The mar­tyr­dom of Guru Ar­jan Dev ji -the first mar­tyr of the Sikhs laid down the foun­da­tions of mar­tyr­dom which Sikhs fol­low unto this day. The dis­tri­b­u­tion of Chabeel -sweet­ened wa­ter across the Sikh world is our com­mit­ment to up­hold His ideals and to bring so­lace to hu­mankind suf­fer­ing the weather as well as tyranny of the rulers -when­ever and wher­ever.

World his­tory has wit­nessed that when­ever the world was en­gulfed in the dark­ness of false­hood, God sends a mes­sen­ger of truth. When the clash be­tween truth and false­hood is equal, then truth has to sur­pass false­hood through ex­treme sac­ri­fices. It is an eter­nal fact that ul­ti­mately truth tri­umphs and false­hood is de­feated. Gur­bani states:

 

In the 15th cen­tury, a new rev­o­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion orig­i­nated which un­screened all pre­vail­ing false­hood, il­lu­sions and frauds. This re­li­gion of Guru Nanak rose with equal sta­tus for en­tire hu­man­ity and a novel at­ti­tude. Due to the rise of this virtue, the old, sim­ple and stale ide­olo­gies van­ished and the pop­u­lace ex­pe­ri­enced a new dawn. Every­one wished to savour the new en­light­en­ment and to rid off dark­ness from their lives, lead­ing to Guru Nanak’s truth­ful path be­com­ing the beloved of many.

Con­se­quently the Brah­mans -the then or­tho­dox com­mu­nity could­n’t bear it and tried to sup­press it, but how long can a cloud block way of the sun?  Just by cov­er­ing the sun for a while, if the cloud thinks that it has fin­ished the sun, then it’s mis­taken.

As the pierc­ing sun­rays tears the clouds and reach the ground, like­wise the phi­los­o­phy of Guru Nanak’s pu­rity reached hu­mankind.  Those con­fused and wa­ver­ing joined in hordes, cre­at­ing envy amongst those op­posed to the ide­ol­ogy of the founder of Sikhism. Ul­ti­mately the en­light­en­ment spread far and wide. Guru Nanak’s pure path was nur­tured by the suc­ces­sor Gu­rus.

“At last for five long days, the An­gel of peace -Guru Ar­jan Dev was mer­ci­lessly tor­tured by pour­ing boil­ing wa­ter and hot sand on him, mak­ing him sit on hot iron plates un­der the hot sun.”

False­hood can’t bear the truth. So when the Fifth Mas­ter, Guru Ar­jan Dev was en­throned, the num­ber of op­po­nents mul­ti­plied as the progress of truth be­came in­tol­er­a­ble. Con­se­quently their ri­valry with the House of the Gu­rus in­creased.  It came to a point where a supreme sac­ri­fice was nec­es­sary to main­tain the promi­nence and dom­i­nance of truth. Such was the sac­ri­fice as was wit­nessed at the time of the mar­tyr­dom of Guru Ar­jan Dev.

The truth was sit­ting on hot an iron grid, blaz­ing sand was poured on his head, peo­ple were watch­ing with bated breath won­der­ing how long could truth hold out, but truth­ful­ness per­son­i­fied, Guru Sahib was ut­ter­ing,

mean­ing, “Sweet is thy will for me.”

This sac­ri­fice was to­tally dif­fer­ent from oth­ers in the world. Napoleon Bona­parte had writ­ten such won­der­ful words about mar­tyr­dom, say­ing “that only sac­ri­fice alone is not im­por­tant but more im­por­tant is the rea­son for which it is given.” The rea­son for the Fifth Nanak’s sac­ri­fice was unique.

Guru Ar­jan Dev was ac­cused for say­ing truth-the Bani (the di­vine word). His only crime was to make hu­mankind aware of the re­al­ity of God by preach­ing truth. This and only this was the crime for which the truth was made to sit on hot plates and blaz­ing sand was poured on his di­vine body.

Causes of Sac­ri­fice

Gen­er­ally his­to­ri­ans have ig­nored all the other causes of Guru Sahib’s mar­tyr­dom and high­lighted only Chan­du’s role but re­cent re­searches do not ac­cept Chandu as solely re­spon­si­ble. Peo­ple re­spon­si­ble for Guru Sahib’s mar­tyr­dom can be di­vided into three cat­e­gories:

-Peo­ple with per­sonal ri­valry, namely Prith­i­cand and Chandu

-The Brah­mins who con­sid­ered them­selves of high caste

-The Maulanas who were torch­bear­ers of staunch or­tho­dox phi­los­o­phy

-Em­peror Je­hangir who had his own po­lit­i­cal ra­tio­nale

Peo­ple with Per­sonal Ri­valry (Prithic­hand):

Guru Nanak’s abode wit­nessed that there is no place for hi­er­ar­chi­cal in­flu­ence and per­sonal pros­per­ity so from Guru Nanak’s time it­self, the op­po­si­tion started within the house only. Baba Sri Chandji and Lakhmi Dasji did not come up to the ex­pec­ta­tions of their own fa­ther Guru Nanak. Bhai Satta and Bal­wand have re­ferred this in their Vaar,

mean­ing “Their sons dis­obeyed them and hence showed their back to them.”

At the time of Guru An­gad Dev, op­po­si­tion was raised by Baba Daasu and Baba Daatu. Baba Mo­han and Baba Mohri too op­posed at the times of Guru Amar­das. How­ever these op­po­si­tions re­mained con­fined within the four walls of the house. How­ever dur­ing the time of Guru Ram­das, his son -Baba Prithic­hand crossed all lim­its. He quar­reled with his fa­ther. Guru Sahib has in­di­cated this in Gur­bani also.

mean­ing, “Why o son you quar­rel with thy fa­ther, quar­rel­ing with thou by whom you are born and brought up is sin.”

Prithic­hand could­n’t tol­er­ate the sit­u­a­tion when his younger brother Ar­jan Dev was show­ered with Gu­ru­ship. He al­ways en­vied Guru Sahib, con­se­quently Guru Sahib had to face many odds. Prithic­hand tried all pro­pa­ganda for ac­quir­ing Gu­ru­ship. He took the po­lit­i­cal as­sis­tance for the ful­fill­ment of his de­sires. Once he in­vited Sulhi Khan of La­hore to in­vade Am­rit­sar but for­tu­nately he met his last des­tiny on the way. When Prithic­hand did not suc­ceeded due to Sulhi Khan’s death he called upon Su­la­bhi Khan the nephew of Sulhi Khan to at­tack Guru Sahib, but he too was killed by one fel­low sol­dier on the way. Prithichand’s de­sires were buried in his heart. At last he made con­tacts with Em­peror Je­hangir, which be­came one of the ma­jor causes of Guru Sahib’s sac­ri­fice.

The role of Chandu: Chandu was the prime mover for Guru Sahib’s mar­tyr­dom. Serv­ing as an of­fi­cer in the court of Em­peror Je­hangir, his role is sig­nif­i­cant but it would be un­wise to ig­nore other causes. All the arrange­ments for Guru Sahib’s tor­ture and killing were arranged by Chandu, Guru Sahib’s mar­tyr­dom was presided over him, in his pres­ence and un­der his guid­ance, but he was not the per­son who gave the or­ders of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.  Un­doubt­edly, he was one of the com­plainants to the court of Je­hangir, as he en­vied Guru Sahib. pri­mar­ily be­cause on the re­quest of the San­gat -con­gre­ga­tion, Guru Sahib had re­fused his pro­posal for the mar­riage of his daugh­ter to Guru Sahib’s son Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib.. He con­stantly ac­cused Gu­ruji for some rea­son or the other in Je­hangir’s court, which ul­ti­mately ag­gre­gated to be one of the causes of mar­tyr­dom.

Re­li­gious Rea­sons -Brah­mins: Even be­fore Guru Ar­jan Dev, the Brah­mins were jeal­ous of the growth of Sikhism. They had taken up the mat­ter with Em­peror Ak­bar too but all their al­le­ga­tions were merely jeal­ousy and hoax.

When Guru Ar­jan Sahib com­pleted the com­pi­la­tion of Adi Granth Sahib, they felt that now they had ad­e­quate rea­son to move against Guru Sahib. They raised a hue and cry in the court of Em­peror Je­hangir that by com­pil­ing the Granth- the com­pendium of hymns of Gu­rus and Bha­gats, Guru Ar­jan Sahib had hurt the sen­ti­ments of Hin­dus and Mus­lims alike.

They com­plained that Adi Granth Sahib con­demns caste dis­crim­i­na­tion and casteism is the pil­lar of the Hindu re­li­gion. They knew that Granth Sahib com­prises the lan­guage of the masses and if masses are awak­ened, the self­ish mo­tives of the Brah­mins would be ex­posed. They will lose work. They sug­gested to Em­peror Je­hangir to con­fis­cate the Adi Granth Sahib and ex­e­cute Guru Ar­jan Sahib. The in­tel­li­gent Bir­bal me­di­ated be­tween the Brah­mins and Em­peror Je­hangir.

Maulanas: The staunch or­tho­dox Mus­lims en­vied those Mus­lims who were in­ter­ested in Guru Ghar and hence they too be­came a cause in Guru Sahib mar­tyr­dom.

Kanha, Peelu, Chha­jju and Shah Hus­sain: At the time of com­pi­la­tion of Adi Granth Sahib, Guru Ar­jan Dev is­sued spe­cial ‘Hukam­na­mas’ all over that who so ever pos­sess Guru Nanak Dev and other Guru Sahiban’s Bani shall bring it to him, so that the di­vine word can be as­sem­bled as one Granth.

On hear­ing this, this quar­tet brought their self-com­posed po­ems to Guru Sahib ji for in­clu­sion. Guru Sahib re­fused to in­clude them, say­ing that the Granth be­holds only the di­vine word and not worldly po­ems. They re­turned back feel­ing in­sulted and an­noyed and made up their mind to avenge this. So they com­plained at Je­hangir’s court, wickedly ac­cus­ing Guru Sahib for spread­ing an­ar­chy and harm­ing peace in so­ci­ety.

Sheikh Ahmed Sarhindi:- He was a fol­lower of Sakhi Sar­war sect of In­dian Is­lam which was mainly aimed at con­vert­ing peo­ple to their re­li­gion. He could­n’t bear the in­creas­ing spread of Guru Sahib’s ide­ol­ogy and mis­sion. With the help of his dis­ci­ple Mur­taza Khan, who was an army of­fi­cer in the court of Em­peror Je­hangir, he ap­pealed and per­suaded the king to ex­e­cute Guru Ar­jan Sahib who in his eyes was an ob­sta­cle to the prop­a­ga­tion of Is­lam.

Po­lit­i­cal rea­sons- Je­hangir: From his writ­ings Tuzk-e-Je­hangiri it is very clear that he had en­mity with Guru Ghar. The very fact that he ad­dressed Gu­ru­ship as a shop of false­hood, he laid down his plan for the ex­e­cu­tion of Guru Ar­jan Dev. This demon­strated the ex­tent of his an­i­mos­ity with the House of the Guru.

To wit, the steadily in­creas­ing power and fame of Guru Nanak Sahib’s ide­ol­ogy was un­bear­able to or­tho­dox Mus­lims and casteist. At the same time, Em­peror Je­hangir too could not di­gest the growth and progress of Sikhism. The news of com­pi­la­tion of Adi Granth Sahib added fuel to fire. He him­self wished to con­vert Guru Ar­jan Dev to his own re­li­gion. Khus­ro’s at­ten­dance as a devo­tee in Guru Sahib’s pres­ence was enough for Je­hangir to blame Guru Sahib a rebel. The mag­ni­fi­ca­tion of this in­ci­dent pro­vided the lever­age which Je­hangir was look­ing for. With­out wait­ing for more, Je­hangir seized the op­por­tu­nity and or­dered the ar­rest of Guru Ar­jan Sahib. This was the cul­mi­na­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment cre­ated for Guru Sahib’s Sha­ha­dat -mar­tyr­dom.

Or­der of Ex­e­cu­tion: For Je­hangir, Khus­ro’s pres­ence in the Guru Dar­bar, his own en­vi­ous at­ti­tude and the false com­plaints of the op­po­nents were help­ful for the ful­fill­ment of his ma­li­cious de­sire. Who was to in­ves­ti­gate this?

“Sweet is thy will for me. -Guru Ar­jan Dev”

On Je­hangir’s or­der, Guru Sahib was ar­rested and brought to La­hore. When there was no hope of Guru ji’s con­ver­sion to Is­lam, the or­ders to ter­ror­ize and tor­ture were is­sued. Guru Ar­jan Dev was to be ex­e­cuted by the code of ‘Yasa’ and this re­spon­si­bil­ity was given to Chandu. At last for five long days the An­gel of peace Guru Ar­jan Dev was mer­ci­lessly tor­tured by pour­ing boil­ing wa­ter and sand on him and mak­ing him sit on hot iron plates un­der the hot sun.

Guru Ar­jan Sahib peace­fully at­tained mar­tyr­dom, be­came the first mar­tyr of the Sikhi move­ment and is revered as the Sha­heed Shi­ro­mani. Un­der­go­ing the tor­ture, he re­mained fo­cused and re­cited,

mean­ing, “Thy will is sweet for me.”

This is how the tra­di­tion of sac­ri­fice orig­i­nated in Sikhism and is con­tin­u­ing for the sake of truth and would go on for all times to come.  Bhai Gur­das aptly puts it,