Amritsar – Chhattarpur

(i) The Golden Temple of the Sikhs

One evening Gopalrao took Ramdas out on a visit to the celebrated Golden Temple of the Sikhs which is their main Gurudwara. It is situated in the middle of a big tank with an overbridge on one side that leads up to the temple from the main land. The tank has all its four banks artistically covered with glazed and varied-coloured, square marble slabs. The visitors walked round the tank on this marble floor before entering the temple across the bridge. Anybody, irrespective of caste, creed or colour, has access to the temple. The only restrictions to be observed are removal of shoes by the visitor who should also have clean feet and his headgear on. At the entrance to the tank, two water taps are provided for washing the feet, and a man is appointed to be in charge of the shoes left over there.

Now the temple. It is a beautiful structure with small minarets at the corners of its roof and a dome at its centre. The entire temple except the floor is covered with gold sheets. The roof, the domes, and the walls are all of gold. When you enter the main hall through the verandah that runs along the four sides, you discover a huge book, the Granth Saheb, poised upon a stand covered with fine silk cloth and decorated with flowers and garlands. This place is the main prayer hall where the best singers congregate in front of the Sacred Book to perform kirtan to the accompaniment of musical instruments. There is also an upper gallery, as in a theatre, where you go up by a flight of stairs. Here the visitors sit listening to the music from the hall below. The kirtan goes on from three in the morning to ten or twelve o’clock in the night. Thousands of people, chiefly Sikhs, daily pay visits to this sacred shrine. During the first visit Ramdas remained in the temple only for a short time. He came again with Gopalrao at three in the morning and stayed till daybreak on the gallery upstairs. The music that wafted up to him from the hall was most charming. In front of the temple beyond the tank is the seat of one of the ten famous gurus of the Sikhs.

The Sikhs are proud of recounting the fierce battles their ancestors waged to preserve the temple from desecration at the hands of Muhammadan invaders. Much precious Sikh blood had freely flowed into the tank and on its borders in guarding the sanctuary. The Sikhs, even to the present day, are a martial race endowed with indomitable grit and valour. The warlike spirit was infused into them by one of their greatest gurus, Guru Govind, who was himself an intrepid soldier and, at the same time, their religious head. He trained his followers and formed an army for protecting their religious faith and shrines from the attacks of foreign aggressors, especially the Muhammadans. The distinctive marks of a Sikh are the beard and the uncut hair which is tied up in a knot at the crown of the head, which is invariably covered with a bulky pheta or turban. They have an iron wire bangle on one of their wrists and kirpani or short dagger hanging by their side. They are quiet and kind in disposition. While they look upon Guru Nanak with the highest veneration, they recognise also the greatness of saints and incarnations of other religions.

Guru Nanak, as his life shows, was a wonderful personality. He is said to have performed many miracles during his time. The oft-quoted wonder that he wrought was the turning round of Mecca. It is stated that when he was in Mecca in his itinerant life he happened to lie down with his legs turned towards the sacred shrine of the Muslims at Mecca. The Muslims holding that Guru Nanak was treating their holy temple with disrespect moved his legs round to a different posture and Mecca itself whirled round with this act. The Sikhs do not believe in caste distinctions and idol worship, prevalent among other Hindus. Their women are cultured and are free from the antiquated and borrowed customs of purdah, and also from the unwholesome modernism of the present day. The Sikhs have their names ending always with epithet ‘Singh’ which means lion. Verily, they are as noble, fearless, and powerful a people as the kings of the jungle. The splendid heroism exhibited by Akalis is recent history.

In all, Ramdas remained in Amritsar for a fortnight, and then left the city for Jhansi.

(ii) The Secret of Ramnam

As usual, at Jhansi, Ramdas stopped in the Ram-mandir into which he was welcomed with open arms by the Pandaji. Ramkinkar, Mahadev Prasad and other friends were as loving in their attention as ever. Here, Ramchandra Gupta with a new friend, Ganesh Prasad, came down from Allahabad to see Ramdas.

An invitation from Mahoba drew Ramdas to that place. He again lived for ten days in the cave on Gohkar Parvat. Jagannath and other friends provided him with food. One afternoon a young friend came to see Ramdas. He had some wounds on his forehead and knees. He told the story relating to the injuries:

“Maharaj, last evening, I was coming to see you. When I reached half-way to this place darkness overtook me. In the dim light I saw right on the path a huge leopard sitting on its haunches staring viciously at me. I was so frightened that I gave forth a shriek, and turning back fled from the place pell-mell. In the darkness I stumbled over the stones and fell down several times. However, I got clear of the grasp of the wild beast and reached home. The injuries that you behold on me were caused by my falls during that flight for very life.”

From Mahoba, in response to a call, Ramdas proceeded to Chhattarpur, where he halted in the Krishna temple. Bhavani Prasad overwhelmed him with kindness and hospitality. Here Ramdas learnt that Swami Nirbhayanandji and his spouse resided at the time in Navagaon. Ramdas went to that village for their darshan. He arrived at their residence one evening by motor-bus. The blessed pair was overjoyed to see Ramdas, but his halt with them proved short-lived, for about seven o’clock Bhavani Prasad and his devout wife turned up suddenly in a motor-car. They urged Ramdas to return with them to Chhattarpur as the Maharaja of the State was anxious to see him. So he was back at Chhattarpur that very night.

Early next morning, Gulab Rai, son of Bhavani Prasad, secretary to the Maharaja, escorted Ramdas to the palace of the Maharaja. He was a decrepit old man, weak and emaciated. Ramdas took his seat beside him.

“I have been repeating Ramnam for over thirty years,” he said, “but still my mind is as restless as ever. How then could that Name be said to possess the power of quelling the tumult of the desire-ridden mind?”

“Peace can be attained,” Ramdas replied, “by the japa of Ramnam only when you do so in a spirit of nishkama, i.e. with the sole desire for liberation and peace and without longing for worldly things. God grants our prayer when we appeal to Him with an earnest fervour of the heart only for pure devotion to His holy feet and for nothing else. So the secret of Ramnam is in the taking of it for realizing the goal of life which is immortality or union with God.”

“You are perfectly right. It is very hard to get nishkama bhakti,” he observed, and changing the course of conversation said: “I have got a retainer of mine seriously ill from a gun-shot. He was one of the party who went for hunting and by oversight on the part of one of the party he was shot in the thigh. His condition is very precarious. I request you to give him the benefit of your darshan, and I have faith that he will be all right by your blessings.”

Accordingly, Ramdas was taken to the cottage of the wounded man. Ramdas found him perfectly restless through pain, and his relations crowded round him with deep anxiety. Ramdas was made to pass his hands over the body and the affected part of the wounded man. Then he left the house and returned to Gulab Rai’s. Next day he left Chhattarpur in the Maharaja’s motor-car for Navagaon, where he dined in the company of the saints and proceeded by the same motor-car to Harpalpur station, and here catching a train, arrived in Jhansi. Ramdas learnt later that the Maharaja’s servant had recovered from the serious hurt. God be praised!