The Guru’s janeu of compassion

THE singular lesson, for me, from Guru Tegh Bahadur's life and martyrdom is the importance he gave to solidarity and concern for people who were, strictly speaking, not part of his sangat.When a group of Kashmiri pandits came to him in Chakk Nanaki and spoke of the oppression they were facing, how they were being forced to remove their janeus (sacred threads), their plight moved the Guru to such an extent that he decided to travel to Delhi, knowing full well what awaited him at the journey's end. The trigger for the sequence of events is the janeu, a token that had been rejected by Guru Nanak himself and the Sikh belief system. As Guru Nanak ji observes in one of his shabads:‘Let compassion be thy cotton,Spin it into the yarn of contentment,Give it knots of continence and the twist of truth,Thus wilt thou make a janeu for the soul.If such a one thou hast, put it on me,The thread so made will neither snap, nor become soiled.’These are words spoken by a young Guru Nanak when a priest arrived for his investiture ceremony. It is significant that a little over 200 years later, Guru Tegh Bahadur gave up his life in the defence of a people not his own, being free to wear a janeu and a tilak, tokens of a religion, again, not his own.What does this tell us about not just the ninth Guru, but also about the first? To my mind, it speaks of the Sikhs' engagement with the idea of diversity and religious freedom. And what is the wellspring of this idea? That is nothing else but compassion. Time and again, we have seen compassion as a lived reality for the Sikh community; we saw it during the worst days of the Covid pandemic when groups of Sikh youth organised oxygen langars, delivered food and medicines to the needy, irrespective of religion, and rose above the high walls of fear to sanitise the Jama Masjid in Delhi at a time when Muslims were afraid to enter their own mosque.For us to come to an understanding of this wellspring of compassion, let us briefly look at the life of the first Guru. Since my recent work has been in and around Urdu, I want to view Guru Nanak ji in the mirror of Urdu poetry to present, very briefly, how the Urdu poet has seen him. Let us begin with the most famous and most-cited nazm by Sir Muhammad Iqbal where he describes Guru Nank ji as ‘mard-e kaamil’ (the perfect man):‘Phir uthi aakhir sada tauhid ki Punjab se, Hind ko ik mard-e-kaamil ne jagaya khvab se.’(Once again the call of unitarianism has rung out from Punjab,A perfect man has again awakened Hind from deep slumber.)In another poem, Iqbal says:‘Chishti ne jis zamin mein paigham-e-haq sunaya, Nanak ne jis chaman mein wahdat ka geet gaaya...Mera watan wahi hai, mera watan wahi hai.’(The land in which Chishti delivered the message of Truth,The garden in which Nanak sang the song of Oneness,That homeland is mine, that homeland is mine.)The pairing of Chishti and Nanak seems natural to the Urdu poet and occurs in several instances, as here by Afsar Meeruthi in ‘Watan ka Raag’:‘Chishti ne jo di thi mai, woh ab tak hai paimanon mein, Nanak ki taalim abhi tak goonj rahi hai kaanon mein, Bharat pyara desh hamara, sab deshon se nyara hai.’(The wine that Chishti had poured is still in our goblets,The teachings of Nanak are still echoing in our ears...Our beloved Bharat, our nation is the loveliest of all nations.)And here’s Arsh Malsiyani singing in the same refrain in ‘Mere Pyarae Watan’:‘Sufi tere har daur mein karte rahe paighambari, Chishti o Nanak se mili Faqr-o-ghina ko bartari.’(In every age your sufis have appeared as prophets,From Chishti and Nanak, we have learntThe superiority of asceticism and freedom.)Then there is Tilok Chand Mehroom who paints a luminous portrait of Guru Nanak in ‘Tasweer-e Rehmat’ (‘The Portrait of Mercy’):‘Teri tauqir se tauqir-e-hasti hai Guru Nanak,Teri tanvir har zarre mein basti hai Guru Nanak,Teri jagir mein irfan ki masti hai Guru Nanak,Teri tahrir auj-e-haq-parasti hai Guru Nanak,Teri tasvir se rahmat barasti hai Guru Nanak.’(To honour you is to honour all existence, Guru Nanak,Your luminosity illuminates every particle, Guru Nanak,Your estate endows the intoxication of enlightenment, Guru Nanak,Your writings are the summit of worshipping Truth, Guru Nanak,Divine mercy streams down from your portrait, Guru Nanak).After this sampler of Urdu poetry on Guru Nanak, let us return to Guru Tegh Bahadur on whom the title ‘Hind ki Chadar’ was conferred because he spread the chadar of compassion and self-sacrifice in upholding freedom of choice. Here, let us pick up the strand of compassion, which is one of the five virtues in the Sikh faith, the other four being Sat (truth), Santokh (contentment), Namrata (humility) and Pyaar (love).Named Tyaag Mal by his parents, there are legendary stories of Guru Tegh Bahadur’s kindness towards others. As a four-year-old, he gave away his clothes to a poor naked child whom he met during his elder brother’s wedding procession. It would appear that he instinctively, organically, understood the words of Guru Nanak: ‘Dharma, born of compassion, held steady by the thread of contentment, is the mythical bull that supports the world.’ The Sikh concept of ‘karuna’ (compassion) is deeply intertwined with ‘Sarbat da Bhala’— the welfare of all — underscoring the belief that true spirituality is incomplete without active kindness and service to others.Guru Tegh Bahadur composed 116 hymns in 15 ragas, comprising 59 shabads and 57 sloks; these were included in Guru Granth Sahib by his son, Guru Gobind Singh. I will end with one of his sloks which possibly gives a clue to his state of mind when he chose to martyr himself so that Dharma may prevail:‘The Divine name in this dark age dispels fear and ignorance.Says Nanak, they who recite it night and day triumph in every action.’

The Guru’s janeu of compassion

The Sikh tradition shows that diversity rests not on tolerance alone, but on compassion deep enough to defend another’s faith.

Rakhshanda Jalil

The Guru’s janeu of compassion

The Sikh tradition shows that diversity rests not on tolerance alone, but on compassion deep enough to defend another’s faith.

Rakhshanda Jalil

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