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Sikhism – An Introduction
My late friend Piara Singh Sambhi and his Virdi and Sambhi families, wherever I have met them, have always honoured me as their brother, and my family as their kin. There are no words or deeds that can possibly express my gratitude to them sufficiently for this, and all their many kindnesses, over 40 years. Perhaps this book, which contains so much that I learned from being with them in what has become my second home, might be accepted as a small token of gratitude and affection.
This book is also dedicated to my grandchildren, Rhiannon and Benjamin, Kishnan and Saran.
Teach®
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Sikhism – An Introduction
W Owen Cole
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First published in UK 1994 by Hodder Education, part of Hachette UK, 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH.
First published in US 1994 by Contemporary Books, a Division of the McGraw-Hill Companies, 1 Prudential Plaza, 130 East Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60601 USA.
This edition published 2010.
Previously published as Teach Yourself Sikhism.
The Teach Yourself name is a registered trade mark of Hodder Headline.
Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2010 W Owen Cole
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Acknowledgements
First I must acknowledge the help that I have received from my brother Piara Singh Sambhi who introduced me to Sikhism and nurtured me in it. Secondly, his wife Avtar and son Jaswant continue to answer my many questions and improve my knowledge and appreciation of their religion. Professor Bakhshish Singh has kindly acted as consultant and helped me to avoid many errors and insensitivities. Sikhs in Australia, especially Kuldip and Sarjit Singh’s family, as well as Darshan Singh, Mohinder Singh’s family, Jit’s and Gurpreet and Baljeet Singh’s in India, Rani Kaur and Pavi Singh’s, Narinder Kapany’s, and Kuldip and Carol Sethi’s in the USA, Jarnail Singh’s in Canada, and Sikh friends too many to mention in Britain have also provided help, knowingly or unwittingly, and wonderful hospitality.
Professor Hew McLeod has been a friend and helper over many years, always ready speedily to answer queries. Pal Singh Purewal has interpreted the Nanakshahi calendar for me.
Richard Ball Publishing kindly agreed to my use of material from my A level sample answers. Amrit and Rabindra Kaur of Twin Studios have enhanced the book with their illustrations and I am very grateful to them for putting their considerable artistic talents at my disposal and for being so patient. The photographs on pages 13, 33, 42, 56, 68 and 84 were provided by Harjinder Singh Sagoo of Photographic Services and to him too I must express my appreciation for many years of friendship and professional help. Annette Voss kindly supplied the nagar kirtan photograph on page 229. I am grateful to Joy Barrow for help in using the internet.
My greatest debt of gratitude, however, as always, is owed to Gwynneth for 55 years of love, and good-humoured encouragement and support.
I would like to thank my editors Catherine Coe, Harry Scoble and Helen Rogers at Hodder Education. Despite their readers are likely to discover errors. They are my responsibility only. If they are pointed out to me, I will try to correct them in later editions.
The publishers wish to thank Twin Studio for supplying artwork, Harjinder Singh Sagoo and Annette Voss for supplying those photographs listed above, and Dr W Owen Cole for supplying the remaining photographs.
Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge ownership of copyright. The publishers will be glad to make suitable arrangements with any copyright holders whom it has not been possible to contact.
Credits
Front cover: © Aditya Patankar/Dorling Kindersley/Getty Images
Back cover: © Jakub Semeniuk/iStockphoto.com, © Royalty-Free/Corbis, © agencyby/iStockphoto.com, © Andy Cook/iStockphoto.com, © Christopher Ewing/iStockphoto.com, © zebicho – Fotolia.com, © Geoffrey Holman/iStockphoto.com, © Photodisc/Getty Images, © James C. Pruitt/iStockphoto.com, © Mohamed Saber – Fotolia.com
Contents
Meet the author
Only got a minute?
Only got five minutes?
1 Introduction: worship
The content and purpose of Sikh worship
The conclusion of diwan
Sikh functionaries
2 The beginnings of Sikhism
Was Nanak a Hindu?
The place of the guru in Hinduism
The North India religious situation as Guru Nanak perceived it
Pollution
Guru Nanak – mystic, social reformer, or political revolutionary?
3 Initiation
Vaisakhi 1699
The symbolism of the panj kakkar
The ethics of the Khalsa
A new name
The amrit ceremony today
The meaning of initiation
Gurdwara management
4 The family
Family ceremonies
5 Sikh names and the naming ceremony
Naming a Sikh child
Naming converts
6 Marriage (anand karaj)
The wedding ceremony
The reception
7 Death
Funeral rites
Disposal of the dead
8 The Sikh Gurus
Guru Nanak
Guru Angad
Guru Amar Das
Guru Ram Das
Guru Arjan
Guru Hargobind, Guru Har Rai and Guru Har Krishan
Guru Tegh Bahadur
Guru Gobind Singh
Sikh attitudes to the Gurus
9 Festivals and their meaning
Gurpurbs
Major gurpurbs and melas according to the Nanakshahi calendar
Hola Mohalla
Vaisakhi
Divali
10 Ethics
Seva
Rejection of discrimination
Woman: male–female equality
Sikhs and the use of military force
Medical issues
11 The Sikh scriptures
The Guru Granth Sahib
The compilation of the Adi Granth
The structure of the Adi Granth
The Adi Granth becomes the Guru Granth Sahib
The bhagat bani
The Dasam Granth
The writings of Bhai Gurdas and Bhai Nandlal
The importance of the Guru Granth Sahib
The significance of the Guru Granth Sahib as seen through Sikh practices
12 Sikh teachings about God
God is One
God is immanent and all-pervading
God as Word
God is self-revealing and could not otherwise be known
God as sovereign
The names of God
The nature of God
God as creator
God as Guru
13 Human nature and spiritual liberation
The malady
The remedy: the path to spiritual liberation
Five stages of development on the path to enlightenment
Jivan mukt
14 Sikhism in the modern period
Religious matters
The Nirankari movement
Namdharis
The Singh Sabha movement
The Arya Samaj
The Rahit Maryada
Jathedars and takhts
Defining orthodoxy
Khalistan
15 Sikh attitudes to other religions
Jainism
An explanation of Guru Nanak’s responses to the forms of religion he encountered
Guru Arjan
Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh
The eighteenth century
Independent India
Partition and its aftermath
Operation Blue Star 1984
16 The Sikh dispersion
Migration to Britain (the United Kingdom)
Cultural changes among Sikhs in Britain
Changes in religious practice
Culture clashes in the dispersion
Sikhs in continental Europe
Sikhs in North America
Why did Sikhs migrate?
The future of Sikhs in the dispersion
Sikh population
Taking it further
Glossary
Index
Meet the author
Welcome to Sikhism – An Introduction!
When I arrived in Leeds in the late 1960s I was aware of two things, first that I would soon have to teach Sikhism and, second, that I had very little knowledge of it. Fortunately, my arrival in Leeds coincided, almost immediately, with an invitation to chair the Religious and Cultural panel of YCCR and meetings with Sikhs who were willing to receive me with typical Sikh hospitality. I was especially fortunate to meet and become close friends with Piara Singh Sambhi, President of the Leeds gurdwara at the time of the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of Guru Nanak. He invited me to serve on the planning committee which encouraged students from James Graham College, where I taught, to participate in the event. He, in turn, introduced me to an eminent scholar, Professor Gobind Singh Mansukhani, who eventually settled in England but was my initial host when I made my first visit to India in 1973. Both these Sikhs deserve to be mentioned whenever the history of Sikhs in Britain is discussed. Sadly, they had both died by the time I was invited to write this book but a friend of Piara Singh’s, Professor Bakshish Singh, readily agreed to be my consultant, it being my strongly held belief that, while outsiders have a place in writing about a religion, they should always work with those whose beliefs they are studying and communicating.
When I began teaching Sikhism there were not many books that I could recommend to my students that were of an introductory nature. This one, I hope, would have met their needs.
W Owen Cole, 2010
1: Only got a minute?
The origins of Sikhism lie in the spiritual and social teachings of Guru Nanak (1469–1539 CE) who lived in the Punjab region of northern India. Around the year 1500, accompanied by a Muslim musician, Mardana, he began a series of preaching tours inspired by the belief that this was the life work that Akal Purukh, the Timeless One, God, had commissioned him to do.
His mission was to all people, women and men, of all castes, and Hindus and Muslims. The language he used was that spoken by Punjabis of the period. A favourite teaching method was poetry, which was set to music by his companion.
He taught that family life was the one acceptable to God, rather than a state that poor villagers had to endure of necessity, and that human beings are called to a life of service, seva.
Towards the end of his life he settled with his family in a village called Kartarpur, the town of the Creator, on the banks of the river Ravi. With him were many of his disciples, which is what the word Sikh means. Before he died he initiated one of his followers as his successor.
All told, there were ten such Gurus during the period to 1708, when Guru Gobind Singh invested guruship in the scripture and the community, or Panth.
5: Only got five minutes?
The principles and story of Sikhism can be perceived in worship. In earliest times followers would gather around the Guru and sit at his feet to listen to his teaching and sing his compositions, which we might as well call hymns. He would be seated on a raised cushion or stool known as a gaddi, and someone might wave a fan over him as a symbol of respect. After this simple form of worship everyone would share in an equally simple vegetarian meal – vegetarian to make it inclusive (pork would have made it unacceptable to Muslims and beef would have made it unacceptable to Hindus). Groups of men and women would cook and serve the food. Because they preformed this act of seva they would be known as sevadars.
Today in gurdwaras, places where Sikhs worship worldwide, one will see the scripture (the Guru Granth Sahib) raised on a dais (gaddi) with a fan (chauri) waved over it, and the congregation sitting on the floor. Food will be prepared by sevadars and served to everyone. This meal is called langar and Sikhs will say that no one should leave the Guru’s presence hungry! Anyone who can read and intone the scriptures correctly may lead the worship, man or woman; there is no priesthood.
Ceremonies – name giving, marriage and funerals – have developed, and all focus on the scripture. A child’s name should be chosen from the initial letter of a verse selected at random and a wedding involves the couple walking three times round the Guru Granth Sahib. The funeral cortège may not always be brought to the gurdwara but hymns and prayers based on the scripture will precede and accompany the ceremony, and afterwards the community will often gather in the gurdwara for further prayers. Continuous readings of the scripture, lasting about 48 hours, or non-continuous readings held over a period of about nine days, are ways in which Sikhs observe many formal community and family occasions. It may be said that the Guru Granth Sahib lies at the heart of the religion.
In 1699, the Tenth Guru encouraged Sikhs to be initiated into a new fellowship known as the Khalsa, which is op
en to men and women. Such Sikhs must dress in a particular manner, wearing what are known as the five Ks, as in Punjabi each piece begins with the initial ‘K’. They are kesh (uncut hair), kangha (comb), kara (steel wristlet), kirpan (sword) and kaccha (shorts, now usually worn as an undergarment). However, not all Sikhs are Khalsa, or even wear the turban.
Among the many interesting features of Sikhism is the use of surnames. Female members of the Khalsa were encouraged to use the name Kaur, and male members Singh. Traditional Indian surnames disclose the caste to which a person belongs. The use of Kaur (princess) and Singh (lion) overcomes this and provides a sense of self-respect. Incidentally, it also overcomes the obstacle that many feminists are aware of: Sikh women need not take the name of their father! Guru Nanak said that God was his mother and father; Sikh feminists may have to fight Punjabi tradition but certainly not theology.
Diversity may increasingly characterize the religion, whose members number more than 25 million worldwide (some suggest a figure of almost 40 million), but acceptance of the basic beliefs, as outlined, are essential.
1
Introduction: worship
In this chapter you will learn:
about the key Sikh activity, congregational worship
about gurdwaras in the dispersion (diaspora)
about functionaries in what is essentially a non-hierarchical religion.
Figure 1.1 This photograph shows the kind of scene you would see if you entered a Sikh place of worship, a gurdwara, almost anywhere in the world.
Look at Figure 1.1 and notice the following:
the ornate canopy and the posts that support it
the woman sitting below the canopy, holding a fan (chauri)
the musicians with their Indian instruments
a man preparing to bow
people sitting on the floor, men and women separate; not all the men are wearing turbans, though everyone’s head is covered. (The women are out of picture, on the right.)
Sikhism- An Introduction