Sikhs

SIKHS, a sect of dissenters from Brahmanical Hinduism. It originated in the Punjab, where most of the Sikha, "disciples," are still to be found. Although the fetters of Brahmanism have long been firmly riveted on India, attempts to loosen them date back to Buddhism (q.v.) and were renewed by many religious and social reformers from whom Sikhism borrowed ideas and even devotional hymns. Such were Jaidev, composer of the Gita Go vind (translated by Edwin Arnold), who c. A.D. taught that Yoga (q.v.) was worthless in comparison with God's worship in thought, word and deed; Ramanand, at the close of the 14th century, freed his followers from caste restrictions ; a little later Kabir (b. 1398) denounced idolatry and ritualism. Nearly a cen tury later, in 1469, was born Nanak, the first founder of Sikhism, contemporary with Luther. His name means "he who was born at the home of his mother's parents," and it lay at Talwandi, near Lahore. Of a Kshatri family (the Kshatriya had once been for midable spiritual rivals of the Brahmans) a curious, but hardly contemporary, Sikh account of his descent makes him a reincarna tion of the king of the Videhas, Janaka the great patron of the Kshatrya Upanishads (q.v.). The tradition may contain a grain of truth. As a young man he must have seen something of Sultan Sikandar Lodi's (1489-1517) measures against Hinduism.

Early Period.

Nanak's faith was sternly monotheistic. He taught the worthlessness of religious vestments, of ostentatious prayer and penance, pilgrimages and fanes. He declared that all men had a right to search for knowledge of God, irrespective of caste. He was a quietist, and though we have no authentic biog raphy of him, we may conjecture that his life and doctrines did not expose him to persecution, and we hear nothing of any efforts to suppress his teaching. He was employed by a Muslim, and was married, leaving on his death in 1533 two sons, Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das, both Hindu names. Nanak, however, had designated as his successor in his spiritual mission the Guru-ship, another Kshatri, Lehna, who took the name of Angad. (Angada was a lesser legendary hero of the Epic age.) To Gurii Angad is due the inception of the Granth ("book") Sahib ("holy"), in which he embodied what he had learnt from Guril Nanak, adding devo tional reflections of his own. To mark the sacred character of

the work, he is said to have invented Gurmukhi, the "Guru's tongue," the peculiar script of the Sikhs, by modifications of the Sharada alphabet. Dying in 1552, Angad in turn excluded his sons and designated the Kshatri Amar Das as his successor. The reforms of this Guru were important, including the separation of the Udasi order, founded by Nanak's own son Sri Chand, from the laity, denunciation of Sati, and the stressing of Milan attitude to caste by making all his Sikhs eat together. He also divided the country covered by his missioners into 2 2 sees. Dying in 1574, Amar Das bestowed the Guru-ship on his servant and son-in-law Jetha, under the name of Ram Das.

To him is due the foundation of the golden temple built at Amritsar in 1579 on a site granted him by the emperor Akbar, whose policy aimed at welding all the creeds of India into one. Ram Das taught no new doctrines but is still much revered. He died in 1581.

So far, the Gurus had aimed at continuing the Guru-ship by designation, not at setting up a hereditary spiritual dynasty. But after Ram Das the eastern tendency, so marked in Islam, to re gard saintship as vested in a saint's physical descendants asserted itself. Still Ram Das selected his third son, Arjan Dev (Arjuna was a legendary, semi-divine hero of the Epics; Deva was a title borne by an old Rajput dynasty of Jammu), to follow him as Guru, though the Sikhs regarded Pirthi Chand as so entitled by right of primogeniture and the latter would probably have made good his claim to inherit the Guru-ship but for his exactions. Arjan was induced to insist on his right, though he had meekly sur rendered his father's turban, the symbol of temporal rulership, to Pirthi Chand. He established a rude fiscal system appointing collectors of offerings. Guru Arjan enlarged the Granth, half of which is due to him, and is said to have been arraigned before Akbar for setting up a new divinity, but the eclectic emperor naturally acquitted him. Arjan, however, made a fatal mistake in aiding Prince Khusra, a rebel against his father Jahangir, with a modest sum of money. Possibly this act was dictated by a belief that Khusrd would continue Akbar's tolerant policy, but it may have been a forced loan.