine

26of equality in a far more liberal fashion than it had

27been promulgated by N6nak himself, and that the

28lowest classes and even outcasts were to be admitted

29equally with Br&hmans to the higher privileges of the

30according to Dr. Trumpp and contrary to the received derivation,

31derived from the Arabic Khdlsah, signifying one's own property,

32hence the Guru's or God's own special property.