Sava lakh se ek laraun, tabhi Gobind Singh nam kahaun

Dr Satish K Kapoor

Guru Gobind Singh exhibited in his brief life such heroic traits as emanate from the divine souls who descend on the earth planet with a teleo or purpose. His charismatic persona turned the timid into chivalrous human beings — the ‘sparrows’ became ready to overawe the imperial falcons.

A worthy ideal

In a public lecture at Lahore in 1897, Swami Vivekananda said: ‘Mark me, everyone of you will have to be a Guru Gobind Singh if you want to do good to your country.’  He described him as ‘one  of the most glorious heroes of our race’, and ‘a worthy ideal which ought to be before us always.’  

He was fascinated by Guru’s personality — his catholic outlook, his love for the masses, his organizational skill, his fearlessness, and his supreme mission to establish dharma in society. While narrating  Guru’s life, his eyes used to dilate with enthusiasm and seemed to be emitting fire – ‘his hearers dumb-stricken and looking at his face, kept watching the wonderful site.’ He often recited the couplet, ‘Sava lakh se ek laraun, tabhi Gobind Singh nam kahaun,’ meaning that ‘when Guru Gobind Singh gives the Name (initiation), a single man becomes strong enough to triumph over a lakh and a quarter of his foes.’  

Divine descent

The divine descent of Guru Gobind Singh is revealed in Bachitra Nataka, his autobiographical composition, from which we learn that the Almighty had commissioned him to instruct men in true religion and the moral law, and to lead them away from evil. He did not fight any battle for name, fame, wealth or territory but for combating tyranny. In the historic Zafarnamah, ‘Epistle of Victory’ to Aurangzeb, he wrote that evil must be nipped even if it involved the use of force.

‘When all else hast failed thee. 

Thou shall rightfully lift the sword.’The sword, symbolising Shakti in its supreme aspect, was not to be used as a butcher’s knife but as a surgeon’s instrument. It was not be wielded by mercenary fighters but by selfless saint-soldiers ready to sacrifice their lives at the altar of truth. 

Great sacrifices

Vivekananda described the Guru as a nation builder who broke the barriers of caste, community, religion and race, to create a mass basis for the Khalsa – the fraternity of saint-soldiers having a collective being, a collective will and a collective vision. ‘In Indian history, such an example is indeed very rare.’ He added that Guru Gobind Singh suffered ‘vicarious atonement for everyone of us.’  He was endowed with ‘the strength of direct vision’. Unlike other great persons who were ‘bits of straw rocking to and fro in water like feathers blown about in a hurricane’ he was a messenger of God. ‘… these man-gods are the real gods of all nations and all races… Therein is our faith, therein is our hope of a reality.’

Referring to his great sacrifices in the cause of humanity, Vivekananda remarked that nothing could deter him from pursuing his mission, neither the intrigues of Hill chiefs nor the might of the Mughal Empire. Even when he was betrayed, he continued his crusade against adharma ‘without a single word of murmur’. 

Swami Vivekananda was convinced that the stories of his life would raise the blood of people into crimson splendor. ‘Then and then alone you are a Hindu, when you will be ready to bear everything for them (countrymen) like the great Guru Govind Singh… Such a man is worthy of the name of a Hindu; such an ideal ought to be before us always.’ The word Hindu did not have a sectarian meaning for him but referred to ‘the common national stock.’

(Dr Kapoor is a noted educationist, historian and spiritualist)