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- Khalsa
- Singh Sabha
- Akali
- Namdhari
- rahit-nama
A member of the Khatri (trading) caste and far from illiterate, Nanak was not a typical Sant, yet he experienced the same spirit of God in everything outside him and everything within him as did others in the movement he founded. He was born in the Punjab, which has been the home of the Sikh faith ever since.
Nanak composed many hymns, which were collected in the Adi Granth by Guru Arjan, the fifth Sikh Guru, in 1604. Nanak’s authorship of these works is beyond doubt, and it is also certain that he visited pilgrimage sites throughout India. Beyond this very little is known. The story of his life has been the imagined product of the legendary janam-sakhis (“life stories”), which were composed between 50 and 80 years after the Guru’s death in 1539, though only a tiny fraction of the material found in them can be affirmed as factual.
The first janam-sakhis were attributed to the lifelong companion of Nanak, Bhai Bala (1466–1544), who composed an account of the Guru’s life that was filled with miracles and wonder stories. By the end of the 19th century, the Bala version had begun to create serious unease among Sikh scholars, who were greatly relieved when a more rational version, since known as the Puratan (“Ancient”) tradition, was discovered in London, where it had arrived as a gift for the library of the East India Company. Although it too contained fantastic elements, it had far fewer miracle stories than the Bala version, and it presented a more plausible account of the course of Guru Nanak’s journeys. When supplemented by references from a discourse by the poet Bhai Gurdas (1551–1637), the Puratan seems to provide a satisfactory description of the life of Guru Nanak.
According to this version, Nanak made five trips, one in each of the four directions of the cardinal points of the compass, followed by one within the Punjab. He traveled first to the east and then to the south, reaching Sri Lanka. He then journeyed to the north, deep in the Himalayas, where he debated with Nath masters known as Siddhs, who were believed to have attained immortality through the practice of yoga. His trip to the west took him to Baghdad, Mecca, and Medina. He then settled in Kartarpur, a village on the right bank of the Ravi River in the Punjab. After visiting southern Punjab, he died in Kartarpur, having appointed a loyal disciple as his successor.
The hagiographic character of the Puratan tradition is well illustrated by the story of Nanak’s visit to Mecca. Having entered the city, Nanak lay down with his feet pointing at the mihrab (the niche in a mosque indicating the direction of the Kaʿbah). An outraged qāẓī (judge) found him there and demanded an explanation. In reply Nanak asked him to drag his feet away from the mihrab. This the qāẓī did, only to discover that, wherever he placed Nanak’s feet, there the mihrab moved. The lesson of the story is that God is everywhere, not in any particular direction.
Another popular Puratan story concerns Nanak’s visit to the “Land Ruled by Women” in eastern India. Mardana, Nanak’s faithful minstrel and travel companion, went ahead to beg for food but was turned into a sheep by one of the women. When Nanak arrived, he caused a pot to adhere to the woman’s head and restored Mardana to his original form after instructing him to say “Vahi Guru” (“Praise to the Guru”). The women then tried all manner of fearsome magic on the pair, without success. After the queen of the Land Ruled by Women, Nur Shah, failed in her attempt to seduce Nanak, the women finally submitted.
Nanak was certainly no admirer of the Naths, who apparently competed with him for converts. (The janam-sakhi anecdotes give considerable prominence to debates between Nanak and the Siddhs, in which Nanak invariably gets the better of his opponents.) By contrast, he accepted the message of the Sants, giving it expression in hymns of the most compelling beauty. He taught that all people are subject to the transmigration of souls and that the sole and sufficient means of liberation from the cycle of rebirth is meditation on the divine nam (Persian: “name”). According to Nanak, the nam encompasses the whole of creation—everything outside the believer and everything within him. Having heard the divine word (shabad) through a grace bestowed by God, or Akal Purakh (one of Nanak’s names for God), and having chosen to accept the word, the believer undertakes nam simaran, or meditation on the name. Through this discipline, he gradually begins to perceive manifold signs of the nam, and the means of liberation are progressively revealed. Ascending to ever-higher levels of mystical experience, the believer is blessed with a mounting sense of peace and joy. Eventually the sach khand (“abode of truth”) is reached, and the believer passes into a condition of perfect and absolute union with Akal Purakh.
Sikhs believe that the “voice” with which the word is uttered within the believer’s being is that of the spirit of the eternal Guru. Because Nanak performed the discipline of nam simaran, the eternal Guru took flesh and dwelt within him. Upon Nanak’s death the eternal Guru was embodied, in turn, in each of Nanak’s successors until, with the death of Guru Gobind Singh, it was enshrined in the holy scripture of the Sikhs, the Guru Granth Sahib.
The fourth Guru, Ram Das, introduced two significant changes: he introduced the appointment of masands (vicars), charged with the care of defined congregations (sangats), and he founded the important center of Amritsar. The chief contribution of Arjan, the fifth Guru, was the compilation of the Sikhs’ sacred scripture, using the Goindval Pothis, which had been prepared at the instructions of Guru Amar Das. All of the Gurus continued the teaching of Nanak concerning liberation through meditation on the divine name. The first five Gurus were, therefore, one as far as the central belief was concerned.
Under the sixth Guru, however, the doctrine of miri/piri emerged. Like his predecessors, the Guru still engaged in piri, spiritual leadership, but to it he now added miri, the rule of a worldly leader. The Panth was thus no longer an exclusively religious community but was also a military one that was commonly involved in open warfare. All Sikhs were expected to accept the new dual authority of the Gurus.
The final contribution of the Gurus came with Gobind Singh. As before, there was no weakening of the doctrine affirming meditation on the divine name. Guru Gobind Singh, however, believed that the forces of good and evil fell out of balance on occasion, and at times the latter increased enormously. Akal Purakh then intervened in human history to correct the balance, choosing as his agents particular individuals who fought the forces of evil that had acquired excessive power. Gobind Singh believed that the Mughals, through Emperor Aurangzeb, had tipped the scale too far toward evil and that he had been divinely appointed to restore the balance between good and evil. He also believed that drawing the sword was justified to rein in evil.
Guru Angad
In 1539 Nanak died, having first appointed Guru Angad (1504–52) as his successor. Originally known as Lahina, Angad had been a worshipper of the Hindu goddess Durga. While leading a party to the holy site of Javalamukhi (a temple in a town of the same name in Himachal Pradesh state, India), he passed by Kartarpur and was instantly won over by the beauty of Nanak’s hymns. Thereafter the future Guru was completely loyal to his new master, and his behavior persuaded Nanak that he would be a more suitable successor than either of the Guru’s two sons. A thoroughly obedient disciple, Angad made no innovations in Nanak’s teachings, and the period of his leadership was uneventful.
Guru Amar Das
When Angad died, the title of Guru was passed to Amar Das (1479–1574), who was distinguished by his total loyalty to the second Guru. According to tradition, Amar Das was a Vaishnava who had spent his life looking for a Guru. While on a trip to the Ganges River, he decided to become a Sikh when he overheard the daughter of Angad singing a hymn by Nanak. Amar Das, who was 73 years old when he became Guru, assumed responsibility for the Panth at a time when it was settling down after the first flush of its early years. Many Sikhs had been born into the Panth, and the enthusiasm and excitement that characterized the religion under Nanak had dissipated. Believing that rituals were necessary to confirm the Sikhs in their faith, Amar Das ordered the digging of a sacred well (baoli), which he designated as a pilgrimage site; created three festival days (Baisakhi, Maghi, and Diwali); and compiled a scripture of sacred hymns, the so-called Goindval Pothis. In addition, because the Sikhs had spread throughout the Punjab, he established manjis (dioceses) to help spread the faith and better organize its adherents. Despite these changes, there was no weakening of the obligation to meditate on the nam.
Guru Ram Das
Guru Ram Das (1534–81), the fourth Guru, was the son-in-law of Guru Amar Das. He is perhaps best known as the founder of the town of Amritsar (“Pool of Nectar”), which became the capital of the Sikh religion and the location of the Harmandir Sahib (later known as the Golden Temple), the chief house of worship in Sikhism. He also replaced the manjis with masands (vicars), who were charged with the care of defined sangats (congregations) and who at least once a year presented the Guru with reports on and gifts from the Sikh community. Particularly skilled in hymn singing, Guru Ram Das stressed the importance of this practice, which remains an important part of Sikh worship. A member of the Khatri caste and the Sodhi family, Ram Das appointed his son Arjan as his successor, and all subsequent Gurus were his direct descendants.
Guru Arjan
Prithi Chand, the oldest brother of Guru Arjan (1563–1606), took a distinctly hostile view of his brother’s appointment and in retaliation attempted to poison Hargobind, Arjan’s only son. Prithi Chand and his followers also circulated hymns that they alleged were written by the earlier Gurus. This prompted Arjan to compile an authentic version of the hymns, which he did using Bhai Gurdas as his scribe and the Goindval Pothis as a guide. The resulting Adi Granth, in a supplemented version, became the Guru Granth Sahib. It remains the essential scripture of the faith, and Sikhs always show it profound respect and turn to it whenever they need guidance, comfort, or peace.
During Arjan’s lifetime the Panth steadily won converts, particularly among members of the Jat agrarian caste. The Mughal governor of the Punjab was concerned about the growth of the religion, and Emperor Jahāngīr was influenced by rumors concerning Arjan’s alleged support for Jahāngīr’s rebellious son Khusro. Guru Arjan was arrested and tortured to death by the Mughals. Before he died, however, he urged his son—Hargobind, the sixth Guru—always to carry arms.
Guru Hargobind: A new direction for the Panth
The appointment of the sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind (1595–1644), marks a transition from a strictly religious Panth to one that was both religious and temporal. Arjan’s command to his son was later termed miri/piri (“temporal authority”/“spiritual authority”). Hargobind was still the Guru, and as such he continued the pattern established by his five predecessors. He was, in other words, a pir, or spiritual leader, but he was also a mir, or chieftain of his people, responsible for protecting them against tyranny with force of arms. The new status of the Guru and the Panth was confirmed by the actions of Hargobind and came to be reflected in the architecture of Amritsar. Opposite the Harmandir Sahib, the symbol of piri, there is a building known as the Akal Takht, the symbol of miri. Thus, when Hargobind stood between the Harmandir Sahib and the Akal Takht and buckled on two swords, the message was clear: he possessed both spiritual and temporal authority.
Hargobind fought intermittently with Mughal forces in the Punjab. Following four such skirmishes, he withdrew from Amritsar and occupied Kiratpur in the foothills of the Shiwalik Hills. This was a much more suitable position because it was outside the territory directly controlled by the Mughal administration. There he remained until his death in 1644.
Before he died, the question of who should succeed him emerged. Although it was certain that the successor should be a descendant of his, it was far from clear which of his children or grandchildren should take his place. Hargobind had three wives who bore him six children. The eldest son, Gurditta, who was evidently his favorite for the position, had predeceased him, and none of the remaining five seemed suitable for the position. The older son of Gurditta, Dhir Mal, was rejected because, from his seat in Jalandhar district, he had formed an alliance with Emperor Shāh Jahān. This meant that the younger son of Gurditta, Har Rai, would become the seventh Guru. But Dhir Mal continued to make trouble for the orthodox Panth and attracted many Sikhs as his followers. He also claimed to possess the sacred scripture prepared by Guru Arjan and used it to buttress his claims to be the only legitimate Guru.
