Khálsa, they were in immediate revolt. They denounced Govind Singh as an impostor and refused to allow him to add his heterodox teaching to the sacred volume in their charge. They told him that if he were a true Guru he should compile scriptures for himself, which he at once proceeded to do, the work being completed in the year 1696. The object of Govind in this compilation was not to overturn or indeed to modify in any important particulars the doctrine bequeathed by Nának, but to produce a work which should have on his excitable and fanatical followers the effect which he desired in launching them as a militant power against the Muhammadans, and recovering the Punjab for the new congregation of the faithful. In this he was partly successful, and at the head of a continually increasing band of devoted followers, he commenced his life-work of propagating the true faith[1]. His first quarrels were with the Rájput chiefs of the Kángra Hills, who assembled their forces to attack him at Anandpur. In one of the fights which ensued near the village of Chamkour, now a place of pilgrimage, his two eldest sons, Ajit Singh and Johar Singh, were killed. The imperial troops had come to the assistance of the Rájputs, and drove the Guru from Anandpur and Machíwára successively, his two remaining sons being captured.
- ↑ A valued friend of mine, Sirdár Attar Singh of Bhadour, the head of one of the first Cis-Sutlej families, has translated and published an interesting collection of Sákhis, describing the wanderings and adventures of Guru Tegh Bahádur and his son Guru Govind Singh.
