A Brief Introduction to Jainism and Sikhism

Christopher Partridge, Tim Dowley, Christopher Partridge, Tim Dowley

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781506450384
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506450391
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Asian Religions

This brief introduction to Jainism and Sikhism is designed to help readers understand these important religious traditions. With both nuance and balance, this text provides broad coverage of various forms of Jainism and Sikhism with an arresting layout with rich colors. It offers both historical overviews and modern perspectives on Jain and Sikh beliefs and practices. The user-friendly content is enhanced by charts of religious festivals, historic timelines, updated maps, and a useful glossary.

It is ideal for courses on Jainism, Sikhism, and South Asian religions and will be a useful, concise reference for all readers eager to know more about these important religious tradition and their place in our contemporary world.

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SIKHISM

SUMMARY

Of the world’s major religions, Sikhism is one of the youngest. Around 1500, Nanak, the religion’s founder, is said to have been transformed by God while bathing, and emerged with the words ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim’ – a simple creed which formed the basis for Sikhism. Reflecting this idea, Sikh scripture begins by emphasizing the unity of God and his creation. Accordingly, believers are encouraged to accept all religious traditions, and to treat all humanity with equal respect – radical notions in sixteenth century Punjab, riven by conflict between Hindus and Muslims, and dominated by the social restrictions of the caste system. Karma and the cycle of life – chaurasi – are important in Sikhism: in order to escape the punishment of rebirth, one must aspire to the Guru’s example. This is not achieved by asceticism, however, since the Guru was a married man, who fulfilled his obligations to both family and community. After Nanak, a line of ten Gurus, who consolidated his legacy, led Sikhism. During this period, Sikhism’s primary scripture, the Adi Granth, was compiled, from the work of the first five Gurus. In the era of the tenth – and last – Guru, the Adi Granth was itself instituted as a Guru, while the Khalsa, the community of the initiated, was founded.

Sikhism’s early development was in a Muslim kingdom. In time, Sikhs would establish their own short-lived state; but during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had to exist under British rule, and then within the largely Hindu secular Indian republic. In the late nineteenth century, the Sikh reform movement emerged, to reassert the religion’s distinct identity, which many feared was being lost. The last decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of a Sikh-Punjabi nationalist movement, which inevitably resulted in significant conflict with the Indian state, most notably during the 1980s. A significant and vocal diaspora community meanwhile has grown in the West, as a result of post-war migration.

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A Historical Overview

The history of Sikhism has always been closely linked to the Punjab, the land of its origins, because of its situation in the north-west of the Indian subcontinent, always the first region of the fertile northern plains to be exposed to successive conquests by invaders crossing the great mountain boundaries through such routes as the Khyber Pass. The first such cultural inroads recorded were those of the Aryan tribes in the Vedic period, which initiated the beginnings of the Hindu tradition. The last were the invasions mounted by Muslim sultans from Afghanistan and Central Asia from early in the first millennium CE, which resulted not only in the establishment of centuries of Muslim rule over the Punjab, but also in the presence of substantial numbers of Muslims in Punjabi society, largely the product of peaceful conversion.

When Sikhism first emerged, some five hundred years ago, it appeared in a society already religiously divided. It would be quite misleading to think of Sikhism as a mechanical combination of Hindu and Muslim elements, since from its beginnings it has been self-defined as a new and independent third way. Equally, its evolution needs to be understood as a complex process of the ongoing relationship, within the Punjab and beyond, of a vigorous minority community to the two numerically larger traditions of Hinduism and Islam.

Great Guru whose encounter brought the Lord to mind! With his teaching as their salve, these eyes survey the world. Attached to the other, some traders left the Lord and roamed. How few have realized the Guru is the boat, Which delivers those he favours safe across. Adi Granth 470.

GURU NANAK

Nanak (1469–1539) is revered by all branches of the religion as the defining first Guru of the Sikhs (Punjabi for ‘disciples’). He was by birth a Hindu of the Khatri caste – professionals with strong hereditary links to the administration – and his father was a village accountant. Nanak himself was married with a family, and had a career as an administrator working for a local Muslim nobleman. His mission began when he was around the age of thirty, with a transforming experience of the divine reality, granted to him when he entered the river to bathe. Mysteriously hidden from the view of his companions, he emerged after three days, uttering the words ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim,’ taken as the inaugurating formula of the new religion. Nanak then embarked upon an extended series of travels, before returning later in his life to the Punjab, where he established a settled community of the first Sikhs.

Guru Nanak’s teachings are embodied in his verses, hymns, and longer poetical works, which now form a substantial collection at the heart of the Sikh scriptures. In their broad thrust, these teachings are similar in content to those of other North Indian teachers of the medieval period from lower castes, such as Kabir (1440–1518) and Ravidas. They all preached that salvation was dependent upon devotion not to a divine incarnation, such as Krishna, but to the undifferentiated Formless One; and that to observe caste practices and Brahmanical authority was as futile for those who wished to be saved as obedience to the alternatives promulgated by Islam. But the subsequent, successful, independent development of Sikhism itself shows that Nanak was much more than just another teacher in this dissenting tradition of medieval Hinduism, called nirgun bhakti (devotion to the Formless).

Nanak’s hymns combine a remarkable beauty and power of poetic expression with a distinctive coherence and ability for systematic exposition, which is perhaps to be related to his professional background. Their contents embrace repeated praise of the divine order presided over and permeated by its creator, the one and only Immortal Being (Akal Purakh), with a penetrating analysis of the human condition, which is condemned through egotistical self-will (haumai, literally ‘I-me’) to the mechanical succession of suffering, and endless rebirths in blind unawareness of that order. In place of the false claims to offer true guidance offered by the religious specialists of the day, whether Brahmans, yogis, or Muslim clerics, Nanak sets out his own prescription for human salvation: the necessity of inner transformation through listening to the voice of the True Guru within the heart, and meditating with love upon the Divine Name. Only thus may freedom from self be gained, and escape from the cycle of transmigration be achieved, so that the liberated soul may at last join the company of saints in their eternal singing of praises at the court of the Immortal Being.

There is, however, nothing automatic about access to the path of salvation that Nanak describes. His hymns repeatedly emphasize that a righteous life is no guarantee of salvation, since the coming of the inner True Guru to any given individual depends on the favour of the Immortal Being. For this to happen, it is equally a necessary condition that the individual should have prepared him or herself for the True Guru’s coming by living properly. Such a life does not entail the practice of elaborate rituals, or extreme asceticism, which are both frequently stated to be quite pointless. What is important is rather the discipline of living a normal life in this world, practising loving meditation on the divine reality, and supporting others through an honest existence, as summed up in the triple formula of ‘the Name, giving, and keeping clean’ (nam dan isnan).

Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, the most prominent Sikh gurdwara in Delhi, associated with the eighth Guru, Har Krishan, was first built in 1783.

THE LATER GURUS

As has been repeatedly demonstrated, the successful establishment of a religion depends not just upon the teachings of its founder, but also upon how the community created by them is subsequently organized. Besides being a teacher of outstanding force and insight, Guru Nanak was evidently a most capable organizer of his followers. He laid the foundations of some of the defining practices of the subsequent Sikh tradition, notably the establishment of daily offices of prayer (nitnem) and the practice of congregational assembly to hear the hymns of the Guru. Although married with two sons, Guru Nanak went outside his family to select a disciple to succeed him as the second Guru of the Sikh community, or Panth (path, way).

From the time of Guru Nanak’s death, the Sikh Panth was led by a line of living Gurus, until the death of the tenth G...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Consulting editors
• Contributors
• List of Maps
• List of Time Charts
• List of Festival Charts
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• UNDERSTANDING RELIGION
• JAINISM
• SIKHISM
• Gallery
• Rapid Fact-Finder
• Index
• Picture Acknowledgments