|
Page 8 of 9
SIKHISM
The founder of this religion was Nanak, born in the Punjab area of
north west India in 1469. This was some 25 years before the Christian
Portuguese Vasco de Gamma landed in India. Many westerners say Sikhism
is the best bits plucked from Hinduism and Islam which to a certain
extent must be true as India in Nanak's time was a Hindu country ruled
by Muslims. Sikhs themselves deny this secular explanation because
Nanak received his divine concepts in a vision from God. Herewith some
of the main features of Sikhism.
- God. Sikhs like Muslims (and
Christians and Jews)
believe there is one ultimate deity. Sikhs are quite happy to refer to
this one God as Allah when talking to Muslims and the appropriate Hindu
God when in the company of Hindus. (Like Krishnan). In Punjabi this God
is called Akal Purugh. (Timeless One). Western listeners could be
excused for thinking that Nanak was describing the God of the Muslims,
Christians or Jews when he was trying to describe the God he believed
in.
- Reincarnation and the Caste system.
Sikhs reject
these ideologies and believe a good man can go straight to heaven at
death. They believe all men and most notably women are born equal.
Probably the first and only religion to have this as a fundamental.
Unfortunately as Sikhs have always been a minority religion and putting
such an emotive belief into practice in a medieval male dominated
society has proven to be impossible.
- Women. A woman can be a priest (Guru)
but there
aren't any. At death Sikhs totally reject the old Hindu custom of
widows jumping on the funeral pyre of their husbands. (A custom not
banned until the arrival of the English). These beliefs reinforced the
rejection of the Caste system where women are regularly cast with the
lowest in society. In a Hindu society girls are a huge financial burden
to their parents because in their arranged marriage culture a future
husband or more likely his parents, are persuaded to take a particular
girl as a bride by the size of her dowry (a bribe in cash or kind)
rather than for her good looks, child baring hips or intellect. In the
past it was not uncommon for girl babies to be murdered at birth. In
the present time, it is unfortunately the case that expectant mothers,
if their husbands can afford it, will have an amniocentesis test to
establish the sex of the embryo and if a female, to have an abortion.
It might be surprising to western readers that Nanak's Sikhism did not
have a wider appeal in India.
- War and self defence. Sikhs are
permitted to
defend themselves as a last resort if attacked. With such revolutionary
modern views in a Medieval Islamic Hindu society, attacks on Sikhs were
common and still are. It became common for Sikhs to always carry a
defensive and concealed dagger. A ceremonial dagger is carried by many
Sikhs to this day. Hindus feel that as Sikhs reject the Caste system
they are a disruption to society and this is made worse by the
rejection of the Dowry rules. Muslims, as readers can now understand,
would attack Sikhs because their women were equal in society and would
"flaunt" their bodies by not covering their faces or worse, when
outside the home. The English recruited many Sikhs into their army as
they were practiced fighting men.
- Dress code. Men practicing the Sikh
faith must not
cut their hair, but must ceremonially wash it daily and keep it wrapped
up in a turban. The ceremonial dagger is sometimes disguised as the
ceremonial comb, carried to keep the uncut hair tidy. Such dress rules
make it either difficult or impossible for immigrant practising Sikhs
to integrate into a local mother culture and make them a target for
ridicule by the typical undereducated Anglo Saxon male youth. This is a
particular problem in schools because Sikh boys always wear knee length
shorts which they would normally keep on even in the shower. In England
these shorts would be worn under long trousers. Their origin goes back
to India where most men wore full length tunics which Sikhs found
restrictive when fighting.
- Family names. Practising Sikhs have
another unique
method of public identification, they all have the same last name,
Singh. (Male version) This has sometimes proven difficult for immigrant
Sikhs when filling in forms. The idea of everybody having the same name
is to eliminate the possibility of being identified as belonging to a
particular Caste which a family name clearly does in India.
- The route to heaven. Nanak preached
there were five disciplines to follow to achieve enlightenment.
- Piety and Duty
- Knowledge, flowing
from Awareness and Study
- Wisdom, which
flows from human intelligence and Knowledge.
- Grace. At this
point students may experience the presence of God.
- Truth. This is the
final goal and can
only be experienced and not described. Similar to the passing of night
as the soul enters a new day. Western readers will see this is quite
different from the simple Western rules like the Ten Commandments.
Readers must remember that all the home grown Indian religions have a
Mystical element which was positively influenced by the mystical branch
of Islam. (Sufi)
- Scriptures. Sikhs have their Bible,
Vedas, Quran
or Talmud, it is called the Guru Granth Sahib. It is treated with
perhaps even more reverence than the aforementioned "Bibles" of other
faiths. The title makes it sound like a person who is a Guru. This is
deliberate. There were 10 Sikh Gurus in all including Guru Nanak who
died in 1539. The last Guru Gobind Singh died in 1708 and it was
decided there should be no more, other than the accumulated writings of
the other Gurus to be called the "Guru Granth Sahib". Much is written
in verse (similar to the Quran) to make it sound pleasant and also to
make it easier to commit to memory. Guru Nanak started the tradition
with the help of his musical travelling companion Mardana, who was a
Muslim. Nanak wrote 947 hymns. The fifth Guru was responsible for over
2000 hymns.
- Religious Centre and territorial
homeland. We have
seen that Nanak was born in the Punjab which was originally bigger than
it is today and unfortunately now straddles both India and Pakistan.
Prime Minister Mrs Ghandi promised the Sikhs the Punjab as a separate
Sikh state. When she failed to deliver she was assassinated by her Sikh
bodyguards. Amritsar built in 1609 as a Sikh fort in the Punjab is now
a Sikh temple. In England some would say the area of Southall in West
London, close by Heathrow airport is a Sikh homeland. Southall is now
almost exclusively Sikh as the original Anglo Saxon inhabitants have
moved out.
|
