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Guru Harikrishan Sahib, or Bala Pritam (beloved Child) as he is often called, was the eighth Sovereign of the Sikh Panth (Sikh Collective), the holder of the seat of Guru Nanak Sahib for three years. Guru Harikrishan Sahib was only five years old when he became Guru, and his joti jot³ took place before his eighth birthday. Yet in less than three years,⁴ Guru Sahib had a dramatic and consequential impact on the trajectory of the Sikh community. The sikhia (teachings, instructions) of his short life sits inside a much longer project, the formation of the ideal human, the Khalsa (Sovereign who belongs to the Guru), revealed by Guru Gobind Singh Sahib and begun by Guru Nanak Sahib two centuries earlier.

While Guru Harikrishan Sahib stands out amongst the Gurus because of his young age, being a young Guru is not, in itself, unusual. Guru Nanak Sahib is said to have revealed the Patti composition in Rag Asa when he first went to school.⁵ Guru Harigobind Sahib was eleven when he became Guru, Guru Harirai Sahib was fourteen, and Guru Gobind Rai Sahib was nine years old. The Sikh Panth has repeatedly recognized spiritual and political authority in younger bodies. What is distinctive about Guru Harikrishan Sahib is not only that he became Guru as a child, but that he left his physical body as a child. His joti jot at the age of seven means he is the only Guru who never married and never had children of his own. In visual and narrative memory, he does not grow into adulthood. When Guru Harigobind Sahib or Guru Gobind Singh Sahib are depicted in art, they appear most often as fully grown. Guru Harikrishan Sahib is always a child.

Guru Amardas Sahib’s advanced age when he became a Sikh and then became Guru offers a lesson that it is never too late to change one’s life, even after decades of repeating unhelpful or harmful patterns. Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s young life is a lesson about the capacity of children. His Guruship confronts a world that routinely underestimates children and youth, and that treats authority as the monopoly of adults. Through Bala Pritam the Panth learns that spiritual, political, and social authority cannot be reduced to age, and that the community must learn to trust, and even rely on, younger voices.

The Eighth Nanak

Guru Harikrishan Sahib was the third child of Guru Harirai Sahib and Mata Kishan Kaur. He was born in 1656 at Kiratpur Sahib, the same place his father was born.⁶ Before he became Guru, the young Baba Harikrishan often lived in the shadow of his older brother, Baba Ram Rai.⁷ Ram Rai was charismatic, a skilled speaker, an impressive expounder of Bani (wisdom, message utterances; Sikh scripture), and the person many assumed would naturally become the next Guru after Guru Harirai Sahib.⁸ Baba Harikrishan, by contrast, was quieter and less public-facing. He was especially close with his sister, Bibi Rup Kaur, who had been adopted by his parents. Bibi Rup Kaur herself is an important figure in Sikh history; she was trained by her father, Guru Harirai Sahib, as a scholar and historian.⁹

Although many assumed that Ram Rai would become the eighth Guru, the mystery of the Guru lineage is such that only Akal Purakh, the Timeless Being, and the Guru know who the next Guru will be. The seat of Guru Nanak Sahib is not passed on by popularity, birth order, or courtly expectation. It is given to the one who is most aligned with Gurmat (Guru’s Way; Guru-granted Sikh paradigm),¹⁰ the one who is most fit to carry the Panth. The qualities required to lead the Sikh Panth were found wanting in Ram Rai, while the young Baba Harikrishan Sahib was recognized as the perfect successor to his father.¹¹

We do not know much about Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s life before he became Guru, yet given his later seva (selfless service) in Delhi, it is not difficult to imagine the child assisting his father in caring for the sick and injured, both animal and human, and perhaps helping to tend his father’s medicinal garden. While Ram Rai was receiving accolades from the sangat (congregation), it is possible that Baba Harikrishan was already immersed in the quiet, difficult work of care that often goes unnoticed and underappreciated. Even this imagined contrast hints at a different kind of leadership forming in him, rooted in seva rather than spectacle.

Disbelief at a Young Guru

There was open skepticism about Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s capacity and ability when he was chosen to lead the Sikh Panth. This skepticism is captured most clearly in the sakhi¹² of Pandit Lal Chand and Chajju Ram Mehra.¹³ Pandit Lal Chand, a proud scholar well versed in Sanskrit texts and ancient Indic philosophy, was aghast at the reverence being shown to the Child Guru. How could a seven year old be worthy of the level of respect that Sikhs were offering? Lal Chand challenged the Guru’s authority and declared that it was impossible for the Guru to be as learned as he was. In his view, it should be he, not the child, who received such honor.

Instead of responding in anger, Guru Harikrishan Sahib smiled and agreed with the Pandit, telling him that he was right that he was only a child. Then Guru Sahib proposed a test. Lal Chand could choose anyone in the village for a scholarly debate. That person would represent the Guru. If Lal Chand won the debate, Guru Harikrishan Sahib would gladly accept defeat and recognize him as his intellectual superior.

Lal Chand clarified that he could choose anyone at all. When the Guru agreed, Lal Chand went through the village searching for the person he considered most ignorant. He settled on a water carrier from an oppressed caste, a man named Chajju Ram, who was being mocked by local children because he was mute and thus unable to speak. Confident he had bested the Guru’s proposal, Lal Chand seized Chajju Ram and dragged him into the Guru’s divan (court). Chajju, unused to such attention and having been ridiculed his whole life, was stunned to find himself at the center of the court.

What followed stunned everyone else. Guru Harikrishan Sahib rose from his throne, came down to where Chajju stood, took him respectfully by the hand, and seated him to his own right, a place of honor. Chajju, who had been disrespected for so long, was moved by this unexpected grace. Guru Sahib, always armed in keeping with the maryada (code of conduct) of Guru Harigobind Sahib, took the baton he carried and gently touched Chajju on the head. A man who had never spoken before began to recite the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most renowned of Indic scriptures, with clarity and fluency. Confronted with this scene, Lal Chand realized that before the Guru, his own scholarship and ego were meaningless. He bowed to Guru Harikrishan Sahib. That day, both Chajju Ram and Pandit Lal Chand both became Sikhs of the Guru.¹⁴

This sakhi not only shows that there was skepticism about the Guru’s abilities because of his age. It also reveals the distinctive qualities of leadership, excellence, and grace that Guru Harikrishan Sahib embodied. He quieted Lal Chand’s arrogance without humiliation. He refused to answer insult with insult. Instead, he elevated and honored Chajju Ram, a mute man from a so-called lower caste, and made him the vessel through whom the lesson would be taught. In a society structured by caste hierarchies and deep prejudice, Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s act was radical. He sided with the one who was mocked, placed him in a position of honor, and blessed him. This willingness to challenge caste norms, and to stand with and serve the most marginalized, would continue throughout his Guruship.

The historic skepticism surrounding Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s leadership of the Sikh Panth mirrors the normalized discrimination that children face today. In many societies, children’s capacities are doubted as a matter of course, and their rights are easily sidelined. In her 2015 PhD dissertation on the rights of children in Canada and Panjab,¹⁵ Jaspreet Kaur Bal writes about how despite formal legal protections for children in both the Global North and South, the everyday realities of children’s lives have not changed as much as the language of rights suggests. As she notes, “despite high level policy and theoretical shifts in children’s rights discourses, there has been little done to alter their realities.”¹⁶ Children may appear in policy documents, yet they often lack meaningful legal protection in practice, and where protections exist, they are routinely ignored. Their capacities and autonomy are constantly constrained. Bal observes that “at almost every turn in the institutional life of children, their capabilities are undermined in favor of the adult created notion that children are innocent and helpless.”¹⁷

One should be clear that respecting children’s autonomy does not mean that children ought not to be parented or that children should have the same rights as adults. Rather, it means recognizing that children are not the property of parents, or the state, but persons who hold rights and responsibilities within relationships of care. In this framing, parenting is not abolished, it is transformed. Adults still protect, guide, and set boundaries, but they do so while taking the child’s dignity, perspective, and participation seriously. Children’s rights are not a license for chaos or unlimited freedom. They are a way of limiting arbitrary adult power and of insisting that children’s basic needs, safety, and voices are non-negotiable.

This “adultism”¹⁸ is very much an issue within Sikh spaces. Leadership in our institutions is overwhelmingly held by older men, and the autonomy and rights of children and youth are routinely subverted. Young people are asked to perform, to be present, and to listen, but seldom to decide. This pattern sits uneasily beside the paradigm set forth by Guru Harikrishan Sahib. A Panth that bows to a Child Guru cannot justify communities in which children’s voices are consistently ignored. The question, then, is pressing. How can Sikhs do better in relation to children? Can we reframe “child” as a political and spiritual category within the Sikh tradition, and reshape our institutions in the light of Bala Pritam’s example?

Beyond the “Child Guru” Trope‍

When Guru Harikrishan Sahib is remembered, a familiar pattern appears. We are told that he was a “Child Guru,” that he was very sweet, that he loved the company of Sikhs and that he healed the sick. The emphasis is on innocence and tenderness. These are all true qualities, yet if we only stay with this sentimental framing, we miss what it means for a community to recognize a five year old as Guru and to reorganize its political, spiritual, and social life around him. 

In most modern systems, “child” names a category of partial personhood. Children are treated as “not yet,” as adults in the making, as people whose full capacities and rights will only appear later. They are seen as “in process,” as becoming, paradoxically either as blank slates, or inherently broken and in need of saving. The sociological term “adultism” names this hierarchy. Adults assume that they know better, that they must speak for children, that children’s perspectives are charming but not authoritative. In that context, the idea of a Child Guru is not just surprising, it is a direct challenge to how power is organized. 

Within the Sikh tradition, “child” functions differently. Guru Nanak Sahib reveals Bani as a child. Guru Harigobind Sahib and Guru Gobind Singh Sahib assume Guruship while still young. The Sahibzade (Sovereign’s Children)¹⁹ confront Mughal authority and accept martyrdom while still children. In each of these cases, the category “child” is not an obstacle that must be overcome; it is precisely the condition in which spiritual clarity, courage, and resolve are displayed. The Panth does not wait for these children to grow up in order to take them seriously. The community recognizes spiritual authority wherever it appears, including in young bodies. Young Gurus are political, active agents, in a place of authority, and saviors for humanity. This is a stark contrast to other available discourses on childhood. 

At the same time, “child” is also a spiritual position in Bani. Sikhs are repeatedly invited to see themselves as balak, as small children before the Guru and before IkOankar (One Creative and Pervasive Force, 1Force, the One): dependent on grace, open to instruction, free of the hardened ego that adulthood often cultivates. To become child-like in this sense is not to be naive. It is to be humble, receptive, and unpretentious. Adults are to become spiritually childlike, even as actual children are acknowledged as capable of profound insight and seva. Bani elevates the epistemology of children and encourages all Sikhs to come to the Guru with the authenticity of children.

Reframing “child” as a political and spiritual category in this way allows us to read Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s life differently. He is not simply a child who happens to be the Guru. He is the one through whom the Panth learns that age is not the criterion of Guruship, that divine authority can reside fully in a child, and that spiritual maturity is not a function of years lived. When we say Bala Pritam, we are not only expressing affection. We are confessing that the beloved child is also Sovereign, that the one whom others attempt to dismiss because of his age is the very one through whom the Panth learns how to walk. 

This reframing exposes the gap between Sikh memory and Sikh practice. On the one hand, we venerate a child as Guru, bow to him in Ardas (prayer, supplication)²⁰ by name, and tell our children that the Guru saw and respected them. On the other hand, our actual structures, from Gurduara²¹ committees to community organizations, often treat children and youth as decorative, as bodies to be controlled or entertained rather than as members of the sangat whose perspectives are needed. We remember the Child Guru, but we reproduce adultism as if the Guru had taught us nothing about what children are capable of. ‍

Delhi’s Epidemic as a Sikh Ethic of Care

If the sakhi of Pandit Lal Chand and Chajju Ram shows us a Child Guru who refuses adult arrogance and caste prejudice, Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s time in Delhi shows us how that same Guru responds when a whole city is in crisis. It is in Delhi that Bala Pritam’s Guruship becomes inseparable from a public ethic of care. 

Summoned to Delhi in the context of Ram Rai’s complaint and Aurangzeb’s politics,²² Guru Harikrishan Sahib enters a city gripped by epidemic.²³ Different sources speak of smallpox, of cholera, of a general outbreak of disease that left the population terrified and the social fabric fraying.²⁴ Fear, stigma, and ideas of ritual pollution were everywhere. The sick were avoided, neighborhoods were shunned, and the bodies of the poor, especially from oppressed castes, were treated as sources of defilement rather than as neighbors in need. 

In this context, the Child Guru does not remain cloistered in the comfort of Raja Jai Singh’s haveli.²⁵ He moves among the people. Sakhis describe Guru Harikrishan Sahib visiting those who were sick, offering them water, and refusing to distinguish between high and low, ‘pure’ and ‘impure,’ respectable and disreputable. The site now known as Gurdwara Bangla Sahib is tied to this memory of a haveli transformed into a space of langar (free community kitchen serving all individuals; nourishment for sustenance),²⁶ medicine, and Divine presence, where the well of water became a symbol of shared life instead of a boundary to be policed. 

It is important not to treat these as mere miracle tales. The point is not simply that the Guru had healing power, although the tradition is clear that he did. The point is that Guru Harikrishan Sahib defines leadership in the midst of an epidemic as proximity and presence. He does not withdraw in order to preserve his own safety or reputation. He does not restrict his care to those who already belong to the Panth or to those with social standing. He walks into neighborhoods others avoid. He touches those whom the logic of caste declares untouchable. He allows the suffering of Delhi to impress itself upon him. 

In Sikh terms, this is what it looks like for a Guru to enact dukh daru (suffering is the medicine), to reveal that suffering can become medicine when it is met without fear and without selfishness. The Child Guru does not look away. His searing compassion is not sentimental, it is practical. He makes sure that the sick are fed, that they have water, that they are not abandoned. In this way, Guru Harikrishan Sahib turns Delhi itself into a kind of open hospital and sanctuary, where the boundaries between “ours” and “theirs” are deliberately undone. 

Delhi’s epidemic, then, is not just a backdrop for a hagiographic story. It is a classroom in which the Panth learns what Sikh care looks like when death and disease are in the air. It is in this moment that the political and spiritual meanings of “child” converge. The tender child that adults doubt is the very one who teaches an entire city what courageous presence looks like. The small body that can be easily overlooked becomes the center from which grace and care radiate across caste, creed, and social rank. 

Capacity Is Not Determined by Age

‍The story of Guru Harikrishan Sahib in Delhi offers a direct challenge to the assumption that capacity flows naturally from age. Those who doubted his Guruship did so precisely because they equated authority with adulthood. Yet what unfolds in the short span between his arrival in Delhi and his joti jot reveals an entirely different standard altogether.

Capacity in Sikhi is never simply a matter of chronology. It is a function of alignment with Gurmat, of humility and steadfastness, of the ability to carry responsibility without being captured by ego. Guru Harikrishan Sahib embodies these qualities from an early age. He is trusted by Guru Harirai Sahib to hold Guruship. The Panth receives him as Guru and reorganizes itself in relation to him. He travels, meets sangats, answers questions, and shapes the direction of the community without the crutches of seniority or worldly status. 

The sakhi of Pandit Lal Chand already shows this alternative measure at work. In that scene, it is not the older, formally educated scholar who demonstrates true understanding. It is the Child Guru who reads the arrogance in the room clearly, who refuses to humiliate, and who instead honors Chajju Ram, an oppressed and mocked man, as the vessel for what needs to be shown. Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s decision to place Chajju at his right and to bless him is not a childish whim. It is a precise, ethical, spiritually mature response that both humbles Lal Chand and restores dignity to Chajju in one move. 

Delhi’s epidemic shows the same clarity. The city is full of adults who are more experienced, who know and uphold the protocols of court and caste, who understand the risks of contagion, yet it is the Child Guru who moves towards the sick, who rejects the logic of avoidance, who insists that seva cannot stop at the edge of fear. In this sense, capacity is revealed not as a body of technical knowledge or skill, but as the willingness to act for the welfare of others even at personal cost. 

Seen through the lens of Jaspreet Kaur Bal’s work, this is a sharp contrast to contemporary constructions of childhood. Bal shows how, in many institutional spaces, children’s autonomy is systematically undermined in favour of an adult created picture of the child as innocent, fragile, and helpless. Children are shifted from one tightly controlled setting to another. Their days are scheduled. Their voices are tolerated in some domains, but when it comes to decisions that significantly affect them, adults reserve the final word and often do not consult them at all. The mere fact of being a child is treated as evidence of incapacity. 

The Panth’s relationship with Guru Harikrishan Sahib tells a different story. Here is a child who is not only consulted, but who is recognized as the final authority in matters of doctrine, practice, and communal direction. Here is a community willing to see through the body of a seven year old to the Sovereign who speaks and acts through him. This does not mean that elders have no role. The sangat in Delhi includes older Sikhs who help organize langar, who manage logistics, who guard the Guru, who carry out instructions. Yet their work is supportive, not controlling. They do not use their age as a reason to sideline the Guru. They use their strength and experience in service of the Guru’s vision. 

Capacity is not age. It is a conceptual reframing that asks adults within the Panth to reexamine how often we equate chronological age with competence and to ask instead what qualities are actually needed in each situation. It invites us to notice where children and youth are already showing spiritual insight, courage, and responsibility and to respond with trust rather than suspicion. It also reminds us that adults can lack capacity in very serious ways, especially when ego, fear, or attachment cloud judgement. In Sikhi, it is better to be a child whose heart is aligned with Gurmat than an elder whose learning is bent toward self-promotion and arrogance.

From Delhi to Today: Care in Public Crises

‍If Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s Delhi is a classroom in which Sikhs learn what care looks like in epidemic, our own times have offered their own harsh lessons. The COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing crises of displacement and war, the waves of migrants and refugees, and the slow violence of environmental collapse have all exposed how fragile public health systems are and how quickly states can abandon the most vulnerable. 

In the early months of COVID-19, many Sikhs around the world turned instinctively to the practices that Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s time in Delhi preserves. Gurduaras shifted langar outdoors. Volunteers cooked and delivered food to those in isolation. Oxygen langar appeared in places where hospitals failed. Nurses, doctors, and volunteers from the Sikh community stepped into exhausted systems, bringing both technical skill and the spiritual practice of seva. In India, farmers’ protest encampments became makeshift villages where food, medicine, childcare, spiritual support, and political education were woven together. 

Yet even in these powerful examples, the question of how children are positioned remains. In many cases, children and youth were present at protest sites, helped pack langar, made signs, participated in kirtan (singing of Gurbani; Divine Praise), and bore witness to state violence. Their bodies were exposed to cold, heat, tear gas, and risk. Some found their political consciousness sharpened. Others were traumatized. How often were their voices heard in decisions about staying or leaving, about tactics and timing, about the shape of camp life? How often were they treated as integral members of the sangat, rather than as appendages of their parents? 

Bal’s comparative work between Panjab and Canada is instructive here. She shows that even where legal frameworks for children’s rights exist, they often remain abstract. Children “win in rights theory” but do not see “real, meaningful and sustained improvements” in their everyday safety, health, or participation.²⁷ Rights that are not grounded in daily practice remain paper thin. These rights do not protect children from displacement, from hunger, from discrimination, or from being ignored in decisions that shape their futures. 

Remembering Guru Harikrishan Sahib in a world of public crises invites a different kind of response. To remember the Bala Pritam in Ardas is to remember a child who did not stay distant from a city in crisis, and who did not separate spiritual authority from the work of tending to bodies. It is also to remember a community that, for all its doubts, ultimately trusted a child to lead them through a moment of fear and death. 

For Sikh institutions today, this memory ought to be unsettling. It raises concrete questions. When pandemics reappear, when fires and floods displace communities, when regimes target minorities and migrants, how will Gurduaras, Sikh organiations, and families respond? Will we build structures of care that center the most vulnerable, including children? Will we listen to the fears and insights of our young people as we make decisions? Will we ensure that children are not simply present as symbols in our protests and relief efforts, but are protected, heard, and invited to shape the response? 

Care in public crises requires more than good intentions. It requires structures that make care possible and sustainable. It requires budgeting, planning, training, and accountability. It requires confronting abuse and neglect within our own spaces, whether that abuse is physical, sexual, emotional, or spiritual. To honor Guru Harikrishan Sahib in this time is to commit to building Sikh spaces where children are safe by design, where they are believed when harm occurs, and where they are invited into the work of seva as partners, not as props.

A Pedagogy of Trusting Youth

‍If we take Guru Harikrishan Sahib seriously, our pedagogy must change. It is no longer enough to tell children stories about the “Child Guru” and then ask them to sit quietly while adults decide everything that matters. The memory of Bala Pritam calls us to cultivate a pedagogy of trusting youth, one that is grounded in Gurmat, attentive to contemporary scholarship on childhood, and willing to transform how Sikh spaces function. 

At its heart, a pedagogy of trusting youth begins with how we see children. Do we see them as incomplete adults, as burdens, as future leaders who must simply endure the present? Or do we see them as members of the Panth right now, as people who bear their own relationship with the Guru, as neighbors whose rights and responsibilities already matter? Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s Guruship tilts us decisively toward the second view. 

From there, several practices follow. They can be framed as lessons drawn from Bala Pritam’s life. 

First, honor children’s presence. In Delhi, the Guru does not look past the poor, the sick, or those despised by caste, even at risk to his own life. Likewise, we must refuse to look past children in our own sangats. This means learning and using their names, making space for their questions in divan,²⁸ acknowledging their emotions as real, and refusing to tolerate mockery or dismissal. In the sakhi of Chajju Ram, the Guru sides with the one whom children and adults alike mocked. Our spaces ought to echo that siding. 

Second, share real responsibility. A pedagogy of trusting youth does not mean handing children tasks of little to no consequence. It means inviting them into the real work of the sangat and letting their contributions shape outcomes. This could look like involving youth in langar planning and budgeting, having them help design educational programs, inviting them into committee discussions with support and preparation, and recognizing their roles in movement work, not just in “youth wings” but in the wider decisions of the community. 

Third, protect and listen. Trusting youth also means taking seriously the ways adults can harm. It requires building clear policies and cultures around safeguarding children, addressing abuse and harassment, and ensuring that when a child or young person speaks about harm, they are heard and supported rather than silenced. This is not an imported “Western” concern. It flows from the Guru’s refusal to exploit the vulnerable and from the central Sikh commitment to justice. 

Fourth, teach Gurmat through the lens of children’s experiences. Too often, curriculum material speaks about children rather than with children. A pedagogy inspired by Guru Harikrishan Sahib would invite children to read the stories of the Gurus, the Sahibzade, and Sikh women and men while continually asking: what do you see here; what questions does this raise for you; how might this speak to your life? It would make room for children to interpret, to critique, and to apply, not only to memorize. 

Finally, cultivate childlike qualities in adults. The spiritual category of “child” in Bani reminds us that humility, openness, and trust are not the exclusive property of the young. Adults who refuse to learn from children, who cannot admit mistakes, who cling to status and control, betray the very Child Guru they claim to honor. A pedagogy of trusting youth is incomplete without a pedagogy of humbling adults. This might mean elders publicly acknowledging when youth have taught them something, stepping back to make room for younger leadership, and examining where their own fears of losing control are blocking the Guru’s work. 

Guru Harikrishan Sahib’s life is painfully short in human terms. Yet in those few years, he leaves the Panth with a dense legacy. He shows us a child who is also Sovereign, a city in crisis turned into a field of seva, a caste-ridden society unsettled by grace, and a community learning, however slowly, that capacity is not age. In a world that still distrusts children, that still underestimates their rights and their capacities, Bala Pritam stands as an enduring challenge and invitation. 

To bow to Guru Harikrishan Sahib is to refuse the claim that power properly belongs only to the old. It is to recognize that the Guru can speak through young voices, that the work of healing and care belongs to the whole Panth, and that our children are not ornaments in our institutions but central participants in the Guru’s project. In honoring him, we commit ourselves to building Sikh spaces where children are safe, heard, trusted, and invited into seva, and where adults learn, again and again, how to become childlike before the One who truly holds all authority.

Remember the Great Harikrishan, by seeing whom all pains leave.²⁹

    Var Sri Bhagauti ji ki

‍

References

¹   ਗੁਰੂ ਹਰਿਕਿਸ਼ਨ ਆਂ ਹਮਾ ਫ਼ਜਲੋ ਜੂਦ  ਹੱਕਸ਼ ਅਜ਼ ਹਮਾ ਖ਼ਾਸਗਾਂ ਬ-ਸਤੂਦ ॥ ੯੩ ॥
     ਮਿਆਨਿ ਹੱਕੇ ਊ ਫ਼ਸਾਲੁ-ਲ ਵਰੱਕ  ਵਜੂਦਸ਼ ਹਮਾ ਫ਼ਜਲੋ ਅਫ਼ਜ਼ਾਲਿ ਹੱਕ ॥ ੯੪ ॥
     ਹਮਾ ਸਾਇਲੇ ਲੁਤਫ਼ਿ ਹੱਕ ਪਰਵਰਸ਼  ਜ਼ਮੀਨੋ ਜ਼ਮਾਂ ਜੁਮਲਾ ਫ਼ਰਮਾਂ ਬਰਸ਼ ॥ ੯੫ ॥
     ਤੁਫ਼ੈਲਸ਼ ਦੋ ਆਲਮ ਖ਼ੁਦ ਕਾਮਯਾਬ  ਅਜ਼ੋ ਗਸ਼ਤਾ ਹਰ ਜ਼ੱਰਾ ਖ਼ੁਰਸ਼ੀਦ ਤਾਬ ॥ ੯੬ ॥
     ਹਮਾ ਖ਼ਾਸਗਾਂ ਰਾ ਕਫ਼ਿ ਇਸਮਤਸ਼  ਸਰਾ ਤਾ ਸਮਾ ਜੁਮਲਾ ਫ਼ਰਮਾਂ-ਬਰਸ਼ ॥ ੯੭ ॥
     ਭਾਈ ਨੰਦ ਲਾਲ, ਗੰਜ ਨਾਮਾ

²   Translation by Harinder Singh.

³   Literally, light merged with light; Sikh parlance for when the Guru left this earth, for the Guru lives in the Granth-Panth.

⁴   Or as Harinder Singh aptly puts it in his essay, Guru Harikrishan Sahib was Guru for 180 weeks (Singh, Harinder. 2020, March 30) Guru Harikrishan Sahib: Benevolent Wisdom-Child. Sikh Research Institute. https://sikhri.org/articles/guru-harikrishan-sahib-benevolent-wisdom-child)

⁵   According to the historical analysis of Patti by the Guru Granth Sahib Project, there are two main theories of when Guru Nanak Sahib revealed the composition. According to the Janamsakhis (traditional accounts of Guru Nanak Sahib’s life) and Bhai Vir Singh, he revealed it as a child. According to other scholars, it is the work of an older Guru Nanak Sahib, likely from the Kartarpur Sahib era. See https://gurugranthsahib.io/bani/introduction/85/HistoricalDimension  

⁶   Anand, Balwant Singh (1996). Har Krishan, Gurū. In Singh, H. (ed.), The encyclopaedia of Sikhism (vol. 2, pp. 254-256). Punjabi University Patiala.

⁷   Anand, Gurcharan Singh (1997). Rām Rāi. In Singh, H. (ed.), The encyclopaedia of Sikhism (vol. 3, p. 461-462). Punjabi University Patiala.

⁸   Singh, Kavi Santokh (n.d. [1843]). Sri Gur Partap Suraj Granth (Ras 9, pp. 262-267). (no publisher listed).

⁹   Singh, Balwant (1995). Rup Kaur. In Singh, H. (ed.), The encyclopaedia of Sikhism (vol. 3, pp. 514-515). Punjabi University Patiala.

¹⁰   Literally the Guru’s thinking, meaning the principles by which the Guru operates.

¹¹   Singh, Kavi Santokh, Ras 9, pp. 412-418.

¹²   A story usually related to episodes from the lives of the Gurus.

¹³   Anand, 1996.

¹⁴   Pandit Lal Chand received Khande ki Pahul (initiation into the Khalsa) and was given the name Lal Singh by Guru Gobind Singh Sahib. He fought and died a martyr’s death at Chamkaur Sahib alongside the elder two Sahibzade of Guru Gobind Singh Sahib (Anand, 1996). Chajju Ram travelled to Jagannath Puri to spread Guru Nanak Sahib’s message. There he became a leader in the Sikh community. Remarkably, his son was Himmat Chand, who became one of the Five Beloved on Vaisakhi 1699 (Aujla, Ajit Singh (2011). Guru Harkrishan Sahib Ji, Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib Ji. Bhai Chattar Singh Jiwan Singh). 

¹⁵   Bal, Jaspreet Kaur (2015). Children’s rights and spaces: An ethnographic look at children’s rights in Punjab, India and Ontario, Canada [Doctoral dissertation, Queens University]. http://hdl.handle.net/1974/12729 

¹⁶   Bal, 2015.

¹⁷   Ibid.

¹⁸   A sociological term for a bias or prejudice against children and/or youth.

¹⁹    Literally, princes, refers to the four children of Guru Gobind Singh Sahib. The elder two fought and died in the Battle of Chamkaur Sahib and the younger two were executed in Sirhind. The Sahibzade were cousins of Guru Harikrishan Sahib as they shared a great-grandfather: Guru Harigobind Sahib.

²⁰   Supplicatory prayer/petition before Guru or the Divine One.

²¹   Literally, door to the Guru. Gurduaras (often romanized as Gurdwara) are a place where Guru Granth Sahib can be accessed and where Sikhs can gather, worship and organize.

²²   Ram Rai, after having been excommunicated from the Sikh Panth by his father, Guru Harirai Sahib, began to be sponsored and patronized by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, who was eager to elevate a rival Guru to the House of Nanak. Ram Rai had issued a complaint to Aurangzeb about Guru Harkrishan Sahib’s conduct and Aurangzeb had thus demanded an audience from the Guru (Singh, Kavi Santokh, Ras 9, pp. 399-405).

²³   Singh, Kavi Santokh, Ras 10, pp. 252-257.

²⁴   Singh, Kavi Santokh, Ras 10, pp. 345-350.

²⁵   Raja Jai Singh was a wealthy Rajput who was a Sikh of the Guru. He hosted Guru Harikrishan Sahib at his mansion and it is there that the Guru spent the rest of his life. That mansion was converted into a Gurduara after the Guru’s joti jot and is now known as Bangla Sahib, anecdotally the second most popular Gurduara in the world after Harimandar Sahib. 

²⁶   Langar is the Sikh institution of serving free food to those in need. Langar is a radical act of egalitarian principles being put into practice. It can encompass more than food though, such as when oxygen langar was set up during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

²⁷   Bal, 2015.

²⁸   Literally court; the congregational space in a Gurduara where Guru Granth Sahib is enthroned.

²⁹   ਸ੍ਰੀ ਹਰਿਕ੍ਰਿਸਨ ਧਿਆਇਐ, ਜਿਸ ਡਿਠੈ ਸਭਿ ਦੁਖ ਜਾਇ॥
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