IX
LINES FROM THE ADI GRANTH
THE Adi Granth, or sacred Book of the Sikhs of the Punjab, was composed by the founder of their religion and their nationality, Baba Nanak (b. 1469), who abolished caste and idolatry, and established a pure monotheism. A striking incident at the Coronation Durbar was the arrival of the Sikh mission in charge of the Adi Granth, which was brought on a pilgrimage from its shrine in the exquisitely beautiful golden temple at Amritsar to the tomb of the disciple of Nanak, who, before suffering martyrdom at Delhi during the Mogul Empire, prophesied the advent of a fair race destined to sweep the Mogul power to the winds. I take these few sentences to show the essential continuity of Indian thought about animals. In the faith of Nanak none remains of the particular tenets of Buddhism or Jainism or Hinduism, but the animal is still inside, not outside, the pale of what may be called Pan-humanity: the whole family of earth-born creatures.
I.
Say not that this or that distasteful is,
In all the dear Lord dwells,—they all are His
Grieve not the humblest heart; all hearts that are,
Are priceless jewels, all are rubies rare.
Ah! If thou long’st for thy Beloved, restrain
One angry word that gives thy brother pain.