The Scripture Becomes the Eternal Guru
Before his death at Nanded, Guru Gobind Singh ends the line of human Gurus and declares the scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, the Guru forever.
- Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
- Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edition) — Eleanor Nesbitt, Oxford University Press (2016)
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies — Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.), Oxford University Press (2014)
After the losses of 1704–05, Guru Gobind Singh travelled south with the new emperor Bahadur Shah, and in 1708 he was stabbed by an assassin at Nanded on the Godavari, in today’s Maharashtra. He died of his wounds that October. His four sons were all dead.
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
According to Sikh tradition, before he died he placed a coconut and five coins before the scripture, bowed to it, and declared that after him the Guru would be the Granth, the scripture, and the Panth, the community gathered in its presence. The version he gave final form to included the hymns of his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur. Historians agree the doctrine of Guru Granth and Guru Panth was established in the eighteenth century; the exact words at Nanded rest on later accounts.
- Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
- The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies — Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.), Oxford University Press (2014)
- Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edition) — Eleanor Nesbitt, Oxford University Press (2016)
Why it matters today
This is why Sikhs treat the Guru Granth Sahib not as a book but as a living Guru: it sits on a throne under a canopy, is fanned with a chaur, put to rest at night, and its random opening each morning (the hukamnama) is the Guru's order for the day. Sikhs do not have living Gurus, and claims by later sects to a continuing human line, such as the Namdharis, are rejected by mainstream Sikhs.