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Sikhism an Indian Religion in Addition to Hinduism and Islam

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Sikhism an Indian Religion in Addition to Hinduism and Islam Berichte und Kommentare 213 Fuller, Christopher John they want? When, where, and why are there con- 1992 The Camphor Flame. Popular Hinduism and Society in flicts? In the following I would like to write about India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. the Sikhs and their religion, then describe some Guneratne, Arjun of their religious practices, and finally go into the 2003 Caste and State in India and Nepal. In: M. A. Mills, P. J. question of the tensions that can exist between faith Claus, and S. Diamond (eds.), South Asian Folklore. An Encyclopedia; pp. 96–99. New York: Routledge. and culture. Masilamani-Meyer, Eveline 1989 The Changing Face of Kattavar¯ ayan.¯ In: A. Hiltebeitel (ed.), Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees. Essays on 1 The Sikhs and Their Religion the Guardians of Popular Hinduism; pp. 69–103. New York: State University of New York Press. Male Sikhs are often immediately recognizable by Valk, Ülo, and S. Lourdusamy certain obvious marks: they wear a beard, they do 2007 Village Deities of Tamil Nadu in Myths and Legends. not cut their hair, they wear a turban, and have a The Narrated Experience. Asian Folklore Studies 66: characteristic surname, namely, Singh (“lion”). On 179–199. the one hand, this does not hold for all Sikhs; and Whitehead, Henry on the other hand, other religious and ethnic groups 1999 The Village Gods of South India. (Second Edition Re- vised and Enlarged.) New Delhi: Asian Educational Ser- wear turbans (e.g., Muslims, Afghans, Iranians, In- vices. [Orig. 1921] dians, etc.). These visible signs of being Sikhs were and are often questioned in the United States and Europe and are rejected. “Today the Sikhs make up the most recent inde- pendent religious community of India. Worldwide their number is estimated to be about 29 million. They live primarily in the Indian state of Punjab, but are also scattered over all of India and make up Sikhism about 2.2 percent of the estimated total population” of India (Gächter 2008: 16). Sikhs emigrate read- An Indian Religion ily, especially to the United States, Canada, South in Addition to Hinduism and Islam Asia, East Africa, and England. As a result of these waves of emigration over the past 100 years, more Othmar Gächter than a million Sikhs are dispersed outside of In- dia (Pashaura Singh 2006a: 146; Nesbitt 2003: 71). All of Europe is part of the Sikh diaspora. In the At the end of August 2008, the media in Austria re- German-speaking part it is estimated that there are ported the following: “Austria’s Sikhs demand reli- more than 23,000 Sikhs. In every country they gious freedom.” 1 The Austrian Broadcasting (ORF, make up one of the smaller religious communities. “Österreichischer Rundfunk”) stated: “The Sikhs in The Sikh tradition reaches back to the social and Austria, on the occasion of an International Con- religious experience of GuruN¯ anak¯ in the 15/16th ference of Experts on Human Rights in Vienna, century.3 He appeared on the scene as a reformer of criticized what they considered a ‘lack of religious Hindu and Islamic traditions. He was an intelligent, freedom’ in Austria.” 2 Austria is no exception in educated person, who missed very little of what this regard in Europe. Similar complaints and ac- was going on in politics, government, society or re- cusations have been directed at Germany, France, ligion, or in nature (Grewal 1990: 7). Whoever rec- and England. The same is happening in the United ognizes him and his nine successors as a Guru¯ States and Canada. The Sikhs, so went the com- (that is, as a teacher or spiritual master) would be plaints, were forbidden by the authorities to use called a Sikh. “Sikh” in Punjabi means “disciple, their typical particular names or to wear their reli- student”; in our Sikh context: a student who takes gious symbols. Who are the Sikhs? What is so char- seriously the teaching and worldview of his teacher acteristic of their religion? What religious rights do and who follows this way (in Sanskrit panth)and belonged originally to the Nanak-¯ panth.Hewasa 1 “Austria’s Sikhs Demand Religious Freedom,” Die Presse, pupil of Nanak.¯ The name Nanak¯ fell away later 28 August 2008. and “Panth” refers now to the community of Sikhs. <http://diepresse.com/home/panorama/religion/409784/ print.do> [26 September 2009]. 2 ORF News, 29 August 2008, <http://religion.orf.at/welcome> [28 October 2008]. 3Nanak¯ lived from 1469 to 1539. Anthropos 105.2010 https://doi.org/10.5771/0257-9774-2010-1-213 Generiert durch IP '170.106.202.126', am 23.09.2021, 20:18:16. Das Erstellen und Weitergeben von Kopien dieses PDFs ist nicht zulässig. 214 Berichte und Kommentare The Panth is distinguished before all else by a I, too, could have prayed the statement: “He is strict monotheism, which cannot be depicted in pic- realized through the grace of the True Guru,”¯ for tures, and by the acceptance of the spiritual guid- the Guru¯ here is described as the True Guru(¯ sat- ance of the Guru.¯ That there is only one God is the guru¯). He is God himself revealing himself. If the conviction of Nanak¯ and of Sikhs today. They bring revelation comes from a human Guru,¯ who instructs this out every day in the Mul¯ Mantra (the original the believers, then his authority does not rest on formula of faith) and when they pray in the morning an office nor on an advance in knowledge in the (japuj¯ı). I used this formula of the Sikhs once at presence of his student. “A Guru¯ can only be called a Mass for Catholic students instead of the creed. such if he follows the will of God and is freed When I asked them what they thought about this at from everything worldly. He experiences himself a concluding common breakfast, they were unani- as perfectly filled by God . The Guru¯ reveals the mous in thinking that this must be a very ancient Word, which God then himself shares, immediately confession of faith, even of the early Church. The or through a human Guru¯ . The reverence for the English paraphrase of the Sikh confession of faith Guru,¯ then, is not worship of a person by people, would read as follows: but corresponds to the belief in the Divine Presence in a person, who in everything is God, except in the One God flesh” (Thiel-Horstmann 1988: 21f.). The 10 Gurus¯ HisnameisTruth of the Sikhs understand each other as the pipeline He is the Creator to the one Divine Reality, who had spoken through The Supreme Being Nanak.¯ This religious authority of the Gurus¯ was He is without fear ¯ Without Enmity vested in the Adi Granth (AG, literally: the first He is timeless book of the Sikhs) by the Guru¯ Gobind Singh He is unborn (1666–1708), the tenth and last Guruinhuman¯ Self-existent form. The Adi¯ Granth is the primary source of He is realized through the grace of the True Guru.¯ 4 the teaching of the Gurus¯ and enjoys an authority which no Sikh would question. No other writing To avoid possible misunderstanding among my stu- has such a central place in the religious life of the dents, I left out the last sentence and added the Sikhs as this first book, the Adi¯ Granth, which has following sentence from the Sikh morning prayer: replaced the role of human Gurus.¯ 6 Although many Sikhs are only partially famil- How great is he? ¯ The True One alone knows, iar with the content of the Adi Granth, they know And he, who presumes and says he knows, the central message of the Guru:¯ Liberation can Is a fool among fools, as such he goes.5 come about only by meditating on the Divine Name (God). This message of salvation is handed on in “God in the Mul¯ Mantra and in other texts is praised the Adi¯ Granth, the Holy Scripture. Therefore it is as the One, Eternal, Immortal, Truth, and the Real. honored as “Adi¯ Sri´ GuruGranthS¯ ahib,”¯ as the title He is the Creator, Omnipresent, Almighty, without of the standard version of this book testifies. This, form or shape. In negative fashion, the Highest then, is “the Guru¯ who is from the beginning, in Being is timeless, unborn, depending on no one for the form of a book.” Today there is no human Guru¯ existence, exalted above all else. He is also beyond in the religious community of the Sikhs. The Gu- doing anything to cause fear and hostility. He is the ruGranthS¯ ahib¯ is the religious foundation of the Truth, which suggests no change, because as the Sikhs, which should become visible in the way they Absolute Reality he permeates everything without live. According to it, all people without regard for adulteration. God cannot be grasped in words and race, sex, caste, religion, have an equal chance to is praised as beyond human understanding; he is reach liberation and salvation. God sends his grace ineffable” (Gächter 2003: 375). According to the to each one who does their best. Caste, gender, understanding of God among the Sikhs, God does asceticism, the practice of external forms of piety not appear as an avatar, as he does in Hinduism, to save the world, nor do the Sikhs believe in an 6 For a recent discussion about the Adi¯ Granth see, among incarnation of God. others, Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi (1978); McLeod (1989); McLeod ed. (1984); Callewaert (1996); Pashaura 4TheAdi¯ Granth (AG) begins with the Mul¯ Mantra of Guru¯ Singh (2000). Sri Guru Granth Sahib (1996) is an English Nanak,¯ AG 1.
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