76 
[No. 1, 
C. J. Rodgers —On the Coins of the Sikhs. 
instituted pahal or baptism, created the khalsa and ordered all his baptized 
disciples to be called Singhs. Besides this be wrote a book in which all 
his ideas are stated. This he called the “ Granth of the 10th reign or 
Guruship.” The one compiled by Arjan is known as the “ Adi Granth.” 
But Govind’s Granth is not all his own. It consists of compilations from 
the works of the poets he had about him. 
His wars with his neighbours could not long go on without the inter¬ 
ference of the imperial troops. Two of his sons were killed in these distur¬ 
bances. Two others were slain at Sarhind by the governor into whose hands 
they had been betrayed, This act has obtained for this city the Sikh title 
of fitmunhin “ the accursed.” Govind Singh himself became a fugitive. 
In Malwa, at a place called Damdama, he at last found refuge. But he 
afterwards removed to Anandpur. After the death of Aurangzeb he once 
more came into public notice and took service under Bahadur Shah, who 
gave him a military command in the Dakkin. He, however, returned to 
Anandpur for awhile to look after the affairs of his guruship, which were 
getting into confusion through the extortions of his tithe collectors. After 
this he went to Nander in the Nizam’s Dominions on the Godavery, where 
he was murdered by the sons of a man whom he had himself murdered. It 
seems that he had purchased horses from this man and had not paid him. 
The man wanted his money and dunned the guru for it. The guru, who 
was never famous for meekness, getting angry one day slew him. 
Thus we see that the last two gurus, father and son, caine to a violent 
death which resulted from their own wrong-doings. Govind Singh was 
murdered in 1708 A. D. 
Much false sympathy has been bestowed on the fate of these two men. 
But the truth is that were two such men to arise now in India, there is no 
doubt they would be hunted down. No sooner did Ram Singh, the Kooka 
leader, try his hand at raiding, than the authorities were after him. His 
people were taken red-handed, fresh from their fight, and they were blown 
from guns by the Deputy Commissioner of Ludiana and the Commissioner 
of Amballa. The former officer was strangely enough made to go on pen¬ 
sion (thus losing about a thousand rupees per mensem), the latter officer 
was appointed to an ambassadorship to Central Asia and knighted. 
Govind Singh was the last Guru. He appointed a faqir, named Banda, 
to the leadership of the Sikhs. This man seems to have been ignorant of 
the precepts of Govind. But he understood and followed his practice. 
This in the course of a short but dreadful career of eight years’ constant 
depredations caused him to be taken prisoner by the imperial army at 
Gurdaspur in the Panjab. He was taken to Dehli and put to death by 
frightful torments in 1716 A. D. No Sikh bemoans his death. He was 
a man whose actions were so cruel, that in those days an example was 
necessary. 
