GURŪ GOBINDA is one of Rābindranāth Tagore's three poems in Bengali on Gurū Gobind Siṅgh. The other two poems are "Nishfal Uphār" (A Selfless Gift) and "Shesh Shikshā" (The Last Lesson) . The three poems were composed by Tagore sometime between June 1888 and October 1899. "Gurū Gobinda" is a poem enunciating the poet's ideal of a true national leader. He visualized such a leader -- the model for him is Gurū Gobind Siṅgh -- as being totally given to the service of the people without any mundane ambition. For projecting this precept, Tagore employs the device of Gurū Gobind Siṅgh making a speech before some of his close disciples who visited him during his period of comparative seclusion on the banks of the River Yamunā when he was engaged in study and contemplation preparatory to launching upon the more active phase of his career. "Nishfal Uphār" presents the same moral derived from the life of Gurū Gobind Siṅgh. "Shesh Shikshā" makes an ethical point based, however, on McGregor's historically unauthenticated account of the last days of Gurū Gobind Siṅgh in his History of the Sikhs in which the author says that Gurū Gobind Siṅgh had himself suggested it to the Paṭhān to avenge the death of his father at his, i.e. the Gurū's, hands.

Himādrī Banerjee