Guru Hargobind

Miri and piri

Succeeding in 1606 at the age of eleven, after Guru Arjan's execution, Hargobind was invested at his accession with two swords — miri, temporal authority, and piri, spiritual authority. The gesture, and the doctrine it expresses, is the foundation of the Sikh position that religious life and worldly power are not separate spheres.

He maintained a body of armed followers, kept horses, hunted, and received the trappings of a ruler, while continuing the religious functions of his office.

The Akal Takht

Opposite the Harmandir at Amritsar he built the Akal Takht, the throne of the timeless one, raised on a platform higher than that of any contemporary ruler's seat in the Punjab. From it he heard petitions, settled disputes and issued directions on temporal matters, leaving the Harmandir for worship.

The two buildings facing each other across the tank give the doctrine physical form, and the Akal Takht remains the seat of temporal authority in Sikhism, its jathedar able to issue binding directions to the community.

Conflict and imprisonment

Hargobind was imprisoned by Jahangir at Gwalior for a period, and tradition holds that he secured the release of a number of imprisoned princes alongside his own — commemorated as Bandi Chhor Divas, observed at Diwali. Under Shah Jahan relations deteriorated further and he fought several engagements against Mughal forces before withdrawing to Kiratpur in the Shivalik hills, where he died in 1644.

Assessment

Hargobind's Guruship converted a devotional community into one with a military capacity, without abandoning the religious content. Every subsequent development in Sikh history — the Khalsa, the misls, the Sikh Empire — follows from the doctrine he established, and Sikh writing has consistently treated miri-piri as a defining principle rather than a response to circumstance.