Comparative Religions
Lecture 19

Sikhism

Sikhism Today
•	Has about 12 million followers in India or about ______________ of the population.  Of this about 90 % live in the portion of the Panjab which was left in India following the partition of 1947. Almost ______________ live in the adjancent areas of northern Rajasthan and Dalhi, leaving only 6% spread over the remainder of India. 
This is a Young Religion
•	In comparison to Hinduism and Buddhism.  It was known to few except British colonial administrators who found it useful as a way of life since its followers were neither Hindu nor Buddhist.  
•	The British colonists were pleased that the Sikhs made ideal police recruits. They were ______________ eating of fine physical specimens, trained to meet hazards of war and violence with courage but not abhorrent to the Hindu or Buddhists.
Why was it not known?
•	At the time of the British colonies it was one of the world’s youngest faiths. Its founding dating from the ______________ century.
It is not new in Absolute
•	Way—its basic tenent—monotheism—coincides with Muslim conviction, while the pronounced bhaktic character of its devotional literature and many of its ______________ are in agreement with Hindusim.  Sikhism is an outstanding example of a working syncretism, one of the few that ever proved viable.
Sikhism
•	Is the product of 3 primary elements: 
•	1.the ______________ system of Guru Nanak in the Punjab during the early 16th century.
•	2. The Punjab ______________ structure, especially the rural society.
•	3. The period of the Punjab ______________ extending from the time of Guru Nanak to the present day.
To This Base
•	It must be added the pressure of ______________ observances which together produced a distinctive lifestyle.  This society finds a coherent religious expression in the system which to the Sikhs themselves is known as Gurmat and which the West calls Sikhism.
Sikhism
•	Is neither totally identified with Hindu tradition nor totally distinct from it. A considerable measure of identification is to be found in the antecedents of the thought of Guru Nanak in acceptance of such ______________ as the doctrine of transmigration and in related customs.  
Sihism
•	Rejected some important Hindu conventions: notably the ______________ significance of caste divisions; in the existence of the Sikh brotherhood, the Khalsa.
The Life of Guru Nanak
•	Lots of material is available for his life. Until the ______________ century the most popular of all Pumjabi prose was the janam0sakhi or “birth evidences” of the guru.  These are hagiographical writings, pious tales which idealize Nanak. These tell little about his actual life.  From them and from occasional references in other works it is possible to reconstruct no more than a bare outline.
Guru Nanak was born 
•	in AD ______________. His actual place of birth is disputed, but no doubt that his parents belonged to the village of Talvandi, ______________ miles WSW of Lahore and now known as Nankana Sahib. He spent his childhood and early manhood. Before leaving he was married and had two sons.
As a Young Man
•	Guru Nanak moved to the town of Sultanpur and entered the service of the local nawab. Around ______________ he left that town and became a wandering ascetic. The janam-sakhis describe this period in detail, but offer very little that is confirmed.  It is clear that the Guru moved about a lot in India.  
Antecedents of the Thought of Guru Nanak
•	The ______________ of Guru Nanak have commonly been represented as a syncretic blend of Hindu tradition and Muslim belief. This is a over simplification of the details. This needs to be rejected as false. The teachings do represent a synthesis, but the elements which constitute the synthesis can never be defined, however loosely, as Hinduism and Islam.
The Teachings of Guru Nanak
•	At the very beginning of the first composition recorded in the Sikh scriptures there stands the figure 1.  The figure represents the unity of God, a concept which Guru Nanak interprets in monotheistic terms. ______________ is for Guru Nanak single and personal, the transcendent creator with whom those who seek salvation must develop the most intimate relationships. 
It is the quest 
•	for ______________ which concerns the Guru Nanak and repeated declarations of the way of salvation constitute the burden of his teachings.
Guru’s Terms for God
•	Include: nirankar “without form” and God is referred to often as the “Formless One”.  Another is akal, “______________” and a third “Alakh” or “ineffable”. The question is “How can one know God?”  His first answer is that one cannot know God, for God in his fullness is far beyond the understanding of mortal beings.
The Second Answer
•	God, who in his fullness is unknowable, is not wholly unknowable.  Because he is a god of grace he has imparted revelation which is perceptible to the limited mind of man.  This is the revelation in creation. God is sarah viapak, “everywhere present”, immanent in all creation and visible everywhere to the ______________ of a spiritually awakened person.  The general revelation has a particular focus, the human ______________.
The Person
•	Just as he must see with ______________ eyes, must be able to see with ______________ eyes. It is inwardly that meditation takes place and for the person who meditates in thisw manner will come to a progressive enlightenment which ultimately issues into salvation. The revelation in creation is, for Guru Nanak, of crucial importance, for it is at this point that there can exist communication between God and human beings. 
The Way of Salvation
•	The chief obstacle impeding the quest for salvation is the human condition.  People in their unregenerate condition are in bondage to the world.  Their loyalty is to the world and its values. This attachment imprisons them within the endless transmigratory round of birth and death.  The great ______________ is unreality (maya).  For Guru Nanak this means that the world accepts values that are seen as both good and desirable, but are really deceptive.
The Fate of the Unregenerate
•	Is a protracted separation from ______________.
The Condition
•	Of the unregenerated person is desperate but not hopeless.  ______________ in his ______________ has revealed himself in his creation and by appropriating this revelation salvation can be won.  
The key terms 
•	for Guru Nanak used to express divine revelation are nam, shabd, guru, and hukam.  The first two of these, nam, the divine name, and shabad, the divine Word, are synonymous, each serving to summarize the revelation in its totality.  Anything that can be affirmed concerning ______________ is an aspect of the Divine Name or the the Divine Word. 
In the Unregernative State
•	______________will ______________ to perceive the manifestations of God and his presence.  These are made clear to them by the guru, or divine Perceptor, which in Guru Nanak’s useage designates the voice of God mysteriously uttered within the inward understanding of the awakened and receptive seeker. 
The Term hakam
•	Or Divine Order, expresses the nature of the revelation. People must comprehend the divine order of the universe, both physical and pyschical, and strive to bring themselves into harmony with it. The attainment of this means ______________.
A Devotional Discipline
•	The seeker of ______________ must enter a devotional discipline and persist in its regular application until the ultimate harmony has been attained.  Guru Nanak makes it clear that this has nothing to do with external observances, like temple worship, mosque worship, pilgrimages, or asceticism. The only approved destination for the pilgrim, the only house of worship, is the human heart wherein the guru utters the divine shabad.
Nam Simran
•	Is the term used most frequently to describe Guru Nanak’s discipline.  The mechanical repetition of a particualar word or sacred syllable was an established devotional practice. Guru Nanak’s term goes further. There is an insistance upon the absolute interiority of the discipline, and secondly an extension from a single word to a developed doctrine of meditation. Even this is an inadequate explanation of the practice. 
The Ideal is
•	A total exposure of one’s whole being to the divine ______________, and a total conforming of all that one is and does to the divine Order which finds its expression in the divine Name.
Growing in God
•	The result of this discpline is a growing into and towards God. It is a gradual process that is described in stages according to Guru Nanak. The fifth and last stage is sach khand or the “______________ of ______________” is the final consummation wherein the soul finds mystical union with God. In this condition of ineffable bliss the chains of transmigration are sundered and by merging the soul in God ultimate release is obtained.
The First Successors Of Nanak
•	Before his death Nanak appointed a successor and for more than one and half centuries the leadership of the religion was exercised by a series of successor gurus. This line was terminated at the death of the ______________ Guru, Gobind Singh in ______________.  The followers eventually were called Sikh’s which means “learner or disciple”.
The Third Guru
•	Was Guru Amar Das. He changed the religion to some degree by adding the celebration of rites such as ______________, ______________, and ______________, and by putting in place a system for pastoral supervision (the manji system). Three Hindu festival-days were designated Sikh festivals as well and the guru’s establishment in the town of Goindval became the center of Sikh pilgrimage.
Guru Amar Das
•	Was followed by his son-in-law Ram Das, the founder of Amritsar and he in turn by this son, Arjan.  This established the succession within the male line of a particular family (Sodhi Khatris).  The succeeding gurus were direct ______________ of these three.  
The Arjan Period
Is important for another thing: Guru Arjan is responsible for the compiling of a definitive scripture (the Adi Granth, or Granth Sahib).  It was during his term that the growing strength of the movement first attracted the attention of the Mughal authorities.  He was arrested by the orders of the Emperor Jahangir’s orders and ______________ in ______________Military and Political Involvement 
•	With the rise of the Mughal government in India and the rise in strength  of the Sikh religion, a conflict was bound to happen. When Guru Arjan died the sixth guru, Hargobind, assumed political and military authority.  The community changed but was able to retain its religious distinctives.  The conflict continued into the time of the ______________ guru, Tegh Bahadur, and into the tenth and last Guru, Gobind Singh. He spent most of his life in a region of Shivalik.
Gobind Singh’s Decision
•	He felt that the followers needed a more concrete and firmer organzation to follow and he created the Khalsa in ______________.  This is best described as the brotherhood in which religious, military, and social duties are merged into a single discipline.  The primary importance attaches to the fact that for the Sikh community of the 18th century the Khalsa brotherhood became the focus of needs, ideals and ambitions which develeped in this century.
The 18th Century
•	Was a period of widening hopes and expectations. Mughal power in the Punjab was destroyed with help from Persia and Afghanistan.  The Sikh’s gained power and emerged as a loose condereration of irregular warrior bands called misls. Ranjit Singh, established a total ascendancy over all the others and formed a Sikh______________ covering most of the Punjab.
The Khalsa
•	Has several prominent features, notably a ban on tobacco and the wearing of the 5 “k”s.  These are the Kesh (uncut hair), Kangha (comb to hold the hair in place), kirpan (daggar), kara (steel bangle) and the kachh (pair of pants that do not come below the knee). The ______________ is not necessary, but is useful because of the long hair.
All Baptized Sikh
•	Men assume the name Singh and the women the name Kaur. Those who have been baptized and them left the religion are said to be patit (______________) by their orthodox brothers.  
The Sikh Scriptures
•	Two collections of sacred writings rank as ______________ in the Sikh faith.  Only one of these,the Adi Granth, enjoy an undisputed canonical status. It has a later companion, the Dasam Granth, possessing it own distinctive importance.
The Adi Granth
•	Means literally the “First Volumne” is the collection which was assembled during the years ______________ and ______________ by Guru Arjan. He used another document put together by Guru Amar Das and added to this the works of his father and himself. A little later, a few works by Guru Tegh Bahadur were added and the canon closed soon after the Guru Gobind Singh. 
It has 
•	______________ of the gurus as well as a number of compositions by earlier figures of the Sant tradition. Prominent among these are Kabir, Namdev, and Ravidas. 
The Bulk of the Adi Granth
•	Is a volume called ______________, or metre, and within each rag further subdivisions according to length and author has been introduced.  Most of the material consists of the hymns which were employed by the gurus as vehicles for their religious instruction.  Most were composed in Sant Bhasha, a language closely related to both Hindu and Panjabi, which during the later medeival time was used extensively in northern India as the lingua franca.
The Dasam Granth
•	Is an 18th century collection of miscellaneous works attributed to Guru Gobind Singh. This seems to be accurate in the most part. Parts of it consists of Hindu legends and tales of the wiles of women which cannot be his work. Its importance lies in the testimony which it offers to______________ and ______________ century Sikh ideals, and as a source for this period of Sikh history it possesses a considerable value.  
Sikh Worship
•	The regular ______________ of the devout Sikh finds expression in three observances. The first is the daily recitation of certain appointed passages from the Guru Granth Sahib, notably the Japji of Guru Nanak which should be recited from memory immediately upon rising and bathing.
Secondly,
•	The daily family observance. This is by no means universal, many families gather in the ______________ in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib and read a passage selected at random.
Thirdly,
There is attendance with the wider family of the Khalsa at the gurdwara or ______________The Gurdwara, or temple
•	Has had importance since the days of the Guru Nanak.  The pattern of worship followed within this temple consists primarily of ______________ of passages from the Guru Granth Sahib. When first entering the temple, a Sikh will go before the Guru Granth Sahib, touch the ground with the forehead, and make an offering. At certain appointed times all who are present will join in reciting the Ardas, or Sikh prayer, a set form which invokes the divine grace and recalls past sufferings and glories of the community. 

Resources used:
•	Geoffrey Parrinder, ______________, New York: Facts of File Publications, 1971, p. 250ff.
•	John B. Noss and David S. Noss, ______________, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984, 221ff.