GOING BACK IN TIME, the 10th Sikh Guru, Gobind Singhji created the Khalsa Panth at Anandpur Sahib on the first day of Baisakhi in 1699. 316 years ago, the Khalsa Panth was created by great sacrifices of all the ten Sikh Gurus with a noble purpose. The purpose was to set right the previous ideas whereby religion was treated as one whole, each being claimed as superior to the other and involved conversion and accompanying coercion and tyranny, breaking all the norms of dharma.
Love, service to humanity, tolerance and forgiveness are the important qualities of the Khalsas. The Sikh Guru themselves were endowed with these qualities and showed the same way to the Khalsa.
Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism had set a plan to launch an entirely new religion. Each of the ten Gurus performed allotted parts in completing the long-term plan formulated by Guru Nanak with the objective of producing a new religion, the follower of which was to be a saint and soldier rolled into one, to hold aloft the torch of fharma.
Numerous are the events in the lives of the ten Gurus which contributed towards formation of such an ideal character. The fifth Guru Arjun Devji and ninth Guru Teg Bahadurji sacrificed their lives for the purpose.
Guru Arjun Devji was most brutally tortured by the Mughal emperor for several days in a prison and put in boiling water for a couple of days. Hot sand was put on his bare body and he was asked to sit over a hot iron pan. Though in agony, Guru Arjun Devji was calm, loving and firm as steel. He endured inhuman suffering and set an example of heroic patience required for implementation of non-violence as a weapon for correcting social cruelty and injustice. At last, his mutilated body was thrown into the waters of the Ravi, and so he died a martyr to the Sikh religion.
Guru Teg Bahadur was beheaded in the Chandni Chowk area of Dellhi. The cold-blooded murder of the Guru was decreed. Guru Teg Bahadur sacrificed his life for his countrymen and showed that it is better to die willingly than to accept coercion, slavery and injustice. He thus used his death as a final means to crush the enemy and weaken the forces through non-violence.
Tenth Guru Gobind Singh sacrificed his four sons for the same noble cause, along with his mother and father.
Despite being physically separated, all the ten Gurus were one in spirit. Guru Nanak had the spirit of God infused in him, which he passed on to Guru Angad Devji before his death, and the same was passed on to Guru Amar Dasji, and so on.
Although Guru Nanak originally planned the formation of the new panth, Guru Gobind Singh had completed the structure by creating theKhalsa.
On the memorable day of Baisakhi in 1699, the 10th Guru Gobind Singh organised the Khalsa by baptising the Sikhs with amrit (nectar) prepared in an iron vessel with water and sugar. During the preparation of amrit, the Guru recited some verses and stirred it with a double-edged sword (khanda).
He abolished caste and brought the high and low to a status of equality. He vested the leadership in the community, i. e., Guru Panth. It was a trial of democracy practised in the realm of religion. The Singhs of the Khalsa army were imparted lessons on philosophy and programme of life, thus living as model saint soldiers. The Guru himself received baptism from the five beloved ones whom the Guru himself baptised first in the same way and exclaimed that Khalsa rose from the Guru and Guru from the Khalsa. Each and every baptised Sikh has to wear five Ks: (i) Kesh or uncut hair, (ii) Kangha or comb, (iii) Kripan or sword, (iv) Kara or bracelet, and (v) Kacha or shorts.
It was an army and a brotherhood who vowed to devote their lives to the eradication of tyranny and injustice.
The main objective of Khalsa is to drive out evil. suffering and darkness of falsehood and bring about the light of dharma, love and brotherhood in mankind.
