Figure 1 The armour plate coming up for sale next month.

Next month witnesses the most important auctions of a generation for the Sikh community as a rare piece of body armour that experts believe belonged to the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, will be auctioned in one of London’s most prestigious auction houses.

Figure 2 (left) Guru Gobind Singh with his followers.

The inscribed steel armour plate will be auctioned in Sotheby’s Arts of the Islamic World Sale – the most important of its kind the company has ever staged - on Wednesday, April 9, 2008.

The steel plate would originally have been part of a set of body armour known by its Persian name, char-aina (“four mirrors”) comprising back, front, and two side plates. The significance of the Sotheby’s armour plate lies in its close similarity to a known example of Guru Gobind Singh’s personal armour preserved in a private royal collection in India. The existence of a second set leads experts to believe that the Guru’s armourers were commissioned to produce another.

This sale comes at a time when Sikh heritage objects have realised impressive prices in London’s auction houses. In recent years collectors and dealers clashed in frenzied bidding wars; the most remarkable example was witnessed at Bonham’s in April 2007, when a marble bust of Maharaja Duleep Singh sculpted by John Gibson  in 1859, came under the hammer at the astonishing sum of £1.7 million. Bonham’s had expected it to fetch up to £30,000.

The auction on April 9, 2008 (www.sothebys.com), which comprises 400 lots of rare and important works of art, is expected to realise in excess of £9 million. It will be the only ever to have offered a relic belonging to a Sikh Guru. As such, it is set to attract enormous interest from collectors and connoisseurs of Sikh heritage across the globe.

THE GURU’S ARMOUR

The Sotheby’s example is virtually identical to another armour plate from a complete char-aina set currently housed in the collection of the royal family of Patiala in Punjab. Each plate in the Patiala set is adorned with verses rendered in gold Gurmukhi script from the Sikh scriptures, including the opening verses of Guru Nanak’s “Japji Sahib”, and Guru Gobind Singh’s “Jaap Sahib” and “Akal Ustat”.

Figure 3 The Guru’s armour in the collection of the Maharaja of Patiala.

According to a well-established family tradition, the set was gifted to one of their ancestors by Guru Gobind Singh.  If family lore is to be believed, the existence of the Sotheby’s armour plate points to another set having been commissioned by the Guru.

THE HOUSE OF PATIALA BLESSED

The close relationship between the Guru and the Patiala family is attested to in the saying “Tera ghar mera asay” (“Your house is my refuge”). This phrase appears in the Guru’s hukamnama (royal decree) dated August 2, 1696 and addressed to the sons of Phul, the founder of the Patiala dynasty. The brothers Rama and Tilokha were called upon by the Guru to send a detachment of cavalry to assist in his battles against the Hill Rajas. The letter, which bestowed special status on the house of Patiala, reads:

"There is one Creator-Preserver-Destroyer. The Guru is great. It is the order of the Guru. Bhai Rama and Bhai Tilokha, the Guru will protect all. You are required to come with your contingent. I am much pleased with you. Your house is my refuge. On seeing this letter you should come in my presence. Your house is my refuge. You should come to me immediately. On seeing this letter you should arrive with horsemen. Do come. I have sent one robe of honour. Keep it with you."

Figure 4 (left) The Guru's hukumnama addressed to the descendants of the Maharaja of Patiala, 1696.
The message was clear and the brothers sincerely obliged. It is said that their swift response helped to save the Guru’s life, who in return blessed the house of Patiala as his own. The famous motto was adopted by the descendants of Phul in memory of this noble act.

In addition to the Guru’s armour set, the family owns other weapons associated with the person of Guru Gobind Singh. Several were drawn by the artist Brij Mohan Lal at the beginning of last century and described in a document held at the British Library, London, titled “Descriptions and Brij Mohan’s drawings of ‘Indian arms’ collected at Patiala 1904-1905”. A bifurcated broadsword with serrated edge known as khanda-ara is inscribed in Gurmukhi and Sanskrit with prayers to the Devi and the following line: “There is one God whose knowledge is the gift of the Sat Guru alone.” This sword was gifted by the Guru to the Nawab of Malerkotla as a mark of gratitude after the Muslim chieftain refused to kill the Guru’s young sons when they were brought before him for that purpose. A beautiful matchlock gun that once belonged to the Guru is inscribed in Gurmukhi on the barrel with the name of the owner, “Sri Guru Gobind Singh, the True King”. The tegha sword of “Sri Guru Sahib” is furnished with a gilt inlaid hilt and an embossed seal.

THE GURU’S MISSING SWORD

Despite their value as objects of veneration, not all of the Guru’s swords personally gifted by him to devotees and supporters in times of need have remained in the possession of their descendants. One notable example is the “Raikot sword”, a tulwar with gilded hilt. The Guru gifted this sword to Rai Kalha, the Muslim ruler of the Cis-Satluj state of Raikot, as a token of gratitude for granting him shelter while he was being pursued by Mughal forces in 1705.

The Guru imposed an injunction on Rai Kalha that the sword should not be worn except in battle or in some great emergency. At the same time, the Guru gifted him the Ganga Sagar, a miraculous vessel that held milk despite being perforated with holes. 

Figure 5 The Ganga Sagar gifted to Rai Kalha.

The sword was preserved with great reverence as a treasured heirloom by the family of Rai Kalha for some generations. Maharaja Ranjit Singh and other Sikh rulers, including Maharaja Narinder Singh of Patiala tried their best to acquire it by offering large sums of money but the family of the Rai resisted all temptations to part with it. That was until after the death of the last Rani of Raikot in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Figure 6 An example of the Guru’s sword in the Patiala Royal Collection.

The Guru’s sword was inherited by a distant cousin of the Rani, Rae Imam Bakhsh. He in turn offered it as a gift to Governor-General Lord Dalhousie as a sign of loyalty to the British Empire. In a written statement, Imam Bakhsh expressed the wish that it be placed alongside the other relics belonging to the Guru that had been taken to England following the annexation of Punjab in 1849.

The sword was forwarded to England sometime in 1855 as a present to Queen Victoria but its whereabouts has remained a mystery ever since. Official correspondence suggests that it was deposited in the Indian Room at Buckingham Palace. However, the sword is not recorded in the collection’s catalogue of arms and armoury.

Henry Brereton, the Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiana received the Raikot sword in April 1854 before it was shipped to England. He recorded the two inscriptions on either side of its blade.

These inscriptions are taken from the opening verse of the Guru’s poetic composition, “Akal Ustat” (“In Praise of the Immortal”). The composition conveys the Guru’s perspective on the essence of dharma and the purpose of human life. It appears as the second composition in his collated writings known as the Dasam Granth (Tenth Book).

VERSES IN PRAISE OF THE IMMORTAL

The Sotheby’s armour plate also carries the opening verse of “Akal Ustat” as found on the Guru’s personal “Raikot” sword:

The inscription has been delicately applied on the plate’s central panel in gold koftgari, the traditional technique of overlaying gold wire onto a steel surface. The floral border and buckles that would have fastened the set together with straps are also lavishly decorated in gold koftgari work.

In keeping with the highest standards associated with the Guru’s personal armoury, the plate’s central panel has been forged from “watered steel”, a fabled material better known in the West as Damascus Steel. This specially prepared steel was cherished by Indian and Persian blacksmiths who used it in conjunction with the ancient techniques of their craft to create the finest and most valuable blades and armour before the advent of modern manufacturing techniques.

A further update to the earlier report (Content Editor: Gurinder Singh Mann)

" SOTHEBY’S TO SELL IMPORTANT 18TH-CENTURY SIKH STEEL ARMOUR PLATE FROM NORTH WEST INDIA/PAKISTAN". This is the description given by the auction site with regards to the sale. The starting price given to this priceless relic is £12000-15,000. 

There will be other items available for sale which will interest the public at large at Sothebys this includes the following.

A SIKH QUOIT, LAHORE, PAKISTAN, 19TH CENTURY

Starting price 3,000—5,000 GBP

The sale is taking place as part of the Arts of the Islamic World collection on April 9th 2008.

The link to the auction site is as follows: www.sothebys.com.

In order to view the collections and make bids you will need to register on the site.

To view the official Sotheby's press release visit: www.sridasamgranth.com

For further worldwide coverage of this news story visit: www.timesofindia.com 

Editorial follow up: " What is really going under the hammer"?