Religious Problem in India

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophist Office Adyar

Page 77

SIKHISM
69
Indiai—that was all repeated in this story of the fall of the Sikh Empire. Never a story more heroic, nerer a 'story more pathetic, brave men strnggling against overwhelming odds, so that even their own heroism could not save them, until the Einpire broke entirely and the Panjab passed into the hands of the British troops in 1819. That is the ontside setting
Let us pass from that; let us see what was the faith, what the life, that gave to Sikhism its binding power, its marvellons heroism, its splendid strength. It is the life and the teaching of Guru Vānak, the sweetest of characters, and the saintliest of men.
From childhood a boy marked out, as all God's Prophets are marked ont, as different from his fellowmen. The story of his childhood is not eventful, but it is very pathetic and very quaint. Quaint in this way, that he was born into a family of good people, of the commonest quality, like an eagle in the nest of a sparrow, and the sparrows did not understand the eagle, and they could not make ont what manner of creature this was. Quiet, reserved, silent, wandering away to meditate when other bors would be at play; what strange child is this, who will not learn as other boys learn, who will not play as other bous play, who when he goes to his teacher wants to know the mystic meaning of the letters, and anger: the Pandit by asking questions that the Pandit--yooul man-cannot answer? always coming athwart his surroundings becanse he must know what is within,