Intrafaith Dialog - Hinduism, Buddhism And Jainism

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Bharatvarsh,

You prompted me to look at Zafarnamah. It basically is a diplomatic letter of Sri Guru Govind Singh to Aurangzeb, after all four of Guru's sons had been martyred, several of his commanders had been lost, and an advanced party of his had been intercepted, captured and killed by Aurangzeb.

Zafarnamah has 111 chaupais composed nicely in fine percian. Almost throughout the letter Guru is scolding Aurangzeb for being a traitor, being a false muslim, for bearing false oath on Koran and so on.

Now a few strange things:

<b>A) </b>From the 89th chaupai, for just about 4 chaupais, the tone of the letter suddenly changes to appeasing and praising Aurangzeb, which is very surprising. I quote these

ख़ुशस शाहि शाहान औरंगज़ेब ॥
कि चालाक दसतु असतु चाबुक रकेब ॥८९॥
चि हुसनुल जमालसतु रौशन ज़मीर ॥
ख़ुदावंद मुलक असतु साहिबि अमीर ॥९०॥
कि तरतीब दानिश ब तदबीर तेग़ ॥
ख़ुदावंदि देगो ख़ुदावंद तेग़ ॥९१॥
कि रौशन ज़मीर असतु हुसनुल जमाल ॥
ख़ुदावंद बख़शिंदहे मुलकु माल ॥९२॥
कि बख़शिश कबीर असतु दर जंग कोह ॥
मलायक सिफ़त चूं सुरया शिकोह ॥९३॥
शहिनशाह औरंगज़ेब आलमीं ॥
कि दाराइ दौर असतु दूर असत दीं ॥९४॥

Which means:
You are king of king, O fortunate Aurangzeb; you are a clever administrator and a good horseman (89). With the help of your intelligence and the sword, you have become the master of Deg and Tegh(90). You are the acme of beauty and wiseom; you are the chief of chiefs and the king(91) You are the acme of beauty and wisdom; you are the master of the country and its wealth(92) You are most generous and a mountain in the battlefield; you are like angels wielding high splendour(93) Though you are the king of kings, O Aurangzeb, yet you are far from righteousness and justice? (94)

Very surprising to me is the above sudden softening of tone towards Aurangzeb, who had killed all four sons, who had annihilated many of Sikh commanders, was killing thousands of Sikhs every day...

And then suddenly comes the 95th chaupai, you had referred to:

मनम कुशतहअम कोहियां पुरफितन ॥
कि आं बुत परसतंदु मन बुतशिकन ॥९५॥
I vanquished the vicious hill chiefs, they were idol-worshippers and I am idol-breaker (95)

So, these 6 out of the total 111 Chaupais seem very very strange and out of place to me. Just the tone itself changes so much that I felt it is interjected/modified/tempered or something like that. But I am no expert :-(

<b>B) </b> Never forget this is a diplomatic letter, which a somewhat weakened politician is writing to his enimy. Situation is that Guru was militarily weaker at the moment and wanted to buy some time. Might it be a diplomatic trick?

<b>C) </b> In any case, I then decided to look at some other versions of Zafarnama and found an old one. Surprise! The 95th chaupai is just a little bit different in the older one! Only the last words of both lines are different in this. This version says:

MANNAM KUSHTEHAM KOHI-AAN BUTT PRAST
KE O BUTT PRASTAND MAN BUTT SHIKAST (95)

BUTT PRAST (and Not Pur-fitan)
BUTT SHIKAST (and not But-shikan)

'shikast' in farsi means defeating, and 'shikan' means breaking. By change of this word, the meaning of chaupai changes. This version means, "..while they are idol worshipers, I am engaged in defeating the idol worship." (defating the concept of idol worship does not mean breaking the idol. Swami Dayanand, Gorakshnath, Adi Shankar, all engaged in that kind of 'defeating'). And then Chaupai refers to annihilating certain "Kohiaan" means hill-people. Does history record any such literal "annihilation" of certain hill people by Guru Govind Singh? I could not locate such 'annihilation' record. Since you are better researcher maybe you know better on this...
About his defeating the hill people:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->After defeating the Pahari Rajas in the battle of Bhangani, he did not confiscate their land and property (Is there any parallel example in the history of world where a victor has treated the vanquished in such a manner?) He has even laid down that war should be the last resort when all other means to solve a problem are exhausted. Lastly Guru Ji has referred to the other enemy viz the Pahari Rajas, whom he was trying to emancipate from the Mughal yoke but instead was forced to take up the sword against them. If these Hill Rajas had not played into the hands of the Mughals and joined forces with the Guru and accepted him as their guide and liberator, the Mughal power would have been broken effectively sooner. There would have been no tyrants like Mir Mannus, and Furrukhsiyars later and further conversion campaigns would have ended. In fact there would been altogether a different India today.
(Life of Guru Gobind Singh by Prof Kartar Singh).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

If he was an "idol-breaker" bigot of the christo-muslim way, why would he engage in freeing up of Ram Janma Bhumi a butt-khana from mughals?

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Baba Vaishnavadas was a disciple of Samarth Ramdas (Shivaji's Guru) who had raised an army of Chimta-dhari Sannyasis. His repeated attempts to liberate the site had not met with success. Baba Vaishnavadas appealed to Shri Guru Govind Das to liberate the birthplace of Lord Rama. The Guru accepted his invitation and arrived in Ayodhya via Prayag. Baba Vaishnavadas was finally successful in liberating the holy site, with the eighteen-year old Guru at the helm. This is recorded in the Alamgir-Nama.
"Sikh Itihas Mein Shri Ram Janmabhoomi"  Rajendra Singh, Voice of India, 1991
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

So, while I am still not clear in my head about what conclusion to draw. This much is sure. Internet is full of Sikh separatism propoganda. Looks like these guys have worked very hard, over time, to come up with so much of propoganda....I am not going to rely upon internet for Sikhism-related material much.

(how much I miss messaging functionality of our forum right now!...this info is sensitive...I did not really want to post it, but just wanted to send it to you...)