Kal Kirpan – Salutation to the Sword
Prof Puran Singh
The Guru salutes for their sake the sword, the battle-axe, the arrow, and starts a creed in India in which weapons become symbols of divine worship.
He mounts guard over the Garden of Man laid by him, lest the wild beasts should enter again and uproot it, and turn it into a wilderness.
He replaces the idols of stone and the goddesses of mildewed old superstitions, by the flashing sword in the imagination of people: “Jai Tegham! Jai Tegham “.
Here is a unique group of men who have been given a Religion of Arms for freeing slaves and for protecting His Saints.
KAL KIRPAN
The Guru invokes the protection of Kal Kirpan, the “Time Sword” the “Death Sword” for protection of the ideal of the Khalsa embodied in hum an clay.
And by putting a sword in the hand of every slave in the Punjab, he makes him a free man by one draught of His sword -stirred, Word-born water of Simrin, Nam.
Such is Guru Gobind Singh.
The Khalsa in its group-manifestation, is like the splendour of a million naked swords. Its sight is truly awe-inspiring.
No one dare provoke the Khalsa’s wrath.
But in the heart of the Khalsa is the Fountain of Hari-Nam.
Cut a Sikh and if his little heart the deep dove-coos of the Name of the Beloved are not heard, he is only fuel.
The Khalsa is sweet and refreshing like the crystal waters of the Ganga.
His presence is immortalizing.
He is a blessing in this desire-scorched desert of sense delusions!
From ‘Spirit of the Sikh’
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