page_title: Guru Hargobind
section_title: Samarth Ramdas and Guru Hargobind
hierarchical_section_title: Guru Hargobind / Samarth Ramdas and Guru Hargobind
caption_attribution_description: English: samarth ramdas &amp; guru hargovindaji
context_page_description: Guru Hargobind, revered as the sixth Nanak, was the sixth of ten Gurus of the Sikh religion. He had become Guru at the young age of eleven, after the execution of his father, Guru Arjan, by the Mughal emperor Jahangir.
  Guru Hargobind introduced the process of militarization to Sikhism, likely as a response to his father's execution and to protect the Sikh community. He symbolized it by wearing two swords, representing the dual concept of miri and piri. In front of the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, Guru Hargobind constructed the Akal Takht. The Akal Takht represents the highest seat of earthly authority of the Khalsa today.
context_section_description: According to Sikh tradition based on an old Punjabi manuscript Panjah Sakhian, Samarth Ramdas met Guru Hargobind (1595–1644) at Srinagar in the Garhval hills. The meeting, corroborated in a Marathi source, Ramdas Swami's Bakhar, by Hanumant Swami, written in 1793, probably took place in the early 1630s during Samarth Ramdas's pilgrimage travels in the north and Guru Hargobind's journey to Nanakmata in the east. It is said that as they came face to face with each other, Guru Hargobind had just returned from a hunting excursion. He was fully armed and rode a horse. "I had heard that you occupied the Gaddi of Guru Nanak", said the Maratha saint Ramdas, and asked what sort of sadhu was he. Guru Hargobind replied, "Internally a hermit, and externally a prince. Arms mean protection to the poor and destruction of the tyrant. Baba Nanak had not renounced the world but had renounced Maya".
caption: Guru Hargobind and Samarth Ramdas
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