The Sikhs venerated the Guru Har-govind as a god, and believed that he has passed through six incarnations. Perah Kaivan, a Yazdanian, was moved by the reputatation of the Guru, and came to visit him.
The Guru recognised him, and showed him great respect. Upon that account Perah Kaivan left him. A week had scarcely passed after he was gone, when Har-govind died, on a Sunday, the third day of the Moherram, in the year 1055 of the Hejirah (A. D. 1645). When they had placed his corpse upon the pyre, and when the fire rose up in high flames, a ràjapút called Rájarama, who had been his servant, precipitated himself into the fire, and walked several paces in the midst of the flames, until he reached the feet of the corpse, and having laid his face upon the soles of the Guru’s feet, he did not move until he expired. After him, the son of a Jat, who was in the service of Har-govind’s son-in-law, leaped into the fire. Many other Sikhs wished to follow his example, but the Guru Har rayi forbade it. Dáulet Khan Kaksal says:
“Of a hundred sayings of my master, I remember one:
The world never becomes a desert, nor the wine-house a prayer-house.
What can my soul give more than my heart can bear?
Whatever the soul gives, and whatever the heart bears, the one and the other is god-given.”
The Guru Har-govind, in a letter to the author of this work, gave himself the title of Nânac, which was his right distinction. I saw him in the year 1053 of the Hejirah (A. D. 1643) in Kirtpúr. The Guru Har-ráyi was the grandson of the said Guru;[476] his father was Garuta (or Guru daitya), who is known under the name of Bábá Jév. The Guru Har-govind wished first to transmit his place to his son Garuta, or Bábá Jév; but the Guru Nághura, one of the Sikhs, brought his daughter to Bábá Jév. The Bábá wished to send her to his private apartments. His wife, the mother of Har-ráyi, complained of it to Har-govind, her father-in-law, who, having heard her, said to Bábá Jév: “Having given to Nághura the name of my son, I own him as such, and his daughter cannot go to you, my son.” Nághura refused to take back his daughter; nor would Bábá Jév give her up. The Guru Har-govind then said: “May neither happiness nor success ever attend this husband and his wife!” Upon that, the same day, Bábá Jév threw away his nuptial dress, and sent the daughter of the Guru Nághura untouched back to her house. In consequence of this event, Har-govind showed a more particular esteem for his grandson Har-ráyi,[477] the son of Bábá Jév; he gave him the name of his father, Bábá Jév, and appointed him his successor. Invested with this dignity, Har-rayi remained one year in Kirtpúr. When in the year of the Hejirah 1055 (A. D. 1645) Najábet Khan, the son of Sharogh Mirza, by order of the pádsháh Shah-jehan, invaded with an army the land of the rája Tarachand, and made the rája a prisoner, the Guru Har-ráyi betook himself to Thapal, which town is situated in the district of the rája Keramperkás, not far from Sirhind.
The Sikhs call Har-ráyi the seventh Guru. He was a great friend of the author of this work. I will therefore give an account of some among the principal chiefs whom I knew, as well as of some customs of this people. The Sikhs distinguish also the deputies of their Gurus by the name of Rámdais, that is to say, “servants of God, or of an idol.” Jahandas was one of the pretenders to the dignity of a Guru; he was a man high and proud in his speeches, not agreeable to any, indifferent to good and bad that might happen to him. One day he got a wound on his foot. Har-govind told him: “Do not envelop too much, and raise your foot.” According to this injunction, he suspended and uncovered his foot during three months. When the Guru was informed of it, he said to him: “Cover your foot; what I told you was intended for the healing of your wound: do not rest on your foot for some days.” One day the Guru said to him: “Tell the Sikhs to bring wood into the kitchen, that they may gain some remuneration.” Jahandas did not appear the next day, as if he had not during one day and a half awoke from sleep. The people, suspecting some derangement of his brain, thought he had absented himself. When they, with the Guru, looked after him, they found him with a bundle of wood on his shoulder. The Guru said: “I have not ordered you to bear that.” He replied: “You gave your orders to the Sikhs; a Sikh am I, and know not to be any thing higher than they are.” Another day the Guru went into a garden, and said to Jahandas: “Remain at the door.” By accident, the Guru returned home by another door; Jahandas remained three days on his feet, until Hargovind, who was informed of it, called him away.
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.”