Guru Tegh Bahadur

My answer is that I am a Hindu and I love Hindu dharma. How can anyone destroy it? It provides happiness both in this world as well as in the other world. There is no other religion like it. Only a deranged person or a fool would leave it to become vile. Hindu dharma would remain in the world for ever. It is not going to be destroyed by your efforts.

One who is not perturbed by misfortune, who is beyond comfort, attachment and fear, who considers gold as dust. He neither speaks ill of others nor feels elated by praise and shuns greed, attachments and arrogance. He is indifferent to ecstasy and tragedy, is not affected by honors or humiliations. He renounces expectations, greed. He is neither attached to the worldliness, nor lets senses and anger affect him. In such a person resides God.

Guru Tegh Bahadur (1 April 1621 – 24 November 1675), revered as the ninth Nanak, was the ninth of ten Gurus of the Sikh religion. Tegh Bahadur continued in the spirit of the first guru, Nanak; his 115 poetic hymns are in the text Guru Granth Sahib. Tegh Bahadur resisted the forced conversions of Kashmiri Pandits and non-Muslims to Islam, and was publicly beheaded in 1675 on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in Delhi for refusing to convert to Islam.

Quotes

• My answer is that I am a Hindu and I love Hindu dharma. How can anyone destroy it? It provides happiness both in this world as well as in the other world. There is no other religion like it. Only a deranged person or a fool would leave it to become vile. Hindu dharma would remain in the world for ever. It is not going to be destroyed by your efforts.
  • Tegh Bahadur’s Hindi reply to Aurangzeb when he was asked to become a Muslim. Kshitish Vedalankar: Storm in Punjab, p.178.

• One who is not perturbed by misfortune, who is beyond comfort, attachment and fear, who considers gold as dust. He neither speaks ill of others nor feels elated by praise and shuns greed, attachments and arrogance. He is indifferent to ecstasy and tragedy, is not affected by honors or humiliations. He renounces expectations, greed. He is neither attached to the worldliness, nor lets senses and anger affect him. In such a person resides God.
  •  Guru Tegh Bahadur, Sorath 633 (Translated by Gopal Singh), Tegh Bahadur (Translated by Gopal Singh) (2005). Mahalla nawan: compositions of Guru Tegh Bahādur-the ninth guru (from Sri Guru Granth Sahib): Bāṇī Gurū Tega Bahādara. Allied Publishers. pp. xxviii–xxxiii, 15–27. ISBN 978-81-7764-897-3.

• Let the path of the pure [khâlsâ panth] prevail all over the world, let the Hindu dharma dawn and all delusion disappear.
  May I spread dharma and prestige of the Veda in the world and erase from it the sin of cow-slaughter.
  • Gobind Singh, quoted in Shourie, Arun (1993). A secular agenda: For saving our country, for welding it. New Delhi, India: Rupa. also quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. ISBN 978-8185990743

• Listen All! Said Tegh Bahadur: Those who stick to their Dharma are called brave. I know my Hindu Dharma to be the best. How can I forsake that which is very dear to me? It (Hindu Dharma) gives immense joy in this world and the next. Even life is trivial compared to honor. The fool whose intellect is corrupted, That idiot alone will forsake it. I will endure harm to establish Hindu Dharma in this world. It will never be destroyed even if you try.
  • Attributed in Sri Gur Pratap Prakash written between 1835-1843 CE by Kavi Santokh Singh [1] [2]

• He suffered martyrdom for the sake of his faith.
  • From Govind’s poem about his father’s martyrdom. quoted from Guru Tegh Bahadur’s martyrdom, 2011

Quotes about Guru Tegh Bahadur

• This new community, the Khalsa Panth, remained an integral part of the Hindu social and religious system. It is significant that when Tegh Bahadur was summoned to Delhi, he went as a representative of the Hindus. He was executed in the year 1675. His son who succeeded him as guru later described his father’s martyrdom as in the cause of the Hindu faith, ‘to preserve their caste marks and their sacred thread did he perform the supreme sacrifice’. The guru himself looked upon his community as an integral part of the Hindu social system.
  • Khushwant Singh: Many Faces, quoted from Elst, K. (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. New Delhi: Voice of India. Ch. 8

• [Aurangzeb] summoned the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur (1664-1675 A.D.), to the imperial seat at Delhi and martyred him in cold blood on his refusal to embrace Islam. Some followers of the Guru who had accompanied him were subjected to inhuman torture and torn to pieces. This was as it were a final signal that there was something very hard at the heart of Islam's heart which the Gurus had tried to soften with their teachings of humanism and universalism. Sikhism had to accept the challenge and pick up the sword in defence of its very existence.
  • Swarup, Ram, & Goel, S. R. (1985). Hindu-Sikh relationship. (Introduction by S.R. Goel)

• The Sikh Gurus Tegh Bahadur, beheaded by Aurangzeb in 1675 for refusing to convert, and his son Govind Singh, who founded the military Khalsa order and whose four sons were killed by the Moghul troops, are very popular in Hindutva glorifications of national heroes'. Their pictures are routinely displayed at functions of the RSS and its affiliates, and their holidays celebrated, e.g.: 'Over 650 branches of Bharat Vikas Parishad observe Guru Tegh Bahadur Martyrdom Day'.
  • Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism ISBN 978-8185990743 Ch. 8

• Tegh Bahadur’s martyrdom in 1675 was of course in the service of Hinduism, in that it was an act of opposing Aurangzeb’s policy of forcible conversion. An arrest warrant against him had been issued on non-religious and nonpolitical charges, and he was found out after having gone into hiding; Aurangzeb gave him a chance to escape his punishment by converting to Islam. Being a devout Muslim, Aurangzeb calculated that the conversion of this Hindu sect leader would encourage his followers to convert along with him. The Guru was tortured and beheaded when he refused the offer to accept Islam, and one of his companions was sawed in two for having said that Islam should be destroyed.
  At any rate, he stood firm as a Hindu, telling Aurangzeb that he loved his Hindu Dharma and that Hindu Dharma would never die,-a statement conveniently overlooked in most neo-Sikh accounts. ... He was not a Sikh defending Hinduism, but a Hindu of the Nanakpanth defending his own Hindu religion...
  • Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism ISBN 978-8185990743

• In northern India, Gurdwara Sisgunj in Chandni Chowk, Delhi, stands witness to Aurangzeb's idea of punishment to non-Muslims. Here the Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur was called upon to embrace Islam, and on his refusal was tortured for five days and then "beheaded on a warrant from the emperor" (December 1675).
  • Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

• The Guru defended the Hindu religion and gave the message of universal communion.
  • PM Narendra Modi, December, 2020 [3][4]

• Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji’s life epitomised courage and compassion. On his Shaheedi Diwas, I bow to the great Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji and recall his vision for a just and inclusive society,
  • PM Narendra Modi, December, 2020[5][6]

• This morning, I prayed at the historic Gurudwara Rakab Ganj Sahib, where the pious body of Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Ji was cremated. I felt extremely blessed. I, like millions around the world, am deeply inspired by the kindnesses of Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Ji. pic.twitter.com/ECveWV9JjR
  • — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 20, 2020 [7] [8]

• It is the special Kripa of the Guru Sahibs that we will mark the special occasion of the 400th Parkash Parv of Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Ji during our Government’s tenure. Let us mark this blessed occasion in a historic way and celebrate the ideals of Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Ji. pic.twitter.com/GBiWMyih6D
  • — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 20, 2020 [9] [10]

• “It is well known in this world that we are the grandchildren of Guru Tegh Bahadur who went to Delhi and got himself beheaded rather than forsake his Dharma. Now, this group of Turks (Muslims) have threatened us with death but this Dharma will not go away. We will not die merely for fear of Turks. We will remain Hindus till death. Time devours everyone one day. Respected brother, reflect that for this life of four days, why should we lose our Dharma?”
  • Statement by a son of Guru Gobind Singh. Attributed in Panth Prakash of Giani Gian Singh (1822-1921 CE) Cited in Sukhlal Updeshak (1926), p. 93. [11]

• My father travelled towards the east and took the holy dip at several places of pilgrimage. When he reached the Triveni Sangam, he spent several days there performing charity and many meritorious acts. It is there that I appeared (in my mother’s womb) and then I took physical birth later in Patna.
  • Guru Gobind Singh in his autobiography Bachitar Natak included within the Dasham Granth. Bachitar Natak 7.1-2ab. [12]

• The Lord saved his Tilak and Janeau He did a great sacrifice in this Kali (yuga).... For Dharma, he sacrificed himself.... With the departure of Tegh Bahadur The world was full of grief. Hai Hai Hai (sighs of sorrow) filled the entire world. Jai Jai Jai (shouts of victory and joy) filled the realm of the Devas (Heaven)
  • Guru Gobind Singh describing his father’s martyrdom in the Bachitar Natak: 5.13-16 [13]

See also

• Guru Nanak
• Guru Arjan