Guru Amar Das
Guru Amar Das, sometimes spelled as Guru Amardas, was the third guru of Sikhism and became Sikh Guru on 26 March 1552 at age 73.
Before becoming a Sikh, on a pilgrimage after having been prompted to search for a guru, he heard his nephew's wife, Bibi Amro, reciting a hymn by Guru Nanak, and was deeply moved by it. Amro was the daughter of Guru Angad, the second Guru of the Sikhs. Amar Das persuaded Amro to introduce him to her father. In 1539, Amar Das, at the age of sixty, met Guru Angad and became a Sikh, devoting himself to the Guru. In 1552, before his death, Guru Angad appointed Amar Das as the third Guru of Sikhism.
Guru Amar Das was an important innovator in the teachings of Guru who introduced a religious organization called the Manji system by appointing trained clergy, a system that expanded and survives into the contemporary era. He also established the Peerah system for propagating the religion to women. He wrote and compiled hymns into a Pothi that ultimately helped create the Adi Granth. He also enacted social reforms, such as by allowing widow remarriage, promoting intercaste alliance, encouraging monogamy, banning sati, and discouraging purdah.
Amar Das remained the Guru of the Sikhs till age 95, and named his son-in-law Bhai Jetha, who was later remembered by the name Guru Ram Das, as his successor.
Early life
Family background and birth
Amar Das was born to mother Bakht Kaur and father Tej Bhan Bhalla on 5 May 1479 in Basarke village in what is now called Amritsar district of Punjab. His grandfather was Hari Das. His family belonged to the Bhalla gotra of the Khatri tribe. Amar Das was the eldest child out of four sons. Amar Das worked as both an agriculturalist and a trader.Birth year
Whilst the most commonly accepted and recorded date for Guru Amar Das' birth year is 1479, many sources give a much later date of 1509.Some sources that affirm the 1479 year of birth for the guru are: Ganda Singh's Makhaz-i-Twarikh-i-Sikhan, Karam Singh's Gurpurab Nirnay, Kahn Singh Nabha's Mahan Kosh, Max Arthur MaCauliffe's The Sikh Religion, and Giani Gian Singh's Panth Prakash and Twarikh Guru Khalsa.
Sources that give a later year of 1509 as the birth year for the guru are: Joseph Davey Cunningham's History of the Sikhs and Kesar Singh Chibber's Bansavalinama.
Kavi Santokh Singh in the Suraj Prakash gives an even earlier year of birth of 1469, coinciding with Guru Nanak's.
Marriage
In his early 20s, Amar Das married Mansa Devi and they had four children which they named Dani, Bhani, Mohan, and Mohri. Bhani was his favourite child of the four.Religious pilgrimages
Amar Das had followed the Vaishnavism tradition of Hinduism for much of his life. He was reputed to have gone on some twenty annual pilgrimages into the Himalayas, to Haridwar on river Ganges. About 1539, on one such Hindu pilgrimage, he met a Hindu monk who asked him why he did not have a guru and Amar Das decided to get one. On his return from his twentieth pilgrimage to the Ganges River, he heard Bibi Amro, the daughter of the Sikh Guru Angad, singing a hymn by Guru Nanak. Amro had been acquainted with Amar Das through her in-laws, whom Amar Das was related to. He learned from her about Guru Angad, and with her help met the second Guru of Sikhism and adopted him as his spiritual Guru who was much younger than his own age.Service of Guru Angad
Amar Das is famous in the Sikh tradition for his relentless service to Guru Angad, with legends about waking up in the early hours and fetching water for his Guru's bath, cleaning and cooking for the volunteers with the Guru, as well devoting much time to meditation and prayers in the morning and evening.Due to his selfless devotion to the second guru, Angad nominated Amar Das as his spiritual successor on 29 March 1552.
Guruship
After eleven years most devoted service of Guru Angad and the sangats, Amar Das was nominated the third guru. Amar Das moved to Goindwal situated not far away from Khadur on the bank of river Beas on the high road to Lahore, about 8 kilometres from Kapurthala and 45 kms. from Amritsar. He did so to avoid the pending conflict with Angad's sons who had not approved of their supersession. Even at Goindwal he was harassed by Angad's son Datu. He went to Goindwal and said: "Only yesterday thou wert a water-carrier in our house, and today thou sittest as a Guru. "Saying this he kicked the Guru off his seat. Amar Das humbly said: "O great king, pardon me. Thou must have hurt thy foot." Amar Das retired from Goindwal and hid himself in a house at Basarke, his home village. Datu set himself up as the Guru. Amar Das was persuaded by Baba Buddha to return, and Datu, finding no following, went back to Khadur.Teachings
Guru Amar Das taught with his own life the meaning of Guru Service, also known in Punjabi religious parlance as Guru Sewa. ''. Amar Das emphasized both spiritual pursuits as well as an ethical daily life. He encouraged his followers to wake up before dawn, do their ablutions and then meditate in silent seclusion. A good devotee, taught Amar Das, should be truthful, keep his mind in control, eat only when hungry, seek the company of pious men, worship the Lord, make an honest living, serve holy men, not covet another's wealth and never slander others. He recommended holy devotion with Guru's image in his follower's hearts.Guru Amar Das was also a reformer, and discouraged veiling of women's faces as well as sati. He encouraged the Kshatriya people to fight in order to protect people and for the sake of justice, stating this is Dharma. He promoted inter-caste marriages, going against the traditional Punjabi social orthodoxy at the time by doing-so. He also promoted the remarriage of widows. He promulgated monogamy as the ideal romantic relationship type.
Influence
Religious organization and missionary dissemination
Guru Amar Das started the tradition of appointing manji, introduced the dasvandh system of revenue collection in the name of Guru and as pooled community religious resource, and the famed langar tradition of Sikhism where anyone, without discrimination of any kind, could get a free meal in a communal seating. He also started and inaugurated the 84-level step well called baoli at Goindval with a resting place, modeled along the lines of the Indian tradition of dharmsala, which then became a Sikh pilgrimage center. Another organization analogous of the Manji was the Piri, which involved an appointed preaching official and missionary for Sikh assemblies and congregations whom were all women and instructed to spread Sikhism amongst womankind. According to W. Owen Cole, establishment of the manji and piri systems may have been motivated by the large amounts of new converts coming into the Sikh faith, especially in the Punjab. However, many of these converts brought in beliefs and practices of their original faith, so the preachers were appointed to instruct them on proper Sikh orthodoxy and orthopraxy, essentially motivating them to choose the Sikh faith and all that comes with it, even if it involves discarding their old ways of spirituality in the process. He appointed women to become the congregation leaders of the jurisdictions of Afghanistan and Kashmir. The women appointed for leading the Piri system of disseminating Sikhism to women were Bhani, Bibi Dani, and Bibi Pal, all of whom were intellectual types. The Piri system also educated womenfolk in social plus religious norms and customs.Amar Das personally patronized the education of his son-in-law Jetha in North Indian classical music, and Bhai Gurdas, in various languages and religious literature.
Banning of Sati
Guru Amar Das was a strong opponent of sati, the practice of widowed wives being immolated on the funeral pyre of their deceased husband during the latter's cremation. He states the following regarding the practice:He further states:
Opposing the Purdah system
Purdah is a traditional custom of women obscuring their face and bodies when in the company of men and secluding themselves from the company of men. Guru Amar Das was vehemently against this custom and is said to have once reprimanded the visiting raja of Haripur and his wives when the latter observed the custom around him. One of the queens of the raja refused to part ways with veiling herself, in which the Guru responded: "if thou art not pleased with the Guru's face why halt thou come hither."Akbar
The Mughal Emperor Akbar met Guru Amar Das. According to the Sikh legend, he neither received Akbar nor was Akbar directly ushered to him, rather the Guru suggested that Akbar like everyone sit on the floor and eat in the langar with everyone before their first meeting. Akbar, who sought to encourage tolerance and acceptance across religious lines, readily accepted the suggestion. After the conclusion of the Langar, Akbar sat in the congregation with the rest of the sangat and asked the Guru a question. The Sikh hagiographies called janam-sakhis mention that Guru Amar Das persuaded Akbar to repeal the tax on Hindu pilgrims going to Haridwar. Prominent Sikh figure Bhai Mani Singh, mentions prior to the meeting Akbar pleaded the Guru for a blessing in annexing the difficult to capture Chittorgarh, which the Guru gave and after the meeting he gave 84 villages in the name of his prominent Sikh Guru Ram Das after the Guru himself refused.Rituals in Sikhism: wedding, festivals, funeral
Amar Das composed the rapturous hymn called Anand and made it a part of the ritual of Sikh marriage called "Anand Karaj", which literally means "blissful event".Amar Das believed that a successful marriage was one in which the souls of the husband and wife became one metaphorically:
The Anand hymn is sung, in contemporary times, not only during Sikh weddings but also at major celebrations. Parts of the "Anand hymn" are recited in Sikh temples every evening, at the naming of a Sikh baby, as well as during a Sikh funeral. It is a section of the Anand Sahib composition of Guru Amar Das, printed on pages 917 to 922 of the Adi Granth and set to the "Ramkali" raga.
Guru Amar Das's entire Anand Sahib composition is a linguistic mix of Panjabi and Hindi languages, reflecting Guru Amar Das' upbringing and background. The hymn celebrates the freedom from suffering and anxiety, the union of the soul with the divine, describing a devotee's bliss achieved through the Guru with inner devotion and by repeating the Name of the Creator. The hymn states in stanza 19 that the Vedas teach "the Name is supreme", in stanza 27 that Smriti and Shastra discuss the good and the bad but are unreal because they lack a Guru and that it is the grace of the Guru which awakens the heart and the devotion to the Name. The hymn celebrates the life of a householder and constant inner devotion to the One, ending each stanza with the characteristic "says Nanak".
Guru Amar Das is also credited in the Sikh tradition to have encouraged building of temples and places where Sikhs could gather together on festivals such as Maghi,
Diwali and Vaisakhi. He required his disciples to gather together for prayers and communal celebrations in autumn for Diwali and in spring for Vaisakhi, both post harvest ancient festivals of India.