[469] The reign of Jehangir lasted from A. D. 1605 to 1628.
[470] This date agrees with that given by Ferishta of the rebellion and the imprisonment of Khusro.
[471] According to the Sketch of the Sikhs by General Malcolm, Arjunmal was immediately succeeded by his son Har-govind, whilst the Dabistán mentions his brother as his successor. There appears an hiatus, or some confusion in our text; so much however is indicated clearly enough, that there was a contest about the succession between the brother and the son of Arjunmal.
[472] The dictionary gives no satisfactory interpretation of the word, as relating to the text.
[473] Har-govind (G. M. p. 213) was a warlike Guru, or priest militant, and wore two swords in his girdle. Being asked why he did so: “The one,” said he, “is to revenge the death of my father; the other to destroy the miracles of Muhammed.” His character appears in the Dabistán less advantageously with respect to the religious customs of his sect, from the austerity of which he is said to have greatly relaxed, and he permitted the promiscuous use of flesh of all animals except that of the cow: his military character however is maintained in all accounts of him.
[474] Gwalior is situated in the province of Agra, eighty miles travelling distance south from the city of Agra.
[475] Foujdar, an officer of the police in Hindostan, and chief magistrate, who takes cognizance of all criminal matters.
[476] Hargovind had five sons, the eldest of whom was Guru daitya, the father of Har ráyi.
[477] Rayi is a title a little inferior to that of Rája, generally applied to the Hindu chief of a village or small district.
[479] The author of the Dabistán does not carry the account of the Sikhs further than to the time of Harrayi, a peaceable Guru, who died in 1664. After a contest between his sons, or, as some Sikh authors relate, between his son, _Har Krichna_, and his grandson, _Ram Ray_, the former was chosen. He died in 1664, and was succeeded by his uncle, _Tégh Bahader_, in spite of the opposition of his nephew, Ram Ray. Tégh Bahader was imprisoned and put to death by the Muhammedans, in 1675. After his death, the sect appeared crushed, but under his son, _Gura Govind_, the Sikhs rose again, no more as a sect, but as a nation endeavouring to establish their independence. Guru Govind is considered by them as the founder of their national greatness; he is the tenth, that is, their last acknowledged religious ruler; he is the author of the _Dasama Pádsháh-ka grantha_, or “the book of the tenth king;” he changed the name of his followers from Sikhs to _Singhs_, “lions,” who distinguished themselves by a blue checkered dress; he first instituted the _Guru-mata_, or “great council,” among them, and established the _Akalis_, or “the immortals,” who preserved their name and consideration until our days; in short, he sanctioned, and confirmed by institutions, the doctrine taught by his predecessors, who endeavoured to separate the Sikhs from the mass of the Hindus. Indeed “the admission of proselytes, the abolition of the distinction of casts, the eating all kinds of flesh except that of cows, the form of religious worship, and the general devotion of all Sikhs to arms, are ordinances altogether irreconcileable with Hindu mythology”――(G. M. p. 268).