Agnostic Khushwant

by Khushwant Singh

  On the Hindu New Year’s Day (13 or 14 April, depending on the leap year) in 1699, Guru Gobind Singh assembled his followers and initiated five, known as the Punj Piyaras (five beloved ones), into a new fraternity, which he named the Khalsa or ‘the pure’. Of these five, one was a Brahmin, one a Kshatriya and three belonged to the lower castes. They were made to drink out of the same bowl and given new names with the suffix ‘Singh’ (lion) attached to them. They swore to observe the ‘Five Ks’: to wear their hair and beard unshorn (kesh); to carry a comb in the hair (kungha); to wear a pair of shorts (kuchha); to wear a steel bangle on the wrist (kara); and to carry a sword (kirpan). The Khalsa were also enjoined to observe four rules of conduct (rahat): not to cut the hair; abstain from smoking tobacco and consuming alcoholic drinks; not to eat kosher meat; and refrain from carnal intercourse with Muslims. Ever since that day every Sikh youth when he comes of age is initiated into the Khalsa by the baptism (pahul) of the sword and the suffix ‘Singh’ is attached to his name. Thereafter he has no caste save one, the fraternity of the Khalsa.

  The reason that prompted Guru Gobind Singh to introduce these forms and symbols has never been adequately explained. Neither he nor any of his contemporaries refer to the subject in their writings. Some of them are, however, intelligible in their historical background.

  Guru Gobind Singh completed the religious facet of Sikhism. He turned an innocuous band of pacifists into armed crusaders. (Chapter 8.) Those who did not accept his innovations of forms and symbols remained just Sikhs, usually described as Sahaj Dharis or ‘the easy-going’; those who did became the Khalsa. Guru Gobind Singh lost all his four sons in the struggle against the Muslim rulers and declared the succession of Gurus at an end. The Sikhs were to look to the Adi Granth for spiritual guidance, which was henceforth to be the symbolic representation of the ten Gurus. Ceremonies and customs distinct from those of the Hindus were made current. Thus the Sikhs became a new community with an independent entity.

  The Sikh Religion

  By legislative enactment a Sikh has been defined as ‘one who believes in the ten Gurus and the Granth Sahib’. This definition is not exhaustive. There are people who call themselves Sikhs and yet do not believe in all the ten Gurus. There are others who believe that the line of Gurus continued after the tenth and follow the precepts of a living Guru.

  Similarly, some Sikhs challenge the authenticity of certain passages of the Granth Sahlib, while others insist on including extraneous writing in it. Besides these Sikhs, there are numerous subsects distinguished by allegiance to one or other Guru or claiming that the real Guru had been overlooked in deciding the succession. Despite these discrepant factors, it can be safely asserted that the belief in the ten Gurus and the authorized version of the Granth Sahlib are the common basic factors of the Sikh faith, and they cover the vast majority of Sikhs. The only practical sectional division of the Sikh community is into the orthodox Khalsa and the clean-shaven Sahaj Dhari.

  The Concept of God

  The Sikh religion, as enunciated in the scriptures, is a wholesome mixture of Islamic Sufi doctrines and Hindu mystic philosophy. It inculcates belief in the unity of God and equates God with truth. The preamble to the morning prayer Japji, which is recited as an introduction to all religious ceremonies and is known as the mool mantra, the basic belief, states:

  There is One God

  His Name is Truth.

  He is the Creator,

  He is without fear and without hate.

  He is beyond time Immortal,

  His Spirit pervades the universe.

  He is not born,

  Nor does He die to be born again,

  He is self-existent.

  By the guru’s grace shalt thou worship Him.

  Before Time itself

  There was truth.

  When Time began to run its course

  He was the truth.

  Even now, He is the truth.

  Evermore shall truth persist.

  (Nanak)

  The tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, ventured farther into philosophic speculation in describing God as akalpurukh (timeless):

  Time is the only God,

  The primal and the final

  The creator and the destroyer.

  How can words describe him?

  God has no form or substance.

  He is nirankar (formless).

  Although He is beyond human comprehension,

  By righteous living one can invoke His grace.

  In the first verse of the morning prayer, Japji, Guru Nanak said:

  Not by thought alone

  Can he be known,

  Tho’ one think a hundred thousand times

  Not in solemn silence,

  Nor in deep meditation.

  Though fasting yields an abundance of virtue,

  No! By none of these

  Nor by a hundred thousand other devices

  Can God be reached.

  How then shall truth be known?

  How the veil of false illusion torn?

  O Nanak, thus runneth the writ divine.

  The righteous path let it be thine.

  The Sikh religion expressly forbids the worship of idols and emblems as Gods in no uncertain terms:

  They that worship strange Gods

  Cursed shall be their lives, cursed their habitations,

  Poison shall be their food – each morsel.

  Poisoned too shall be their garments.

  In life for them is misery,

  In life hereafter, hell.

  (the third Guru, Amar Das)

  Some worship stones and on their heads they bear them,

  Some the phallus – strung in necklaces wear its emblem.

  Some behold their God in the South,

  Some to the West bow their head,

  Some worship images, others [are] busy praying to the dead.

  The world is thus bound in false ritual

  And God’s secret is still unread.

  (the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh)

  Guru Nanak, while attending the evening service at a Hindu temple where a salver full of small oil lamps and incense was being waved in front of the idol before it was laid to rest for the night, composed this verse:

  The firmament is thy salver

  The Sun and Moon thy lamps,

  The galaxy of stars

  Are as pearls scattered.

  The woods of sandal are thy incense

  The forests thy flowers

  But what worship is this,

  O Destroyer of Fear?

  The Guru or the Teacher

  God being an abstraction, godliness is conceived more as an attribute than a concrete entity that can be acquired by a person or a thing. The way of acquiring godliness or salvation is to obey the will of God. The means of ascertaining God’s will are, as in other theological systems, unspecified and subject to human speculation. They are largely rules of moral conduct, which are the basis of human society. Sikh religion advocates association with men of religion for guidance. Hence the importance of the guru or the teacher and the institution of discipleship.

  Sikhs do not worship human beings as reincarnations of God. The Gurus themselves repeated that they were like other human beings and were on no account to be worshipped. Guru Nanak constantly referred to himself as the slave and servant of God. Guru Gobind Singh, who was the author of most of the Sikh practice and ritual, was conscious of the danger of having divinity imposed on him by his followers. He explained his mission in life:

  For though my thoughts were lost in prayer

  At the feet of Almighty God,

  I was ordained to establish a sect and lay down its rules.

  But whosoever regards me as Lord

  Shall be damned and destroyed.

  I am – and of this let there be no doubt –

  I am but a slave to God, as other men are,

  A beholder of the wonders of creation.

  In another passage, he refuted claims to divi
nity and reincarnation made by others:

  God has no friends or enemies.

  He heeds no hallelujahs nor cares about cures.

  Being the first and timeless

  How could he manifest himself through those

  Who are born and die?

  Godliness being the aim of human endeavour, the lives and teachings of the Gurus are looked upon as aids towards its attainment.

  The Granth Sahib

  The compilation of the Granth Sahib was largely the work of the fifth Guru, Arjun Dev, and his disciple Bhai Gurdas. This compilation is known as the Adi Granth, the first scripture, to distinguish it from the Dasam Granth, the tenth scripture of the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, which was compiled by his disciple Bhai Mani Singh.

  By the ordinance of Guru Gobind Singh himself, the Adi Granth alone was given the status of the Holy Scripture as a symbolic representation of all the ten Gurus. His own Dasam Granth is read with reverence, but does not form part of ritual except at the ceremony of baptism.

  The Adi Granth or the Granth Sahib contains the writings of the first five Gurus, the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, and the couplet by Guru Gobind Singh. A fair part of the book, however, consists of the writings of Hindu and Muslim saints of the time, chiefly those of Kabir. The compositions of bards who accompanied the different Gurus are also incorporated in it.

  The language used by the Sikh Gurus was Punjabi of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Other writings are in old Hindi, Persian, Gujarati, Maharathi and other dialects of northern India. The whole work is set to the measure of classical Indian music with the number of the author Guru appearing first. All the Gurus used the literary nom de plume ‘Nanak’ at the end of each verse.

  All the words appearing in each line are joined together, causing considerable confusion in the interpretation of the text. It is frequently impossible to tell whether there is one word or two words put together. Despite this, the Granth Sahib is a unique historical document. It is perhaps the only kind of writing of a scriptural nature that has preserved without embellishment or misconstruction the original writings of the religious leaders. It has saved the literary works of other poets of the time from the vagaries of human memory.

  The Granth Sahib is the central object of Sikh worship and ritual. In all gurudwaras, copies of the Granth are placed under a canopy. The book itself is draped in cloth – usually embroidered. It is opened with prayer and ceremony each morning and in the evening. Worshippers appear before it barefooted and with their heads covered. They make obeisance by rubbing their foreheads on the ground before it. Offerings of money or food are placed on the cloth draping the book.

  A ceremony of non-stop reading of the Granth Sahib by relays of worshippers, known as the Akhand Paath, takes two days and nights and is performed on important religious festivals and private functions. A simpler ceremony is the Saptah Paath, a cover-to-cover reading in seven days. This is frequently undertaken in homes with private chapels where assistance from outside is not easily available.

  Sikh children are given a name beginning with the first letter appearing on the page at which the Granth may open. Sikh youth are baptized with the recitation of prayers in front of the Granth. Sikh couples are married to the singing of hymns from the Granth while they walk round it four times. Hymns are read aloud in a dying person’s ears and on cremation they are chanted as the flames consume the body. Despite all this, the Granth Sahib is not like the idol in a Hindu temple or the cross in a Catholic church. It is the source and not the object of prayer or worship. Sikhs revere it because it contains the teachings of their Gurus. It is more a book of divine wisdom than the word of God.

  Pilgrimage

  Sikhs neither believe in ‘sacred’ rivers and mountains nor do they pray to stone images. ‘To worship an image, to make a pilgrimage to a shrine, to remain in a desert, and yet have the mind impure, is all in vain. To be saved, worship only the truth’ (Nanak).

  Two incidents in Guru Nanak’s life illustrate his attitude towards pilgrimage. One morning he went to the river Ganga, where devout Hindus were bathing and throwing water towards the rising sun as an offering to their dead ancestors. Nanak faced the other way and threw water in the opposite direction. When questioned, he said: ‘I am watering my fields in Punjab. If you can send water to the dead in heaven, it should be easier for one to send it to another place on the earth.’

  On another occasion, he happened to fall asleep with his feet towards Mecca. An outraged mullah (a Muslim well versed with Islamic theology and law) woke him up and drew his attention to the fact. Nanak simply said: ‘If you think I show disrespect by having my feet towards God’s house, you turn them in some other direction where God does not dwell.’

  Although there are no places or occasions marked out for pilgrimage, Sikhs assemble on the birthday of the Gurus at their places of birth. The martyrdom of the fifth Guru, Arjun Dev, used to be celebrated at mammoth gatherings of Sikhs at Lahore and is today celebrated in Delhi and some other parts of India. The more important shrines – the birthplace of Guru Nanak (now in Pakistan), the site of Guru Arjun’s execution at Lahore, the temples at Amritsar and Taran Taran (in Indian Punjab), the birth place of Guru Gobind Singh at Patna and the site of his death in Nanded (in Maharashtra) – are visited by Sikhs at all possible times.

  Death and Life Hereafter

  Sikhism accepts the Hindu theory of karma and life hereafter. It holds that there is rebirth after death and that the form of the re-created being is determined by his or her action in life; that a person may escape the vicious circle of death and rebirth by righteous living and thus achieve salvation:

  He who made the night and day,

  The days of the week and the seasons,

  He who made the breeze blow, the waters run,

  The fires and the lower regions,

  Made the earth – the temple of law.

  He who made creatures of diverse kinds

  With a multitude of names,

  Made this the law –

  By thought and deed be judged forsooth,

  For God is true and dispenseth truth.

  There the elect his court adorn,

  And God himself their actions honours.

  There are sorted deeds that were done and bore fruit

  From those that to action could never ripen.

  This, O Nanak, shall hereafter happen.

  (Nanak)

  Society

  Sikh tradition elevates society to the status of the lawgiver and the judge. The last Guru devised means by which the will of society could be ascertained and enforced. A resolution (mata) passed by elected representatives of the congregation (sangat) became a gurumata (the order of the Guru). A gurumata could even dispense with forms and conventions initiated by the Gurus themselves.

  Priesthood

  The Sikhs do not have priests. All adults, irrespective of status or sex, are competent to perform religious ceremonies. A class of professional scripture readers (granthis) and musicians (raagis) has come into existence, but they function mainly in big cities, where the size of the congregation renders some sort of institutionalism necessary.

  The Caste System

  The Sikh religion does not recognize the caste system. Guru Nanak chose a Muslim musician who would normally be beyond the pale of the caste system as a companion. Nanak’s writings abound with passages describing as ungodly the conduct of those who condemn God’s creatures to untouchability. For instance:

  There are ignoble amongst the noblest,

  And pure amongst the despised.

  The former shalt thou avoid.

  And be the dust under the foot of the other.

  The second Guru, Angad, said:

  The Hindus say there are four castes

  But they are all of one seed.

  ’Tis like clay of which pots are made

  In diverse shapes and forms – yet the clay is the same.

  So is the body of man made of five elements.

&nbs
p; How can one amongst them be high and another low?

  Guru Gobind’s first five disciples included three who were from the lower castes. With determined deliberation, he said that he would mix the four castes into one – like the four constituents of paan (betel), which when chewed, produce just one colour.

  Prayer

  A feature of the Sikh religion, which is particularly striking, is its emphasis on prayer. The form of prayer is usually the repetition of the name of God and in chanting hymns of praise. This was popularized by the Bhakti cult, and Sikhism is its chief exponent today. The Sikh scriptures abound with the exhortation to repeat ‘the True Name’ as purification from sin and impious thoughts:

  As hands or feet besmirched with slime,

  Water washes white;

  As garments dark with grime

  Rinsed with soap are made light;

  So when sin soils the soul

  Prayer alone shall make it whole.

  Words do not the saint or sinner make,

  Action alone is written in the book of fate,

  What we sow that alone we take;

  O Nanak, be saved or for ever transmigrate.

  (Nanak)

  At the same time, there are positive injunctions against austere asceticism involving renunciation of society, celibacy and penance. All the Gurus led normal family lives and discharged secular functions as householders and as the spiritual mentors of their people. The concept of righteous living is meaningless except in the context of the community. There is constant reference to being in the world but not worldly. The ideal is to achieve saintliness as a member of society and to lead a spiritual existence with the necessary material requisites (raj mein jog kamayo):

  Religion lieth not in the patched coat the Yogi wears,

  Not in the staff he bears,

  Nor in the ashes on his body.

  Religion lieth not in rings in the ears,

  Not in a shaven head,

  Nor in the blowing of the conch shell.