Guru Arjan Dev - The Fifth Sikh Guru Volume 1 and Volume 2 English Graphic Novel | Sikh Comics Series

"I am a sacrifice unto Guru Arjan, the perfect one."
— Bhai Gurdas

He gave the Sikhs their scripture, their holiest shrine, and their first martyr. He was eighteen years old when it began.

Arjan Dev grew up in the shadow of greatness, the youngest son of Guru Ram Das, grandson of Guru Amar Das, born in Goindwal into a household saturated with Gurbani. From his earliest years, it was clear that something in him ran deeper than his upbringing could explain. He absorbed the hymns of his predecessors with a poet's ear and a mystic's heart. When his father sent him to Lahore as a young man, and Prithi Chand intercepted his letters home to delay his return. The three hymns of longing that eventually reached Guru Ram Das were enough. The father who read them knew exactly who would carry the divine light forward.

Arjan Dev was eighteen years old when the tilak was applied and the Gurgaddi passed to him. He was the Fifth Sikh Guru.

He would lead the Sikhs for twenty-five years. In that time, he would complete the most ambitious project in the faith's young history, compose more Gurbani than all four Gurus before him combined, and face the most savage persecution the Sikh faith had yet encountered, with such serenity that his death became the foundation upon which a new era was built.

The story of Guru Arjan Dev is one of the most profound in all of Sikh history — a life of poetry, service, and sacrifice that changed the course of history.

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Part of the Sikh Comics series on the Ten Sikh Gurus — explore the full collection.

The first task was Harmandir Sahib. Guru Ram Das had founded Amritsar and begun the excavation of the sacred tank. Guru Arjan Dev completed it, and in the centre of the pool of nectar, built the temple that would become the holiest ground in Sikhism. Every decision he made about it was a declaration of faith. Where every other temple in India was built high — elevated, exclusive, approachable only by those deemed worthy — Harmandir Sahib was built lower than the surrounding earth. You had to descend to enter it. Humility was not merely preached; it was built into the architecture. And where Hindu temples faced east and Muslim mosques faced west, Harmandir Sahib had four doors, one on every side, open to every direction, every community, every human being who wished to enter. "My faith is for the people of all castes and all creeds, from whichever direction they come and to whichever direction they bow."

The second task was the scripture.

Since the time of Guru Nanak, Gurbani had been composed, collected, and passed down, but no single authoritative text existed. False hymns were circulating, attributed to earlier Gurus by those with rival claims to authority. Guru Arjan Dev recognized the danger: without a definitive scripture, the divine word could be diluted, distorted, or lost. He summoned Bhai Gurdas as his scribe and began the most painstaking act of devotion in Sikh history, travelling across Punjab to collect the original compositions of the first four Gurus, gathering the hymns of Hindu and Muslim saints whose voices harmonized with the message of Guru Nanak, and adding over 2,218 hymns of his own; more than half of the entire volume of what would become Sri Guru Granth Sahib.

The compilation was completed on August 30, 1604. On September 1, 1604, the Adi Granth was installed in Harmandir Sahib, and Bhai Budha, the beloved elder who had applied the tilak at every succession since Guru Nanak, was appointed the first Granthi. Guru Arjan Dev placed the scripture above his own seat and slept on the floor below it. He declared it the living Guru, not merely a book, but the eternal, undying voice of God.

When Emperor Akbar came to Amritsar and heard the Adi Granth, he sat on the floor and listened. He wept. He sent five hundred gold coins as an offering. He declared the scripture to be a treasure of humanity.

His successor would not be so moved.

Jahangir came to the Mughal throne in 1605 with a very different disposition. In his own memoirs, the Jahangirnama, he recorded his thinking without shame: "For the longest time, I had been contemplating that either this false trade be eliminated or that he be brought into the embrace of Islam." The Sikh city of Amritsar had grown into a power centre in its own right, a place where the Guru was honoured as Sachay Patshah, the True King, where justice and humility governed, and where people lived with a spirit of fearlessness and self-respect that the Mughal court found threatening. Thousands were coming to the faith. Muslims were among them. Jahangir had been looking for a pretext.

He found one in Khusrau.

Khusrau was Jahangir's own son, a rebel prince, fleeing his father's wrath and unable to find refuge anywhere, for everyone feared the Emperor's anger. He came to Guru Arjan Dev. As any Sikh Guru would receive any visitor, the Guru received him, with hospitality, with Gurbani, and with the customary mark of saffron placed on the prince's forehead as a token of acceptance. Jahangir, in his memoirs, records this moment as evidence of treachery. Any reader of Sikh tradition will recognize it as ordinary grace, the same welcome the Guru would have offered the Emperor himself.

It was enough. Guru Arjan Dev was summoned to the Mughal court and ordered to embrace Islam and to remove from the Adi Granth every hymn composed by Hindu and Muslim saints. He refused both, calmly, completely, without negotiation.
What followed was recorded in Jahangir's own hand: he ordered the Guru executed under the law of Yasa, the ancient Mongol code that required the execution of a person of exalted status to be carried out without the spilling of blood. The Guru was placed on a burning iron plate. Boiling water was poured over him. Hot sand was strewn repeatedly over his blistered body. This continued for five days.

The contrast with what Jahangir did to others accused of the same act is stark and documented. A Muslim holy man who had similarly prayed for Khusrau was merely exiled to Mecca, his travelling expenses paid. A leader of the Naqshbandi movement in Punjab, Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, wrote a letter rejoicing at the Guru's death. The words he used are preserved in history. They require no commentary.

Those who came to witness the torture returned shaken, not by what was done to him, but by what they could not see on his face. No cry. No anger. No pleading. Only the steady recitation of Gurbani, and what witnesses described as an expression of absolute peace. The Guru's own words, composed in those final days, say everything:

"The burning fire is cooled down. It is like a pool of nectar to me."
— Sri Guru Granth Sahib

On May 30, 1606, his hands and feet bound, Guru Arjan Dev was brought to the banks of the Ravi River and cast into the water. The first Sikh Guru to be martyred was gone.

But what he left behind could not be silenced. A scripture that would one day become the eternal living Guru of the Sikhs. A temple with four open doors that stands to this day as the most visited place on earth. And a message sent by his last breath to his son Hargobind: wear two swords — one for spiritual power, and one for temporal. The time has come.

The age of the saint-soldier had begun.

What's Inside:

• The Succession: Arjan Dev's years in Lahore, the letters intercepted by Prithi Chand, and the moment Guru Ram Das knew which son would carry the divine light
• The Youngest Guru: Arjan Dev's appointment at eighteen — the qualities that set him apart and the challenges that awaited him from the very first day
• Harmandir Sahib: The completion of the Golden Temple — built lower than the earth, with four doors open to all, its architecture a statement of equality that no other shrine in India had dared to make
• The Adi Granth: The compilation of the first Sikh scripture — 2,218 hymns by Guru Arjan Dev, the compositions of the four preceding Gurus, and the voices of Hindu and Muslim saints, gathered and preserved against distortion
• Sukhmani Sahib: The hymn of peace — one of the most beloved compositions in Gurbani, composed by Guru Arjan Dev and recited by Sikhs across the world to this day
• Akbar's Visit: The Mughal Emperor who sat on the floor, listened to the Adi Granth, and wept — and the five hundred gold coins he left behind
• The Jahangirnama: Jahangir's own recorded words — his long-held intention to eliminate the Sikh faith or convert its Guru to Islam — and the arrival of Khusrau that gave him his pretext
• Khusrau: The rebel prince who came to the Guru's door, the saffron mark of customary Sikh welcome, and how an act of ordinary grace was used to justify the killing of a saint
• The Law of Yasa: The ancient Mongol code under which Guru Arjan Dev was executed — five days of burning plate, boiling water, and hot sand, met with a serenity that silenced every witness
• The Martyrdom: May 30, 1606 — the banks of the Ravi River, and the words the Guru composed in his final days that Sikhs carry in their hearts to this day
• The Last Message: Guru Arjan Dev's final words to his son Hargobind — and why the first Sikh martyrdom became the seed of a new era in Sikh history

Perfect For:

• Children aged 7 and up (and the adults reading alongside them)
• Gurdwara Sunday school programs and Sikh Studies classes
• Parents and grandparents wanting to share the lives of the Ten Sikh Gurus with the next generation
• Anyone who needs to understand what it means to face the worst that the world can do — and meet it with complete peace

Book Details:
Pages 64 · Paperback · English · Published 2021 · ISBN 9789382887850 · Publisher: Sikh Comics

Covers Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the Guru Arjan Dev story — from his succession as the Fifth Sikh Guru through his martyrdom and the dawn of a new era in Sikh history.

An illustrated Sikh children's book bringing the life and teachings of the Fifth Sikh Guru to vivid life — one sakhi at a time.

Also Available in Punjabi - ਗੁਰੂ ਅਰਜਨ ਦੇਵ - ਸਿੱਖਾਂ ਦੇ ਪੰਜਵੇਂ ਗੁਰੂ (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਸਿੱਖ ਕਾਮਿਕਸ)