CHAPTER III
The Sikh Theocracy
Mahárájá Ranjít Singh was so completely a product of the Sikh theocracy, and so embodied the spirit of the Khálsa, that no account of his character and career would be complete without a description of the religious system which had so powerful an effect upon the Ját cultivators of the Punjab in the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. The subject is too extensive and complicated to be treated here in a detailed or even a satisfactory fashion, and I would invite those who desire to be fully informed of the nature of Sikh dogmata and ethics to study the translation of the Ádi Granth or the Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs, translated from the original Gúrmukhi, with introductory essays, by Dr. Ernest Trumpp, Regius Professor of Oriental languages at the University of Munich, who, in 1870, was entrusted by the Secretary of State with this important work. I happened to be Chief Secretary to Government at Lahore when Dr. Trumpp was engaged on this duty, of which the extreme difficulty was only equalled by his zeal, industry and learning. He found that the Sikh priests and Granthís (readers and expounders of
