Har-govind had a disciple called _Badhata_, who sent a person to bring corn from a field where it was lying cut. This man gave every thing away, and then said to Badhata who had sent him: “You distributed every thing, as a father, to the poor; I did the same in imitation of your example, and dispense you from the remuneration which I should have gained by bringing the corn to you.” Badhata was at first a thief, and his disciples exercised later the profession of thieving; they showed themselves very obedient to the orders of their master, and believed that stealing for him deserved praise and recompense. Har-govind, according to the Sikhs, declared that on the day of the last judgment, his disciples will not have to account for their actions.
_Sadah_, a disciple of the Guru, went by his orders to bring horses from Balkh to Irak. He had a son who had fallen sick. They said to him: “You are now in the town of Balkh, and but one day’s journey from home: go to see your son.” He answered: “If he should die, there is wood enough in the house to burn him: I went about the Guru’s business, and will not return.” The son died, but he did not return. At last he bought three capital horses of Irak; but Khalíl Bég, a tyrant, took hold of them, which fell hard upon him. In the same year, he lost his only son and heir, and saw himself deprived of strength and honor. Sadah was a man neither gladdened by good nor afflicted by bad fortune. The author of this work was once his companion on a journey from Kabul to the Penjab. The belt of my coat broke; Sadah gave me immediately his zunnar to serve me as a belt. I said to him: “Why do you this?” He answered: “To tie the zunnar purports an engagement to serve another; as often as I render some service to friends, may I resign my zunnar for it.”
“This thread serves to tie every thing: In a cloister it is a rosary; in a temple of idols a zunnar.”
A Sikh asked the Guru Har-govind: “In the absence of my Guru, what other shall I find?” He replied: “Whichever of the Sikhs comes to your house under the name of a Guru, him you may take for yours.” It is the custom among the Sikhs that, whatever demand they have, they can state it in the assembly of the Sikhs to the Guru, to whom they offer whatever present they have, or a coin, and in so doing they join their hands together, and proffer prayers to him, that he may be favorable to them. The Guru states then his demand in the _Sangat_ (_Sangátí_),[478] that is to say, in the assembly of the Sikhs. This custom exists also among the _Sipásian_, or _Izedanian_. The belief of this people is, that an assembly is certainly capable of achieving every thing, inasmuch as the minds act with their united strength.