SKETCH' OF THE SIKHS. 215 



fij.yjpened in the year A. D. 1661, and of ihe Samvat 1718, a violent 

 contest arose among the Sikhs, regarding the succession to the office of 

 spiritual leader; for the temporal power of their ruler was, at this pe- 

 riod, little more than nominal. The dispute between his sons, or, as some 

 Sikh authors state, his son and" grand-son, Har Crishn and Ra'm RaV, 

 was referred to Dehli, whither both parties went, and by an imperial de- 

 cree of AuRUNGZEB', the Sikhs VTere allowed to eledl their own priest. 

 They chose Har CrTshn, who died at Dehli in the year A. D. 1664, and 

 o^ the Samvat 1721 ; and v/a^ succeeded' by his uncle, Te'gh Beha'duk. 

 He, however, had to encounter the most violent opposition, from his ne- 

 phew, Ra'm Ra'y,* who remained at Dehli, and' endeavoured, by every 

 art and intrigue, to effe^ his ruin : he was seized, and brought to D-ehlt, 

 in consequence of his nephew's misrepresentations ; and, after being in 

 prison for two years, was released at the intercession of Jayasinh, Rdjd 

 of Jayapur, whom he accompanied to Bengal, Te'gh Beha'dur after- 

 wards took up his abode at the city ot Patna,'\ but was pursued', agreeable 

 to Sikh authors, to his retreat, with implacable rancour, by the jealousy 

 and ambition of Ra'm Ra'y ; who at last accomplished the destru6lioit 

 of his rival : he was brought from Patna, and, by the accounts of the 



* The violent contests of the S//c^j are mentioned by most of their writers ; and, thougli 

 they disagree in their accounts, they all represent Te'gii Beha'dur as falling tiie innocent 

 sacrifice of Muhammedan despotism and intolerance ; which, from the evidence of all res- 

 pectable contemporary Muhammedan authors, would appear not to be the fact^ Te'gh 

 Bfua'dur, agreeable to them, provoked his execution by a series of crimes, having joined 

 ■wiih a Moslem Fcdtir, of the name of Hafiz ed Din, collecting a number of armed men- 

 dicants, and having committed, with that body, the most violent depredations on tho peace* 

 able inhabitants of the Penjah. The author of the Seir Mutdkhherin says he was, in conse- 

 quence of these excesses, put to death at Gwalior, and his body cut into four quarters, one of 

 which was hung up at each gate of the fortress. 



t A Sikh college was founded in that city. 



