Blavatsky H.P. - The Akhund of Swat: Difference between revisions

Since the days of the great Nanak, of the Kshatriya caste, founder of the Sikh Brotherhood in the second half of the fifteenth century, these brave and warlike tribes have ever been the thorn in the side of the Mogul dynasty, the terror of the Moslems of India. Originating, as we may say, in a religious Brotherhood, whose object was to make away alike with Islamism, Brâhmanism, and other isms, including later Christianity, this sect evolved a pure monotheism in the abstract idea of an ever-unknown Principle, and elaborated it into the doctrine of the “Brotherhood of Man.” In their view, we have but one Father-Mother Principle, with “neither form, shape, nor colour,” and we ought all to be, if we are not, brothers irrespective of distinctions of race or colour. The sacerdotal Brâhman, fanatical in his observance of dead-letter forms, thus became in the opinion of the Sikh as much the enemy of truth as the Mussulman wallowing in a sensual heaven with his houris, the joss-worshipping Buddhist grinding out prayers at his wheel, or yet the Roman Catholic adoring his jewelled Madonnas, whose complexion the priests change from white to brown and black to suit climates and prejudices. Later on, Arjan, son of Ramdas, the fourth in the succession after Nanak, gathering together the doctrines of the founder and his {{Page aside|373}} successor Angad, brought out a sacred volume, called Adi- Granth, and largely supplemented it with selections from forty-five Sûtras of the Jainas. While adopting equally the religious figures of the Vedas and Koran, after sifting them and explaining their symbolism, the Adi-Granth yet presents a greater similarity of ideas respecting the most elaborate metaphysical conceptions with those of the Jaina school of Gurus. The notions of Astrology, or the influence of the starry spheres upon ourselves, were evidently adopted from that most prominent school of antiquity. This will be readily ascertained by comparing the commentaries of Abhâyâdeva Sûrî upon the original forty-five Sûtras in the Magadhi or Balabasha language <ref>This valuable work is now being republished by Ookerdhaboy Shewjee, and has been received by the Theosophical Society from the Editor through the President of the Bombay branch. When finished it will be the first edition of the Jaina Bible. Sûtra-Sangraha or Vihiva Pûnnûttee Sûtra, in existence, as all their sacred books are kept in secret by the Jainas.</ref> with the Adi-Granth. An old Jaina Guru, who is said to have drawn the horoscope of Ranjit Singh, at the time of his greatest power, had foretold the downfall of the kingdom of Lahore. It was the learned Arjan who retired into Amritsar, changed the sect into a politico-religious community, and instituted within the same another and more esoteric body of Gurus, scholars and metaphysicians, of which he became sole chief. He died in prison, under torture, by the order of Aurungzeb, into whose hands he had fallen, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. His son Govinda, a Guru (religious teacher) of great renown, vowed revenge against the race of his father’s murderers, and after various changes of fortune the Afghans were finally driven from the Puñjab by the Sikhs in 1767. This triumph only made their hatred more bitter still, and from that moment until the death of Ranjit Singh, in 1839, we find them constantly aiming their blows at the Moslems. Mahan Singh, the father of Ranjit, had set off the Sikhs into twelve misls or divisions, each having its own chief (Sirdar), whose secret Council of State consisted of learned Gurus. Among these were Masters in spiritual Science, and {{Page aside|374}} they might, if they had had a mind, have exhibited as astonishing “miracles” and divine legerdemain as the old Mussulman Akhund. He knew it well, and for this reason dreaded them even more than he hated them for his defeat and that of his Amîr by Ranjit Singh.