Later Mughals v1.c6.s16: Sec. 16.—The Doctrines of Sikhism and Their Effect on the Sect.
Later Mughals v1.c6.s16
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Sec. 16.—The Doctrines of Sikhism and Their Effect on the Sect.
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Before we enter on the life of Tegh Bahadur's son Govind Singh, the tenth and last Guru, it will be well to state briefly the tenets of the sect both as originally established by Nanak the founder and as modified by his last successor in spiritual office. But in a work not dealing specially with moral or ethical questions, the chief point of interest is the outward manifestations of their religion and its effect upon them as members of society rather than as individuals. Looked at superficially, Nanak, by putting in the background the Hindu mythology and proclaiming the oneness of the Supreme Being, may be considered as having taken steps to a reconciliation between the Hindu and the Musalman faiths. On this ground some have even classed Nanak as the founder of a Muhammadan sect.
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∗ For the Sikh account, see Mac. iv. 363—387. On the other hand Ijad (Fragment, f. 13a) says that Alamgir had issued the farman for Tegh Bahadur's arrest but the order was kept secret. He was made prisoner by Dilawar Khan faujdar of Sarhind when encamped near Rupar, intending to proceed to the Ganges to bathe. When brought to Court he refused to become a Muhammadan and was executed. I have not traced any good Muhammadan account of Tegh Bahadur's capture and execution. By that I mean an account of a contemporary or nearly contemporary writer. Trumpp relies on J. D. Cunningham's History, pp. 61, 62. He, I find, depends in turn on the Siyar-ul-mutakherin (Briggs 112), a far from contemporary work, for it was written in 1783 (Dowson and Elliot, viii. 196). I do not know the source of Ghulam Husain's information.
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According to Dr. Trumpp, it is quite a mistake to think he tried to bring into accord the Hindu and the Muhammadan ideas about God. His communion with Muhammadans, so far as it went, was due rather to the presence within Islam of the Sufi heresy, a veiled Pantheism. In Dr. Trumpp's opinion Nanak's conception of the Supreme Being was entirely Pantheistic, akin with whom he identified the whole universe and all things therein. The chief practical result was that Nanak advocated tolerance for each other between Hindus and Muhammadans. [Trumpp, ci.]
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Another leading doctrine was the necessity of absorption into the Absolute Substance. When the soul reaches this goal, it ceases its individual existence. Austerities, renunciation of pleasure, bathing at holy places, almsgiving are meritorious and are efficacious in helping to this consummation. But the name of Hari is the only giver of final bliss. To repeat the name of Hari with effect, initiation from the Gurus is required. Unconditional submission to the Guru is essential, in mind and body. Whatever the Guru does is approved by Hari. Blind obedience to him is the first duty, the second is the service of the saints. Nanak himself enjoined abstinence from animal food, but except as regards cow-killing this has been silently dropped. The grand difference, however, between Nanak and other founders of sects, one which caused the most profound consequences on his sect's subsequent development, was that the state of a householder was held to be equally acceptable with that of a recluse; secular business was no obstacle to final emancipation. The rogueries of mendicants and Brahmans were severely denounced. The caste system was not directly assailed and, though men of all castes were received as disciples, the Brahman family priest was tolerated and retained.
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Govind Singh transformed the outward forms and ceremonies to a very great extent. But such philosophical basis as the religion had, remained in theory unchanged; though, in practice, the common people soon reconstructed for themselves a personal god. Govind Singh's first innovation was to institute an inner order within the sect. These were called Singhs or lions, and this word, one usually applied to Rajputs only, was added to the disciples' name. The rite of initiation to the order was called the *Pahul*. The essentials are that five Sikhs at least should be present. Sugar and water are then stirred in a bowl by a two-edged dagger; the novice joins his hands and repeats the main articles of faith; some of the water is sprinkled on him, he drinks the remainder, and exclaims 'Hail, Guru', (*Wah, Guru.*) The new Singh must allow all the hair on his body to grow, and must wear blue clothes (a custom now disregarded except by Akalis). He then binds himself to renounce intercourse with the descendants of Pirthi Mal, who tried to poison his brother Guru Arjun, the masands (or Sikh tithe-gatherers), the followers of Ram Rai, and the people who destroy their female children. Temples, shrines and burning-places must not be worshipped. Neither the Hindu nor the Muhammadan scriptures are to be reverenced; neither pandit nor mulla to be obeyed. All Hindu and Muhammadan rites at birth, marriage, or death must be discontinued. The Sikh must wear trousers and not the Hindu loin-cloth (*dhoti*); and there must always be some steel about his person, and, if possible, a sword. Tobacco was entirely prohibited. A Sikh may only eat the meat of those animals of which the head has been cut off by one stroke of a sword. In many places Govind Singh denounces Muhammadans, hill rajahs, and Brahmans. There are many other trivial rules for the regulation of daily life.*
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Sikhism, as thus modified by Govind Singh, lost all trace of an elevated ideal that Nanak may have imparted to it. The Jat race, the numerical majority in the Sikh community, has many virtues, and the Jat in his capacity of an agriculturist is perhaps unrivalled. But as a Panjabi proverb says "The Jat, like a wound, is better when bound". (Ibbetson, 221.) In fact, under the Sikh regime, when he came to the top as soldier and ruler, he took as vigorously to plunder as he did in quieter days to the plough. Although tobacco is prohibited the use of alcohol is not, and the Sikhs have always had the reputation of being very hard drinkers. They are also addicted to the intoxicating preparation of hemp called *bhang*. By the rules of the sect all members should eat together and intermarry whatever their original caste may have been. But Hindu prejudice still survives in practice so strongly, that Sikhs coming from the higher castes will not eat with others of inferior origin, and it is only on the rare occasion of a *sangat*, or religious gathering, at the holy place Amritsar, that the rule is observed in its integrity.
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∗ Cunningham's History of the Sikhs, 359; Malcolm's Sketch 182, Trumpp's Adi Granth, cxvi.
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A few words may appropriately find a place here on the races or castes from which the Sikhs were principally recruited. We have seen that their religion was, as it is still, almost entirely localized in the Panjab, its home lying in the country north of Dihli between the Ravi on the west and the Jamuna on the east. The Sikhs are not a very numerous body, furnishing under 8 per cent. of the total population in the Panjab. All of the Gurus belonged to one or other sub-division of the Khatri tribe, now chiefly found in the Panjab. It was thus from its origin distinctly a non-Brahman religion; Brahmans always stood aloof from it, and under Guru Govind's rules they were to be dealt with as enemies. Etymologically the name Khatri came, no doubt, from the second or warrior tribe of Manu's four divisions, the Kshatriya; but for many generations the Khatri has been, not a soldier, but a banker, petty trader, or official scribe. The offices of the Mughal Empire were full of them. Numerically they are very few among the Sikhs of the present day, but their superior intelligence and education, in addition to their being of the founder's race, must have always given them a power out of proportion to their numbers.*
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Most of the followers of the Guru belong now, as they have done ever since Govind's day, to the Jat peasantry. These Jats form the great agricultural population of Northwestern India. The region that they occupy would be enclosed by a line drawn eastwards from the river Indus so as to include part of Sind with all Marwar and Mewar in Rajputana, thence round by the Chambal and the Jamuna, taking in part of the Upper Duab of the Ganges and Jamuna as far as Muzaffarnagar, thence crossing to the Karnal border and following the Jamuna northwards so as to end at the foot of the Himalayas. Whether Sikhs or not, these Jats have a very distinct character of their own. Sturdy, industrious, quarrelsome, penurious, they form the backbone of the agricultural community throughout the above extensive region. They are marked off from the Rajput and the Brahman by their practice of widow-marriage. Nay, they are commonly accused of having practised polyandry up to quite recent times, and the number of grown-up and apparently bachelor brothers found in Jat families is certainly a curious fact. The widow of an elder brother passes almost as a matter of course into the possession of the brother next in age [as was the custom with the Vedic Aryans]. In the government of their villages they appear much more democratic than the Rajputs; they have less reverence for hereditary right, and a preference for elected headmen, [herein also resembling the Vedic Aryans]. Nor are any Brahman villages found scattered about in Jat tracts as they are in those of the Rajputs. Judging from experience in the Upper Duab, the Jats, even when orthodox Hindus, seem to be less under Brahman influence than the Rajputs. In appearance they are not perhaps so high bred as the Rajput, nor have they the sharp clear-cut features of the Brahman, but they are, at any rate in the Upper Duab, a fair, well-grown race. Except in the case of very rich men, their women work openly in the fields, and the men have never had the Brahman and Rajput repugnance to the daily drudgery of agriculture. At the time of the census of 1881 they formed two-thirds of the whole Sikh community within the Panjab, and have from the first been the most prominent part of it.
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∗ They are 22 per ten thousand of the population, i.e., only ·22 per cent. (Ibbetson, 139.)
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After the Khatri and the Jat peasants, the most noticeable components of the Sikh body are the lower caste artisans and men of the outcaste or menial tribes. This fact attracted the notice of the Muhammadan writers, as we see in our account, taken from them, of the disturbances following on the death of Guru Govind. Recent enquiries bear this out. In the census of 1881, nine out of every hundred Sikhs were of the outcaste scavenger and leather-dresser races, and the other thirteen were of the artisan class, one half of these being carpenters. On the other hand, there were only four Brahmans in every thousand. Roughly speaking the Sikhs are made up as to two-thirds of Jat agriculturists and as to one-third of the artisan and menial castes. They form about one-seventh of the total population in the principal seats of their religion and about one-thirteenth of the whole population of the Panjab. It will be seen that in numbers they are not in any preponderance, even in the part of the country which may be looked on as especially their home.