They carried a man into the hall in a palanquin, because he could not walk.
He was a sadhu, worn down to almost nothing. The hall was full: yogis, pandits, scholars, people of every belief, all watching.
Guru Gobind Singh Ji got up off his throne.
He went to the palanquin himself, lifted the man out with his own hands, carried him back, sat down, and kept him there in his lap like a child.
And with tears standing in his eyes he stroked the man's thin face and said: You are not a sinner. I have forgiven all of it.
Then somebody fetched hot milk, and Guru Ji fed it to him with a spoon, one spoonful at a time, saying kind things the whole while.
And the whole hall watched the colour come back into that face. Something opened in it. He smiled.
Then he found strength enough to slide down and put his head at Guru Ji's feet, and this came out of him.
Whoever you are, he said, you are my God. You are the Lord in a body.
But do not touch me. I am a sinner. It has gone into my mind and my body and right down into my soul.
And Guru Ji said: Yes, son. It is washed off. You are not a sinner. You are not a sinner.
Then Guru Ji told him he was among good people now, and asked him to tell them his story. So he did, slowly, because his voice was weak.
I come from a town called Surat, he said.
My mother had a friend next door, and the two of them made a promise. If we both have sons, they said, the boys will be great friends. And if one has a son and the other a daughter, we will marry them.
She had a daughter. I was the son. We grew up next door and played together every day of our childhood.
When we were older we both heard religious talks that stirred us, and both decided we did not want an ordinary life. Our parents agreed and sent us away with the sadhus.
I went with the men. She went with the women. And that day we found out the rule: we were never to see each other again.
We came to a monastery on a hill, and my training began. Hard fasts. Hard rules. Long penances. And every day the same teaching: commit no sin, and your soul will come clean.
One day I went out into the jungle to gather leaves and fruit.
And we came round the same tree at the same moment and stood face to face.
I do not know what happened to me. We sat down and talked, and told each other everything since we were children, and I have no idea how long we sat there.
We only looked up because the sadhvi in charge of the women's side was standing over us, red-eyed and shaking with anger.
You are both sinners, she said.
I touched her feet and told her the truth. I do not know what sin means here, I said. We played together as children. We met by accident, and we have been talking, and nothing else.
And she said: on top of your sin, now you argue with your teacher. That is another one.
We went back to our separate sides. I never found out what happened to the girl.
What they did to me afterwards I cannot describe.
At last I went to the head of the monastery and asked how I could stop being called a sinner. I wanted somebody, anybody, to say out loud that I was not one.
He knew what I had actually done. He said so. He knew it was only talking to a friend from my childhood.
And then he told me my choices. Have my eyes taken out. Or do fasts and penances for twelve years.
I almost chose the eyes.
I chose the twelve years.
And that is how he came to be carried into that hall in a palanquin, with twelve years of hunger on him and a whole monastery's worth of shame.
He had been trying, all that time, to earn one sentence.
He got it in the first minute, before he had explained anything, from somebody who simply picked him up and held him.