Guru Ram Das Ji

Guru Ram Das Ji, the Fourth Master, took Parkash on 24 September 1534 in the Chuna Mandi quarter of Lahore, then the capital of the Punjab under the Mughals. His father, Baba Hari Das Ji, was a Sodhi Khatri trader of modest means, and his mother was Mata Daya Kaur Ji, also remembered as Mata Anup Devi Ji. As the first-born son he was called Jetha, the eldest, and the name stayed with him until he became Guru. His childhood was marked by hardship: both parents passed away when he was about seven years old, and his maternal grandmother took the orphan to her village of Basarke, south-west of the present city of Amritsar. There, to support himself and the old woman, young Jetha Ji went out each day into the lanes with a basket of boiled grams, ghungnian, which he sold for a few coppers, and from which he gave freely to any hungry sadhu or child he met.

Basarke was the birthplace of Bhai Amar Das Ji, who had by then become a Sikh of Guru Angad Dev Ji and who, when he visited the village, noticed the gentle, dutiful boy. When Bhai Amar Das Ji was commanded to found the town of Goindwal on the Beas around 1546, Bhai Jetha Ji, then about twelve, moved there with his grandmother. He continued to sell grams by day and spent the evenings in the Sangat, serving in the Langar and carrying earth and bricks for the buildings of the new town. He asked for nothing and accepted every task. When Guru Amar Das Ji assumed the Guruship in 1552 and made Goindwal his seat, Bhai Jetha Ji became one of the inner circle of his servants, distinguished by his sweetness of disposition and unquestioning obedience.

In 1553 Guru Amar Das Ji and Mata Mansa Devi Ji were seeking a match for their younger daughter Bibi Bhani Ji. Tradition records that when the matchmaker asked what kind of husband they desired, Mata Mansa Devi Ji pointed to the young man selling grams at the gate and said, one like him; Guru Ji replied that there could be only one like him, for he was unique in his devotion. So Bibi Bhani Ji was married to Bhai Jetha Ji, and instead of taking his bride to Lahore, he remained at Goindwal in the service of his father-in-law, now also his Guru. Three sons were born to them: Baba Prithi Chand Ji in 1558, Baba Mahadev Ji in 1560 and, on 15 April 1563, Sahibzada Arjan Dev Ji, whose grandfather foretold that he would be the ship carrying the Bani across the ocean of the world. Bhai Jetha Ji laboured with the other Sikhs in the digging of the Baoli Sahib between 1556 and 1559, and Bibi Bhani Ji's devotion to her father is remembered in the tradition that she held up the broken leg of his stool with her hand while he was absorbed in meditation, till the blood ran.

Guru Amar Das Ji came to rely upon Bhai Jetha Ji in matters of consequence. When the Brahmins and conservative Khatris of the Punjab complained to Akbar at Lahore that the Guru at Goindwal was leading the people away from caste, the Vedas and the sacred thread, Guru Ji sent Bhai Jetha Ji to represent him. Before the emperor he explained that the Guru taught only the remembrance of the One God, honest labour and sharing, that the Langar fed all alike because all were children of the same Father, and that the Gurus' hymns were in the language of the people so that all might understand them. Akbar was satisfied and dismissed the complaint. Around 1570 Guru Amar Das Ji entrusted Bhai Jetha Ji with a far-sighted project: to acquire land in the low country some forty kilometres to the west, near the villages of Tung, Gilwali and Sultanwind, and to begin a new settlement around a tank. Tradition holds that the land was purchased from the villagers of Tung for seven hundred Akbari rupees, and other traditions associate it with the jagir granted by Akbar to Bibi Bhani Ji. Work began on the Santokhsar tank and a small settlement, Guru ka Chak, grew up around it.

In 1574 Guru Amar Das Ji, now in his ninety-sixth year, prepared to pass on the Light. His sons, Baba Mohan Ji and Baba Mohri Ji, were not chosen, and he tested his two sons-in-law by asking them to build earthen platforms, tharas, for him to sit on. Each time one was finished he found fault and had it pulled down. Bhai Rama Ji, husband of Bibi Dani Ji, gave up after a few attempts, saying the Guru was old and did not know his own mind. Bhai Jetha Ji built his platform seven times, each time folding his hands and saying that he was a fool and the Guru alone knew what was right; he would build it a hundred times if commanded. Guru Amar Das Ji embraced him, and on 1 September 1574 (Bhadon Sudi 15, Samvat 1631), at Goindwal, placed five paise and a coconut before him, bowed to him as Guru Ram Das Ji, and had Baba Buddha Ji apply the tilak. The same day Guru Amar Das Ji merged into the Divine Light.

Guru Ram Das Ji soon moved his seat from Goindwal to the new settlement, which the Sikhs called Ramdaspur or Chak Ramdas, the town of Ram Das. In 1577, the date traditionally given for the founding of the city, he began the excavation of a great tank, the Amrit Sarovar, the Pool of Nectar, from which the city would later take the name Amritsar. Baba Buddha Ji supervised the work and the Sikhs came from every quarter to dig and carry earth as an act of seva. Guru Ji built his own dwelling, the Guru Mahal, beside the tank and laid out a market, inviting traders, bankers and craftsmen of fifty-two trades from the towns of Patti, Kasur and elsewhere to settle there, so that the holy city would also be a prosperous one. This market, the Guru ka Bazaar, still bears his memory. To fund so vast an undertaking Guru Ji developed the Manji system of Guru Amar Das Ji into the Masand system: authorised representatives of the Guru, the Masands, preached in the Sangats, instructed new Sikhs, and brought the voluntary offerings of the faithful to Ramdaspur each Baisakhi and Diwali.

In his seven years of Guruship Guru Ram Das Ji composed 638 hymns in thirty ragas, more than any Guru before him save Guru Nanak Dev Ji, and introduced ragas such as Kalyan and Nat Narayan into the Gurbani. His hymns are marked by tender longing for the Beloved and by the imagery of marriage. The Laavan, four stanzas in Raag Suhi describing the four rounds of the soul's wedding to the Lord, became the heart of the Sikh marriage rite, the Anand Karaj, in which the couple circle Sri Guru Granth Sahib as each Laav is sung. His So Purakh in Raag Asa opens the evening Rehras Sahib; his Ghorian turn the wedding songs of the bridegroom's horse into praise of the soul's journey to God; his Pahre, Karhale and Vanjara speak to the trader and traveller of the soul; and his eight Vars, more than any other Guru composed, were set to the tunes of the folk ballads of the Punjab. His hymn on the daily discipline of the Sikh, 'Gur Satgur ka jo Sikh akhae, so bhalke uth Har Naam dhiavai', rising early to bathe and meditate on the Name, remains the charter of Sikh daily life.

The Guru's humility disarmed even old rivalries. Baba Sri Chand Ji, the venerable elder son of Guru Nanak Dev Ji and head of the Udasi order of ascetics, visited Ramdaspur. Observing the Guru's long beard, he asked, half in jest, why he had let it grow so long. Guru Ram Das Ji answered that it was to wipe the dust from the feet of holy men like him, and bent to do so. Baba Sri Chand Ji caught him up and embraced him, declaring that it was by such humility that the Guruship had gone to the house of Lehna and not to the sons of Nanak, and the Udasis were thereafter at peace with the Gurus. In these years, too, Bhai Gurdas Ji, the learned nephew of Guru Amar Das Ji, placed himself under Guru Ram Das Ji's instruction and was sent to Agra to preach among the Sangats of the Doab, beginning the career of the greatest expositor of Sikh doctrine, and Bhai Buddha Ji, now in his seventies, remained the pillar of the community at Ramdaspur.

The question of succession brought sorrow to the Guru's own house. His eldest son, Baba Prithi Chand Ji, was capable and ambitious and had taken charge of the Guru's household and treasury, and he expected the Guruship as his right. Baba Mahadev Ji had turned to the life of a recluse. The youngest, Sahibzada Arjan Dev Ji, was gentle and wholly absorbed in devotion. When an invitation came to the wedding of a cousin at Lahore, the son of Guru Ji's relative Bhai Sahari Mall, Prithi Chand Ji refused to go lest his father should install Arjan Dev in his absence, and Guru Ji sent Sahibzada Arjan Dev Ji instead, with instructions to remain at Lahore and serve the Sangat there until recalled. Months passed. Longing for the Guru's presence, Sahibzada Arjan Dev Ji wrote a letter in verse, 'Mera man lochai Gur darsan tai', my mind longs for the sight of the Guru, and then a second; both were intercepted by Prithi Chand Ji. The third, marked by the Sahibzada as the third, reached Guru Ji through Baba Buddha Ji, and the whole matter came to light. Guru Ram Das Ji recalled his son at once, and when Sahibzada Arjan Dev Ji, at his father's bidding, added a fourth stanza, 'Bhag hoa Gur sant milaya', by good fortune I have met the Guru, the saint, Guru Ji declared him the ship of the Bani and his heir.

Guru Ram Das Ji returned to Goindwal and there, on 1 September 1581 (Bhadon Sudi 3, Samvat 1638), he placed the five paise and coconut before Sahibzada Arjan Dev Ji, bowed to him, and had the aged Baba Buddha Ji apply the tilak, installing him as Guru Arjan Dev Ji, the Fifth Master. He counselled Prithi Chand Ji to accept his brother, telling him that the Guruship was a gift of the Divine and not an inheritance. The same day Guru Ram Das Ji merged into the Divine Light at Goindwal, in his forty-seventh year, having held the Guruship for exactly seven years. His Guruship was the shortest of the first five Masters, yet it gave the Sikhs their holiest city, their marriage rite and the organisation that would carry them into the next century. Mata Bhani Ji survived him until 1598 and lived to see her son raise the Harmandir Sahib on the Sarovar her husband had dug.