Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Sikhism
religion
Alternative Title: Gurmat
Table of Contents
Introduction
History and doctrine
Sikh practice
Sikh literature
Sects and other groups
Conclusion
Sikhism, religion and philosophy founded in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent in the late 15th century. Its members are known as Sikhs. The Sikhs call their faith Gurmat (Punjabi: “the Way of the Guru”). According to Sikh tradition, Sikhism was established by Guru Nanak (1469–1539) and subsequently led by a succession of nine other Gurus. All 10 human Gurus, Sikhs believe, were inhabited by a single spirit. Upon the death of the 10th, Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708), the spirit of the eternal Guru transferred itself to the sacred scripture of Sikhism, Guru Granth Sahib (“The Granth as the Guru”), also known as the Adi Granth (“First Volume”), which thereafter was regarded as the sole Guru. In the early 21st century there were nearly 25 million Sikhs worldwide, the great majority of them living in the Indian state of Punjab.
Golden TempleThe Golden Temple, or Harmandir Sahib, in Amritsar, Punjab, northwestern India.© Tigerbarb/Shutterstock.com
The following discussion of the lives of the 10 Gurus relies on the traditional Sikh account, most elements of which are derived from hagiographic legend and lore and cannot be verified historically. This point should be borne in mind throughout, especially in the sections on the early Gurus. History and doctrine
Sikh in Punjabi means “learner,” and those who joined the Sikh community, or Panth (“Path”), were people who sought spiritual guidance. Sikhs claim that their tradition has always been separate from Hinduism. Nevertheless, many Western scholars argue that in its earliest stage Sikhism was a movement within the Hindu tradition; Nanak, they point out, was raised a Hindu and eventually belonged to the Sant tradition of northern India, a movement associated with the great poet and mystic Kabir (1440–1518). The Sants, most of whom were poor, dispossessed, and illiterate, composed hymns of great beauty expressing their experience of the divine, which they saw in all things. Their tradition drew heavily on the Vaishnava bhakti (the devotional movement within the Hindu tradition that worships the god Vishnu), though there were important differences between the two. Like the followers of bhakti, the Sants believed that devotion to God is essential to liberation from the cycle of rebirth in which all human beings are trapped; unlike the followers of bhakti, however, the Sants maintained that God is nirgun (“without form”) and not sagun (“with form”). For the Sants, God can be neither incarnated nor represented in concrete terms. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Certain lesser influences also operated on the Sant movement. Chief among them was the Nath tradition, which comprised a cluster of sects, all claiming descent from the semilegendary teacher Gorakhnath and all promoting Hatha Yoga as the means of spiritual liberation. Although the Sants rejected the physical aspects of Hatha Yoga in favour of meditation techniques, they accepted the Naths’ concept of spiritual ascent to ultimate bliss. Some scholars have argued that the Sants were influenced by Islam through their contact with the Mughal rulers of India from the early 16th century, but there is in fact little indication of this, though Sufism (Islamic mysticism) may have had a marginal effect. The 10 Gurus Guru Nanak
A member of the Khatri (trading) caste and far from illiterate, Nanak was not a typical Sant, yet he experienced the same spirit of God in everything outside him and everything within him as did others in the movement he founded. He was born in the Punjab, which has been the home of the Sikh faith ever since.
Nanak composed many hymns, which were collected in the Adi Granth by Guru Arjan, the fifth Sikh Guru, in 1604. Nanak’s authorship of these works is beyond doubt, and it is also certain that he visited pilgrimage sites throughout India. Beyond this very little is known. The story of his life has been the imagined product of the legendary janam-sakhis (“life stories”), which were composed between 50 and 80 years after the Guru’s death in 1539, though only a tiny fraction of the material found in them can be affirmed as factual.
The first janam-sakhis were attributed to the lifelong companion of Nanak, Bhai Bala (1466–1544), who composed an account of the Guru’s life that was filled with miracles and wonder stories. By the end of the 19th century, the Bala version had begun to create serious unease among Sikh scholars, who were greatly relieved when a more rational version, since known as the Puratan (“Ancient”) tradition, was discovered in London, where it had arrived as a gift for the library of the East India Company. Although it too contained fantastic elements, it had far fewer miracle stories than the Bala version, and it presented a more plausible account of the course of Guru Nanak’s journeys. When supplemented by references from a discourse by the poet Bhai Gurdas (1551–1637), the Puratan seems to provide a satisfactory description of the life of Guru Nanak.
According to this version, Nanak made five trips, one in each of the four directions of the cardinal points of the compass, followed by one within the Punjab. He traveled first to the east and then to the south, reaching Sri Lanka. He then journeyed to the north, deep in the Himalayas, where he debated with Nath masters known as Siddhs, who were believed to have attained immortality through the practice of yoga. His trip to the west took him to Baghdad, Mecca, and Medina. He then settled in Kartarpur, a village on the right bank of the Ravi River in the Punjab. After visiting southern Punjab, he died in Kartarpur, having appointed a loyal disciple as his successor.
The hagiographic character of the Puratan tradition is well illustrated by the story of Nanak’s visit to Mecca. Having entered the city, Nanak lay down with his feet pointing at the mihrab (the niche in a mosque indicating the direction of the Kaʿbah). An outraged qāẓī (judge) found him there and demanded an explanation. In reply Nanak asked him to drag his feet away from the mihrab. This the qāẓī did, only to discover that, wherever he placed Nanak’s feet, there the mihrab moved. The lesson of the story is that God is everywhere, not in any particular direction.
Another popular Puratan story concerns Nanak’s visit to the “Land Ruled by Women” in eastern India. Mardana, Nanak’s faithful minstrel and travel companion, went ahead to beg for food but was turned into a sheep by one of the women. When Nanak arrived, he caused a pot to adhere to the woman’s head and restored Mardana to his original form after instructing him to say “Vahi Guru” (“Praise to the Guru”). The women then tried all manner of fearsome magic on the pair, without success. After the queen of the Land Ruled by Women, Nur Shah, failed in her attempt to seduce Nanak, the women finally submitted.
Nanak was certainly no admirer of the Naths, who apparently competed with him for converts. (The janam-sakhi anecdotes give considerable prominence to debates between Nanak and the Siddhs, in which Nanak invariably gets the better of his opponents.) By contrast, he accepted the message of the Sants, giving it expression in hymns of the most compelling beauty. He taught that all people are subject to the transmigration of souls and that the sole and sufficient means of liberation from the cycle of rebirth is meditation on the divine nam (Persian: “name”). According to Nanak, the nam encompasses the whole of creation—everything outside the believer and everything within him. Having heard the divine word (shabad) through a grace bestowed by God, or Akal Purakh (one of Nanak’s names for God), and having chosen to accept the word, the believer undertakes nam simaran, or meditation on the name. Through this discipline, he gradually begins to perceive manifold signs of the nam, and the means of liberation are progressively revealed. Ascending to ever-higher levels of mystical experience, the believer is blessed with a mounting sense of peace and joy. Eventually the sach khand (“abode of truth”) is reached, and the believer passes into a condition of perfect and absolute union with Akal Purakh.