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The Manji System: Guru Amar Das Ji and Scaling the Panth's Institutions

Professor: Kavi Santokh Singh Source: SikhLibrary

This course examines the Manji system established by Guru Amar Das Ji — a network of 146 district-level community leaders that organized the geographically expanding Sikh Panth in the sixteenth century. Students will trace the origins, structure, and function of the system, its relationship to other Sikh institutional innovations, and its significance as an early model of distributed religious organization.

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Prerequisite recommended. This is a 200-level course. To get the most out of it, we recommend completing the 100-level courses first.

What you'll learn

  • Describe the Manji system — its origin, structure, and the role of the Manji leaders
  • Explain why Guru Amar Das Ji created the Manji system and what organizational problem it addressed
  • Analyze how the Manji system functioned alongside the Langar, Sangat, and Baoli in building the Sikh Panth
  • Evaluate the inclusivity of the Manji system with respect to caste and gender
  • Compare the Manji system to the Piri system established under Guru Ram Das Ji
  • Assess the long-term impact of the Manji system on Sikh community organization

Key terms — ਸ਼ਬਦਾਵਲੀ

ਮੰਜੀ

Literally 'cot' — the name given to the 146 diocesan districts established by Guru Amar Das Ji

ਮੰਜੀਦਾਰ

The leader of a Manji district; a devout Sikh appointed to represent the Guru in a region

ਪੀਰ੍ਹਾ

Smaller sub-unit districts within the Manji system, organized under the Manjidars; pirhis formed the local tier below the manji district level

ਪ੍ਰਚਾਰ

The spreading of Sikh teaching; the missionary function of the Manji leaders

ਦਸਵੰਧ

Tithe; the practice of donating one-tenth of one's income to the Guru's community

ਗੁਰਪ੍ਰਵਾਰ

The Guru's family; the extended community of Sikhs understood as a spiritual family

ਨਿਯੁਕਤੀ

Appointment; the formal designation of Manji leaders by the Guru

ਸੇਵਾਦਾਰੀ

The role of a servant-leader; the Manji leader as one who serves the community

ਖਬਰਸਾਰ

Information-gathering; Manji leaders also kept the Guru informed about their communities

ਸੰਗਠਨ

Organization; the institutional structure that enabled the Sikh Panth to grow and maintain coherence

Lessons

1. Introduction: The Problem of Scale

Full course contents
  1. Introduction: The Problem of Scale
  2. The Sikh Panth Before the Manji System
  3. What Was a Manji?
  4. The 146 Districts: Scale and Geography
  5. Who Were the Manji Leaders?
  6. Women as Manji Leaders
  7. The Functions of a Manji Leader
  8. Dasvanth: Tithing and Financial Sustainability
  9. The Manji System and Missionary Work
  10. Comparison with the Piri System
  11. Criticisms and Limitations of the Manji System
  12. Legacy and Impact

The Challenge of Growth

Any successful religious movement faces the challenge of scale: how do you maintain the intimacy, accountability, and spiritual depth of a small community as it grows into a large one? The early Sikh Panth under Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Guru Angad Dev Ji had been organized around direct personal contact with the Guru at a single center — first Kartarpur, then Khadur Sahib. This model worked beautifully for a community of hundreds or a few thousand, concentrated within reasonable travel distance of the Guru's center. By the time of Guru Amar Das Ji's ministry (1552–1574), however, the Panth had grown substantially — with Sikhs spread across large areas of Punjab and beyond, many of whom could not easily make the journey to Goindval for regular contact with the Guru.

The Organizational Solution

Guru Amar Das Ji's response to this challenge was the Manji system — a distributed organizational structure that brought the Guru's teaching and community to where Sikhs were, rather than requiring all Sikhs to come to the Guru. The system consisted of 146 designated districts (ਮੰਜੀ), each led by a devout Sikh (ਮੰਜੀਦਾਰ) who was trained, authorized, and mandated to maintain congregational worship, teach Gurbani, serve the local Sikh community, and maintain connection with the Guru at Goindval. According to Grewal (1990, 46), the Manji system represents one of the most significant institutional innovations in early Sikh history — a practical organizational genius responding to real community needs.

Lessons in Organizational Design

The Manji system is worth studying not only as a historical institution but as an example of organizational design in religious community-building. The challenges it addressed — maintaining doctrinal coherence, community identity, spiritual practice, and institutional connection across geographical distance — are perennial challenges for any distributed community. The solutions Guru Amar Das Ji found — appointed local leaders, defined responsibilities, financial sustainability through tithing, regular reporting to the center — reflect practical wisdom that remains relevant for understanding how communities organize themselves across time and space.

2. The Sikh Panth Before the Manji System

Center-Based Organization

Before the Manji system, the Sikh Panth was organized primarily around the physical center of the Guru's presence. At Kartarpur under Guru Nanak Dev Ji and at Khadur Sahib under Guru Angad Dev Ji, the community gathered around the Guru — for daily worship, Langar, teaching, and the various forms of communal life that the Gurus cultivated. This center-based model was spiritually rich: direct contact with the Guru, participation in the full community life, and the personal formation that came from living in the Guru's vicinity were all powerful. But it was limited in geographical reach: Sikhs who lived far from the center had to travel significant distances to maintain connection, and between visits they were largely on their own.

The Growth Problem

By Guru Amar Das Ji's time, the Sikh Panth had grown beyond what a single center could serve. Macauliffe (1909, vol. 2, 80) describes the Guru receiving visitors from across Punjab at Goindval — traders, farmers, soldiers, scholars, from different castes and backgrounds. This growing diversity and geographical spread was a sign of success, but it also posed a challenge: how could the Guru's teaching be transmitted accurately across a large and diverse community? How could the practices of Langar, Sangat, and Naam simran be maintained in communities that saw the Guru rarely or never? How could the bonds of community be sustained across the distances that separated Sikh families and villages?

The Risk of Fragmentation

Without organizational structures to maintain coherence, a growing religious movement risks fragmentation: local variations in practice multiply; teachings are transmitted inaccurately or selectively; local leaders emerge without authorization or accountability; community identity weakens. The hagiographic tradition suggests that Guru Amar Das Ji was acutely aware of this risk. His establishment of the Manji system was not merely a response to growth but a proactive organizational design that anticipated the challenges of scale and built structures to manage them before fragmentation could occur.

3. What Was a Manji?

The Word and Its Origin

The word ਮੰਜੀ literally means a cot or small bed — the kind of low wooden-framed cot used throughout Punjab for sleeping and sitting. As a term for a religious district or diocese, it has been interpreted in several ways. Some accounts suggest that the Guru would sit on a manji when giving darshan (receiving visitors and giving blessing), and that the districts were named after this symbol of the Guru's authority — each Manji leader was, in effect, setting up a small seat of the Guru's authority in their region. Others understand it as a more direct physical metaphor: just as a manji provides a place of rest and support, the Manji district provides a place of spiritual rest and support for the Sikhs within it.

The Manji as Diocese

In function, the Manji corresponds to what might be called a diocese in Western ecclesiastical organization — a defined geographical area with an appointed leader responsible for the religious life of its community. The 146 Manjis established by Guru Amar Das Ji divided the Sikh community's territory into manageable units, each with designated leadership, defined responsibilities, and connection to the center at Goindval. This diocesan structure was not borrowed from any external model but developed organically from the practical needs of the growing Panth — and the specifics of its design reflect the particular values of the Sikh community: leaders were appointed for devotion and character, not for caste or hereditary claim; women were included; tithing provided sustainable financing.

Not a Hereditary Office

A crucial feature of the Manji system, consistent with the broader Sikh principle of non-hereditary leadership, was that the Manji leadership was not hereditary. A Manjidaar was appointed by the Guru based on their spiritual qualities and commitment, not because of their family background. When a Manjidaar died or was no longer able to serve, the Guru appointed a successor — who might or might not be from the same family. This kept the system responsive to the actual spiritual condition of the community's leaders rather than locked into family dynasties that might or might not be spiritually qualified. As Fenech and McLeod (2014, 183) note, the non-hereditary principle was consistently maintained in the early Sikh organizational tradition.

4. The 146 Districts: Scale and Geography

The Number 146

The traditional account gives 146 as the number of Manji districts established by Guru Amar Das Ji. Some sources give slightly different numbers, but the order of magnitude — roughly 150 districts — is consistent across the tradition. As Grewal (1990, 47) notes, this number is significant: it suggests a Sikh community spread across a substantial geographical area, with enough Sikhs in each district to sustain a local leader and congregation. This is not a movement of a few hundred devoted followers but an organized community of perhaps tens of thousands distributed across Punjab and adjacent regions.

Geographical Reach

The 146 Manjis were not concentrated only in the immediate vicinity of Goindval but spread across the Punjab plains and into adjacent regions. Sikhs had accompanied Guru Nanak Dev Ji on his travels across northern India, Afghanistan, the Deccan, and even (according to tradition) further afield — and communities of Sikhs existed wherever he had taught and attracted followers. The Manji system was designed to provide organizational coherence to these scattered communities, maintaining their connection with the Guru's center and with the broader Panth. This geographical reach suggests that the Sikh Panth, even in the sixteenth century, was not a local Punjabi phenomenon but a movement with pan-regional aspirations.

Administrative Sophistication

Managing 146 districts required administrative sophistication. Guru Amar Das Ji needed to select and train leaders, communicate instructions, receive reports, manage the flow of ਦਸਵੰਧ contributions, and maintain accountability. According to the tradition, regular visits to the Guru at Goindval — particularly on the festival days of Baisakhi, Maghi, and Diwali — provided occasions for Manji leaders to report on their districts, receive new teaching, and renew their connection with the Guru and each other. These festival gatherings functioned as annual conferences of the Panth's distributed leadership, maintaining the cohesion of the system.

5. Who Were the Manji Leaders?

Selection Criteria

The Manji leaders were selected on the basis of devotion, character, knowledge of Gurbani, and commitment to the Sikh way of life. According to the tradition and summarized by Macauliffe (1909, vol. 2, 81), Guru Amar Das Ji sought people who combined sincere ਸਿੱਖੀ practice with the ability to teach, lead a congregation, and serve their community. Social background — caste, family, wealth — was explicitly not the primary criterion. This is in sharp contrast to the dominant model of religious authority in the period, which was largely determined by Brahmin birth in the Hindu tradition and by family lineage in the Sufi tradition. The Sikh Manji system opened religious leadership to a much broader range of society.

Social Diversity

The social diversity of the Manji leaders is significant. Among the 146, the tradition records individuals from various castes, backgrounds, and social positions — merchants, farmers, artisans, people of high and low social standing. Some were highly educated; others were not. What they shared was sincerity of devotion, knowledge of Gurbani sufficient to teach and lead worship, and the character to serve a community faithfully without seeking personal advantage. This diversity was not incidental but intentional: it reflected the Guru's consistent challenge to caste hierarchy as the organizing principle of religious authority and community life.

Training and Authorization

Manji leaders were not simply self-appointed; they were formally authorized by Guru Amar Das Ji. The process of training and authorization presumably involved time at Goindval in the Guru's presence, instruction in Gurbani and in the practices of Sikh community life, and formal appointment. This authorized leadership was important for maintaining the system's coherence and preventing the proliferation of unauthorized teachers who might introduce variations in practice or teaching. The center's ability to authorize, supervise, and if necessary withdraw authorization from Manji leaders maintained accountability throughout the distributed system.

6. Women as Manji Leaders

A Revolutionary Inclusion

Among the most historically significant features of the Manji system was the inclusion of women as Manji leaders. According to the traditional accounts, some of the 146 appointed Manji leaders were women — devout Sikhs who were trained in Gurbani, authorized by the Guru, and sent to lead their communities in worship and teaching. As Macauliffe (1909, vol. 2, 88) notes, this was an extraordinary departure from the gender norms of the period. In Brahmanical tradition, women could not perform rituals or serve as teachers of scripture. In the Sufi tradition, women's public religious roles were limited. Guru Amar Das Ji's appointment of women to formal positions of religious leadership had no close parallel in the dominant institutions of sixteenth-century Punjab.

The Theological Foundation

The inclusion of women in the Manji system was grounded in the same theological foundation as all of Guru Amar Das Ji's social reforms: if the divine light is present in every human being regardless of gender, then women are fully capable of spiritual insight, knowledge of Gurbani, and the leadership of a congregation. There is no theological reason why a woman cannot teach Gurbani, lead worship, or serve as a representative of the Guru in her community. The theological argument that would exclude women from these roles is precisely the argument that Gurbani challenges: that gender determines spiritual capacity or religious authority.

Precedent and Its Complications

The precedent of women in the Manji leadership has been invoked repeatedly in debates about women's roles in Sikh institutions, particularly in the modern period. The debates over women's right to perform Ardas, to serve as Granthis, to be part of Panj Pyare in Amrit ceremonies, and to serve on Gurdwara management committees all ultimately trace back to the same theological question that Guru Amar Das Ji answered: can women hold positions of religious authority in the Sikh community? The founding answer, embodied in the Manji system, was yes. The persistence of controversy in later periods reflects the difficulty of maintaining founding principles against the pressure of surrounding social norms.

7. The Functions of a Manji Leader

Congregational Worship

The primary function of a Manji leader was to maintain regular congregational worship (ਸੰਗਤ) in their district. This meant organizing regular gatherings for ਕੀਰਤਨ and ਕਥਾ (exposition of Gurbani), leading or facilitating Ardas, and maintaining the environment of the congregation as open to all regardless of caste, gender, or background. The Manji leader was the local embodiment of the Guru's presence — not in a metaphysical sense but in a practical one: they represented the Guru's teaching and the community's standard, providing the leadership that the congregation needed in the Guru's physical absence.

Teaching Gurbani

Manji leaders were also responsible for teaching Gurbani to their communities — both in the sense of explaining its meaning (ਕਥਾ) and in the sense of teaching people to read it (ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ literacy). In communities where the Gurmukhi school tradition had not yet spread, the Manji leader might serve as the primary teacher of both script and scripture. This educational function was crucial for maintaining the community's direct relationship with the Guru's word: a community that could read Gurbani was far less dependent on intermediaries and far more capable of sustaining its own spiritual life.

Reporting and Connection

Manji leaders were also expected to maintain connection with the Guru at Goindval — reporting on the state of their communities, bringing the Guru's teaching back to their districts, and participating in the major festival gatherings. This two-way communication maintained the system's coherence: the Guru remained informed about the state of the Panth across its distributed reach; the Manji leaders remained connected to the living source of the teaching. At the festival gatherings, Manji leaders from across the system would meet each other as well as the Guru — creating the network of relationships that held the dispersed community together.

8. Dasvanth: Tithing and Financial Sustainability

What Is Dasvanth?

ਦਸਵੰਧ — literally one-tenth — refers to the practice of donating one-tenth of one's income to the Guru's community. The practice, while not formally codified as law in the manner of tithes in some other traditions, was encouraged by the Gurus as an expression of the principle of ਵੰਡ ਛਕਣਾ — sharing one's earnings with the community. Under Guru Amar Das Ji's Manji system, the collection and transmission of these offerings became more organized: Manji leaders collected contributions from their communities and transmitted a portion to the Guru's center at Goindval, retaining enough locally to sustain the district's Sangat and Langar.

Financial Sustainability

The financial dimension of the Manji system is important for understanding how large-scale community institutions can be sustained. The Langar at Goindval — feeding hundreds or thousands of visitors daily — required substantial resources: food, fuel, cooking vessels, and the labor of numerous volunteers. The Gurmukhi schools required supplies. The construction of the Baoli required labor and materials. All of these community projects required financial support that could not rely solely on the Guru's personal resources. The Manji system's collection of ਦਸਵੰਧ provided the distributed financial base for the Panth's growing institutional infrastructure.

The Principle Behind the Practice

The practice of ਦਸਵੰਧ reflects the Sikh understanding of wealth as a community trust rather than a purely personal possession. The person who earns through honest labor and shares a portion with the community is living the principle of ਵੰਡ ਛਕਣਾ — giving back to the community from which one has received. This is not a tax or a fee for religious services but an expression of gratitude and commitment. The Manji system's organizational capacity to collect, manage, and direct these contributions made the Panth's growing institutional program financially viable — demonstrating that a community organized around principles of sharing and service can sustain itself without requiring state support.

9. The Manji System and Missionary Work

Outward Reach

The Manji system functioned not only as an internal organizational structure but as a vehicle for spreading the Sikh message beyond the existing community. Manji leaders in their districts were natural first contacts for people who were spiritually seeking but not yet Sikh — people who had heard of the Guru's teaching, attended a Sangat out of curiosity, or encountered a Sikh neighbor's practice and been drawn to learn more. The Manji leader's role included welcoming these seekers, explaining Gurbani, and making the community's practices accessible to newcomers. In this sense, each Manji leader was also a missionary — a ਪ੍ਰਚਾਰਕ — spreading the Guru's teaching through personal example and engagement.

Local Adaptation

The Manji system also allowed for local adaptation of how the Sikh message was communicated. A Manji leader in a primarily farming community would engage their neighbors through the practices and concerns of agricultural life; a Manji leader in a trading community would engage merchants through their framework of understanding. The core teaching — ਨਾਮੁ, ਸੇਵਾ, ਸੰਗਤ — remained constant, but the idiom and emphasis of its communication could adapt to the local context. This combination of doctrinal consistency and communicative flexibility is a hallmark of successful distributed religious movements.

The Limits of Missionary Expansion

It is important to note that the Sikh tradition did not practice aggressive proselytism in the modern sense — the Guru's community was open to all who sought it, but there was no organized campaign of conversion. The spread of the Sikh Panth under the Manji system was primarily through example, community life, and the attractiveness of the Guru's teaching and practice to those who encountered it. The Langar's open hospitality, the egalitarian community, and the accessible Gurbani teaching drew seekers who were ready for what the community offered. This organic spread, supported but not driven by the Manji system's organizational reach, characterizes the Panth's growth in this period.

10. Comparison with the Piri System

The Piri System

Guru Ram Das Ji, the Fourth Guru, developed a supplementary organizational system known as the ਪੀਰ੍ਹਾ system. If the Manjis were the primary administrative districts, the Piri system added a second tier of smaller sub-districts beneath them — effectively increasing the resolution of the organizational grid to cover more territory with greater local presence. The Piri system expanded the Manji framework rather than replacing it, providing additional organizational infrastructure as the Panth continued to grow. As Fenech and McLeod (2014, 189) note, the Piri system represented the continuation of the institutional development trajectory that Guru Amar Das Ji had initiated.

What Changed and What Continued

Between the Manji and Piri systems, the fundamental principles remained constant: local leaders appointed for devotion and character, responsible for maintaining Sangat and Langar, trained in Gurbani, and connected to the Guru's center. What changed was scale and elaboration: more districts, a two-tier structure, greater organizational sophistication. This evolution reflects the Panth's continued growth: institutions that were adequate for the community of Guru Amar Das Ji's time required expansion and refinement for the larger community of Guru Ram Das Ji's time. The institutional tradition was capable of evolution without losing its foundational character.

Later Developments

The Manji and Piri systems eventually gave way to other organizational structures as the Sikh community evolved and the context of Sikh life changed. The masand system — a subsequent development in which appointed collectors managed the flow of offerings from communities to the Guru — eventually became corrupted, leading Guru Gobind Singh Ji to abolish it in favor of direct relationship between the community and the Akal Takht. The institutional evolution of the Sikh Panth is a history of organizational innovation in response to changing needs, with each generation building on and reforming the inheritance of the previous one.

11. Criticisms and Limitations of the Manji System

The Risk of Corruption

Any organizational system that involves the collection of money and the exercise of local authority is vulnerable to corruption. While the Manji leaders of Guru Amar Das Ji's time are presented in the tradition as exemplary in character, later developments in similar systems showed how the position of Manji or masand (the later equivalent) could attract those motivated by power and financial gain rather than devotion. The masand system that evolved from the Manji model was eventually abolished by Guru Gobind Singh Ji precisely because many masands had become corrupt — collecting offerings for personal enrichment and maintaining control over communities for their own benefit rather than serving them.

Geographical Limitations

The Manji system was primarily effective in areas with established Sikh communities and sufficient population density to support a functioning congregation. In more remote areas, or in communities where Sikhs were a small minority, the Manji structure was harder to maintain. The system worked best where the Sikh community had enough critical mass to sustain regular Sangat, finance the Langar, and provide the social support that made participation rewarding. Where these conditions were absent, the Manji leader might be an isolated individual without the institutional infrastructure to do their work effectively.

The Tension Between Delegation and Centralization

The Manji system faced an inherent organizational tension between the need for local autonomy (to respond to local conditions) and the need for central coherence (to maintain doctrinal and practical unity). Too much centralization and the system loses the flexibility that makes it locally effective; too much autonomy and it risks fragmentation and variation. Guru Amar Das Ji's solution — regular festival gatherings that brought Manji leaders together with the Guru, combined with the freedom for local leaders to adapt how they communicated the teaching — represented a practical balance. But as the Panth grew and the distances increased, maintaining this balance became more challenging.

12. Legacy and Impact

An Institutional Template

The Manji system's most significant legacy is as an institutional template — a demonstration that a distributed religious community can maintain coherence, identity, and vitality across geographical distance through careful organizational design. The principles it embodied — appointed local leaders, defined responsibilities, financial sustainability through tithing, regular connection with the center, inclusion of diverse social groups in leadership — have echoes in the subsequent development of Sikh organizational life, from the masand system through the Gurdwara management committees of the modern era. As Singh (1994, 91) argues, the Manji system represents a moment of organizational genius in Sikh history, when the institutional demands of a growing Panth were met with innovative design.

The Panth's Capacity for Self-Organization

The Manji system also demonstrated the Sikh Panth's capacity for self-organization — for creating and maintaining institutions that served the community's needs without requiring external support (state patronage, caste hierarchy, or other external organizing principles). The system was internally funded (through ਦਸਵੰਧ), internally led (through appointed community members), and internally accountable (through regular reporting to the Guru). This self-organizational capacity would prove crucial in later periods when the Sikh Panth faced external pressure and needed to sustain itself through its own resources and institutions.

The Ongoing Question of Organization

The challenges that the Manji system addressed — how to organize a large, geographically distributed religious community while maintaining doctrinal coherence, spiritual depth, and community accountability — remain as relevant as ever for the global Sikh Panth of the twenty-first century. The contemporary Sikh diaspora, spread across dozens of countries with Gurdwaras on every inhabited continent, faces organizational challenges that Guru Amar Das Ji would recognize: how to maintain the connection between local communities and the broader Panth; how to ensure that local leadership serves the community rather than itself; how to balance local autonomy with global coherence. The Manji system's principles — though not its specific structures — continue to offer relevant guidance.

References & further reading

  1. Santokh Singh, Kavi. Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth. Patiala: Bhasha Vibhag Punjab, 1962.
  2. Macauliffe, Max Arthur. The Sikh Religion: Its Gurus, Sacred Writings and Authors. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909.
  3. Singh, Harbans. The Heritage of the Sikhs. New Delhi: Manohar, 1994.
  4. Grewal, J. S. The Sikhs of the Punjab. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
  5. Fenech, Louis E., and W. H. McLeod. Historical Dictionary of Sikhism. 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014.
  6. Mandair, Arvind-Pal Singh. Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.

From the source text

(੧੭੬) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ਹੈ, ਤਿਸ ਬੀਰਜ ਤੇ ਹੀ ਸਰਬ ਕੀ ਉਤਪਤੀ ਹੈ। ਅਰ ਜਲ ਕੇ ਬਰਸਬੇ ਤੇ ਸਰਬ ਉਤਭੁਜ੧ ਕੀ ਉਤਪਤੀ ਹੈ। ਇਸੀ ਹੇਤ ਕਰਿ ਸਰਬ ਜਗਤ ਕੋ ਪਿਤਾ ਜਲ ਹੈ। ‘ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤਿ ਮਹਤੁ’=ਸਰਬ ਜਗਤ ਕੀ ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤੀ ਹੈ। ਕੈਸੀ ਧਰਤੀ ਹੈ? ‘ਮਹਤੁ’ ਕਹੀਏ ਬਡੀ ਹੈ।
(176) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Yes, from that seed, everything originates. And from the raining of water, all vegetation originates. For this reason, water is the father of the entire world. ‘Mata dharat mahat’ = the earth is the mother of the entire world. What kind of earth is it? It is called ‘mahat’, meaning great. A mother is one who supports and raises a child, nourishes them by producing milk from her own body, and bears the impurities of the child; in the same way, the earth relates to the entire world. First, it supports and holds everything upon itself; second, the earth produces grain and other sustenance within itself to feed everyone—the nourishment of all comes from the earth, and everything that originates from it consumes it.
— from Garab Ganjinee Teeka. Gurmukhi is the author's original text (OCR); the English is a machine translation. Both are short study excerpts — refer to the original for an authoritative reading.Read the full work on SikhLibrary ↗

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Course test

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1. What does the word 'manji' literally mean?
2. How many Manji districts did Guru Amar Das Ji establish?
3. What organizational problem did the Manji system address?
4. What criteria were used to select Manji leaders?
5. What is 'dasvanth'?
6. What was revolutionary about the inclusion of women in the Manji leadership?
7. What supplementary system did Guru Ram Das Ji establish that built on the Manji foundation?
8. What was the main gathering occasion when Manji leaders reported to the Guru at Goindval?
9. Which later system that evolved from the Manji model was eventually abolished by Guru Gobind Singh Ji due to corruption?
10. What principle regarding the succession of Manji leadership was maintained in the system?

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