Death
When they reached Delhi, Guru Har Krishan and his party were the guests of Raja Jai Singh. Every day, large numbers of Sikh devotees flocked to see the Guru. A smallpox epidemic was then raging in Delhi. Guru Har Krishan helped to heal many sick people. Coming in contact with so many people every day, he too was infected and taken seriously ill. On March 30, 1664, Guru Har Krishan decided to name his successor. He called for five coins and a coconut. He took them, and being too weak to move, waved his hand three times in the air, and said "Baba Bakala"(Punjabi: ਬਾਬਾ ਬਕਾਲੇ), meaning his successor was to be found in Bakala. Guru Har Krishan then died of smallpox at the age of seven.
One of the historic gurdwaras in India, the Bangla Sahib in Delhi was built on the site where Guru Har Krishan helped the sick, and he also died himself of smallpox at Gurudwara Bala Sahib.
| Sikhism portal |
Read more about this topic: Guru Har Krishan
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Of Heaven of Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
“But, when nothing subsists from a distant past, after the death of others, after the destruction of objects, only the senses of smell and taste, weaker but more enduring, more intangible, more persistent, more faithful, continue for a long time, like souls, to remember, to wait, to hope, on the ruins of all the rest, to bring without flinching, on their nearly impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)