3rd Sikh Guru Amar Das Ji – Facebook Cover

Guru Amar Das (5 May 1479 – 1 September 1574), sometimes spelled as Guru Amardas, was the third of the Ten Gurus of Sikhism and became Sikh Guru on 26 March 1552 at age 73.

Before becoming a Sikh (Shishya from Sanskrit), on a pilgrimage after having been prompted to search for a guru, he heard his nephew’s wife, Bibi Amro, reciting a hymn by Guru Nanak, and was deeply moved by it. Amro was the daughter of Guru Angad, the second and then current Guru of the Sikhs. Amar Das persuaded Amro to introduce him to her father and in 1539, Amar Das, at the age of sixty, met the current Guru (Guru Angad) and became a Sikh, devoting himself to the Guru. In 1552, before his death, guru Angad appointed Amar Das as the third Guru of Sikhism.

Guru Amar Das was an important innovator in the teachings of Guru who introduced a religious organization called the Manji system by appointing trained clergy, a system that expanded and survives into the contemporary era. He wrote and compiled hymns into a Pothi (book) that ultimately helped create the Adi Granth.

Amar Das remained the leader of the Sikhs till age 95, and named his son-in-law Bhai Jetha, later remembered by the name Guru Ram Das, as his successor.