Sikh

SIKH. - A community that was originally religious and later also military and political, of northern India. Nanak (1469-1538), its founder, born near Lahore, in the Punjab, set out to unite Indians and Muslims into a single, great community, abolishing the castes and spreading a rigidly monotheistic religion, which repudiated Vedic polytheism and the sacred Brahmanic scriptures, the Vedas, replacing them with the Granth, "the Book," the Bible of the S.

The Granth is written in an ancient Hindi dialect, mixed with Punjabi, and contains prayers and religious hymns by various authors, among them Nanak himself, the first guru or spiritual master, and Arjun Dev (1581-1606), the presumed collector of the sacred writings into a volume that was later called the Adigranth, "First Book," to distinguish it from another, later anthology. Along with the priestly privileges, Nanak had abolished all forms of Brahmanic worship and especially idolatry, in conformity with Islam, which forbids the worship of images. But the people need to love something concrete, and so they made the sacred book the object of their veneration, especially after Govind Singh (1675-1708), the tenth and last guru, proclaimed the Adigranth the representative of God on earth. The S. are the "disciples" (Sanskrit s'iyāz) of Nanak, today deprived of political dominion, but not of religious and social importance. Their dogmatics is rather confused. Nanak's theism was mixed with pantheism, since it had not been possible to unify religious conceptions as different as the Muslim idea of God and that of Hinduism, Allah and Hari (Vishnu). Belief in the migration of souls (samsāra) is common to the S. as well; Govind Singh claimed to be the reincarnation of Nanak. The respect for the cow, characteristic of Hinduism, continues to be observed, but it is permitted to eat the flesh of animals, even domestic ones, provided they are killed without making them suffer, with a blow to the back of the head. Among the most important disciplinary rules to be remembered is the prohibition of tobacco. Certain essential rites, such as the celebration of marriage and funeral honors, are preserved, but without the assistance of the Brahmins. The marriage bond is now consecrated with the recitation of passages from the Adigranth and the circumambulation of the sacred Book, which has replaced the circumambulation of the domestic fire.

The political history of the S. can be briefly summarized as follows. The S. became warriors in the 18th century out of the necessity of defending themselves against the Mongols, invaders of the Punjab where the S. were settled and had their holy city, Amritsar. The first to take up arms against the Mughals was the guru Hargobind, but the military power of the S. began with Govind Singh, the founder of the brotherhood called Khālsā, "property (of God)." Within the community caste privileges were abolished. All members of the Khālsā were considered sons of Govind Singh and received the title of singh, "lions," that is, true warriors. In the 18th century the possessions of the Khālsā had become hereditary principalities; Ranjit Singh, the national hero of the S., united them under his sovereignty, conquered Kashmir, and reigned with the title of mohārā) over a territory that extended to the northwest as far as the Afghan frontier, beyond Peshawar, and to the southeast as far as the Sutlej. Out of prudence he had not crossed the river, but his son, Dhulip Singh, yielding to the army's greed for conquest, invaded the British protectorate beyond the Sutlej, on 11 Dec. 1845. The S. were severely defeated on two occasions and their state was annexed to the British Empire in 1849. They are now a religious association with a central seat at Amritsar and branches throughout the Punjab. They have seminaries, schools, orphanages and even a bank and a newspaper. They number 4,300,000 according to the census of 1931.

Ferdinando Belloni Filippi