SIKHS, seks (Hind., from Skt. aisga, disci ple). The term applied to a religious com munity of which the Punjab, in Northwestern India. is the principal seat.
From the time of the tenth pontificate the sect called itself the Khei/sa, `the property' (of God). At first the Sikhs were merely a religious sect affected by influences. Their re ligon was a deism tinctured with superstition. From the energy which they developed under op pression, and their proselytizing enthusiasm, the Sikhs became, by degrees, a formidable nation ality. Their founder, Nanak, was born in 1469, in the vicinity of Lahore, and died in 1539. To him succeeded, in turn, nine pontiffs, each of whom, like himself, is popularly denominated guru, or teacher. These were Angad, Amardas, Ramdas, Arjun, Hargovind, Harray, Harkrishna, Teg Bahadar, and finally Govind.
The aim of Nanak was religious and humani tarian, and designed to combine Hindus and Mo hammedans into one brotherhood. Ilis three im mediate successors held themselves aloof from political complications. Arjun, however. not content with signalizing himself as the compiler of the .1 di Granth (q.v.), and as the founder of Amritsar. the holy city of the Sikhs, rendered himself conspicuous as a partisan of the rebel lious prince Khusru, son of Jahangir. Hargo vind, who succeeded Arjun, called the Sikhs to arms, led them in person to battle, and became an active and useful, though some times refractory, adherent of the Great Mogul, against whom his predecessor had plotted. Harray subsequently espoused the part of Dara Shukoh, when contending with his brothers for the throne of India. Harkrishna, son of Harray, died a child, and was only nominally a guru. Teg Bahadar was executed as a rebel in 1675. The chief motive that insti gated his son Go vind, the tenth of the teachers, was, with some probabil ity, a desire to avenge the ignomin ious death of his father. He resolved to combat both the Mohammedan power and the Mohamme dan religion. Hin
duism likewise fell under his ban. God, he inculcated, is not to be found save in humility and sincerity. In what measure he was a man of thought is evinced by his legacy to his co-religion ists, the second volume of the Sikh scriptures, which teaches that a Sikh is to worship one God, to eschew superstition, and to practice strict mo rality, but equally is to live by the sword. Govind was assassinated in 1708. His successor Banda, after three cruel massacres of his Mogul oppo nents. was himself slain in 1716. After his death the government of the Khalsa passed into the hand of the Akalis, military zealots who in 1764 had become the rulers of the Punjab. In the early part of the nineteenth eentury Ranjit Singh (q.N.) built lip a powerful Sikh monarchy, which in addition to the Punjab embraced Kashmir, and which Iwcame a formidable neighbor to the British. Six years after his death (1839) the British engaged in the First Sikh War (1845-46), in which their forces were led to victory by Sir II ugh Gough (q.v.), and which secured to the East India Company the possession of a great portion of the Sikh territory. The Second Sikh War (184S-49). in which Sir Hugh Gough again commanded the British forces, terminated in the submission of the Sikhs, and was followed by the annexation of the Punjab to British India. The Khalsa ceased to exist. The Sikhs are DOW divided into different religious orders, such as the Udasis. who renounce the Granth, the 'Sons of Nanak,' the Suthres, 'pure,' and the Divine Sadhs. or 'mad saints.' According to the census of 1901 there were then 2,195.268 Sikhs in India. 1,517,019 being in the Punjab. Consult: Malcolm, Sketch of the Sikhs (London. 1812) ; Cunningham, History of the Sikhs (ib., 1349) ; Trumpp, The Adi Granth, or the Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs, translated from the original Gunnuhhi (ib., 1877) ; id.. Die Religion der Sikhs (Leipzig, 1881) ; Gough and Times, The Sikhs and the Sikh Wars (London, 1397).