The word _deg_, meaning pot or cauldron, is used as a symbol of
plenty. The correct rendering is:--
Plenty, the sword, victory, and help without delay,
Guru Govind Singh obtained from Nanak.
d. This prophecy has not been fulfilled. The annexation of the Panjab
in 1849 put an end to Sikh hopes of 'conquest and plunder', and yet
the sect has not been 'swallowed up in the great ocean of Hinduism'.
At the census of 1881 its numbers were returned as 1,853,426, or
nearly two millions, for all India. The corresponding figure for 1891
is 1,907,833. At the time of the first British census of 1855 the
outside influences were depressing: the great Khalsa army had fallen,
and Sikh fathers were slow to bring forward their sons for baptism
(_pahul_). The Mutiny, in the suppression of which the Sikhs took so
great a part, worked a change. The Sikhs recovered their spirits and
self-respect, and found honourable careers open in the British army
and constabulary. 'Thus the creed received a new impulse, and many
sons of Sikhs, whose baptism had been deferred, received the _pahul_,
while new candidates from among the Jats and lower caste Hindoos
joined the faith.
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