Hinduism and Sikhism: Difference between revisions
Content deleted Content added
mNo edit summary |
|||
| (14 intermediate revisions by 9 users not shown) | |||
Line 5:
[[File:Temple Golden.jpg|thumb|It has been usual to regard the Sikhs as essentially Hindu... yet in religious faith and worldly aspiration, they are wholly different from other Indians, and they are bound together by an objective unknown elsewhere. ~ Joseph D. Cunningham]]
[[Image:The_Rig_Veda.jpg|right|thumb|The Guru sahib had rejected the Vedas calling them creators of discord, preachers of sin and a treasure of worldly greed that takes one away from God. And he had called the followers of the Vedas as selfish liars who shall be punished by angels of death. ~ Pandit Kartar Singh Dakha]]
[[File:Guru.Nanak.with.Hindu.holymen-a.jpg|right|thumb|]]
[[File:19th century Janam Sakhi, Guru Nanak meets the Vishnu devotee Praladh.jpg|right|thumb|]]
'''[[w:Hinduism and Sikhism|Hinduism and Sikhism]]''' (religions of the Indian subcontinent) have numerous differences but also share some philosophical concepts such as Karma, Dharma, Mukti, Maya and Saṃsāra. Guru Nanak criticized bad rituals and practices and told to see God from within themselves instead of belief in idols and other imaginery images.
==Quotes==
Line 17 ⟶ 19:
*Sikh Gurus adopted the names like Rama and Krishna derived from Indian mythology for God as these were current among the Indian people and had become synonymous with God in common speech. Thus, Rama, the name of hero-prince in Ramayana, had become the most popular term for God. In Guru Granth Sahib, Ram-Nam means literally God’s name and implies devotion, prayer, meditation. Rama is used to designate God by Guru Nanak in Japuji.
**G.S. Talib, Teachings of Guru Nanak Dev (edited by Taran Singh), Punjabi University, Patiala 1977, P.27.
* The book belongs to the time when Hindus and Sikhs were spoken of in one breath indistinguishably and it was taken for granted that they were one and that they had suffered and striven together. Its approach is very different from the one which had continued to be canvassed for over half a century even before this book was written and which has also continued to be in vogue during the -whole post-Independence era. Now for a century the Sikhs have been told by the controllers of Akali politics and by neo-Akali writers that the Sikhs are not Hindus, that instead of deriving from Hindu Advaita, Hindu incarnation, Hindu theory of karma and rebirth, Hindu Moksha, Sikhism has grown in revolt against Hindu polytheism, Hindu idolatry, Hindu caste-system and Hindu Brahmanism. And many Akali scholars have been re-interpreting their scriptures and re-writing their history in the light of this new understanding of Sikhism. The early inspiration was provided by Christian missionaries and British officials like Macauliffe, but it was internalized by many Akali scholars. While Kahan Singh of Nabha said at the end of the last century that Sikhs were not Hindus, some neo-Akali writers now take pride in saying that they are some kind of Muslims.
**Talib, S. G. S. (1950). [https://web.archive.org/web/20100620015130/http://www.bharatvani.org/books/mla/index.htm Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus inthe Punjab, 1947]. Amritsar: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. [https://www.allaboutsikhs.com/sikh-literature/books-gst/muslim-league-attack-on-sikhs-and-hindus-in-the-punjab-1947-sind/] [https://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Muslim_League_Attack_on_Sikhs_and_Hindus_in_the_Punjab_1947] [http://www.bharatvani.org/books/mla/index.htm]
*The Guru sahib had rejected the Vedas calling them creators of discord, preachers of sin and a treasure of worldly greed that takes one away from God. And he had called the followers of the Vedas as selfish liars who shall be punished by angels of death."
Line 95 ⟶ 100:
*"No understanding and appreciation of Sikhism is possible unless one has a clear and proper picture of the religious doctrines and thought that had been accepted, and the traditions and trends that had been established in the country, before Guru Nanak appeared on the scene."
**Daljeet Singh, Sikhism: A Comparative Study of Its Theology and Mysticism, Singh Brothers, Amritsar, 1994, P. 320
*Any conscientious scholar of the Adi Granth will be struck by the fact that both in its origin and development, in its soul and body, it belongs to a larger literature of a similar nature and ethos found all over India. And the common source of them all is the Upanishads, the Yogas, the Puranas and the Mahabharata. All the spiritual categories, approach, message, motif, images, metaphors and illustrative material derive from that source, and only the language is regional. But nothing is lost in the repetition and the message remains fresh and invigorating; in fact, it acquires a new confirmation as it is renewed in the lives of Godmen from generation and region to region. The Adi Granth reproduces hundreds of passages and phrases almost verbatim from the older scriptures. <br>These similarities were not accidental caused by a “Hindu environment”, as some post-Macauliffe Akali scholars try to explain. They arose because the Sikh Gurus were Hindus; they were brought up and nourished on Hindu scriptures; they were shaped by the Santtradition of their day which derived from the Upanishads and the Yogas and Sikh Gurus were Vaishnavas who remembered their God by the name of Hari or Rama or Govinda.Nanak alone used the word “Hari’ 630 times; in the Adi Granth, it occurs 8,300 times. Similarly, the word ‘Rama’ appears 2,500 times. Whether one understands these names in their more popular and Pauranik sense or in their more Upanishadic and Yogic meaning, in either case there is no escape from the traditional identity.<br>Not only does the Adi Granth reproduce hundreds of passages from the older scriptures but like the rest of the Sant literature it also follows the lead of the Upanishads and the Gita and the Yoga Vasishtha in all doctrinal points. Its theology and cosmology, its God View and world-view, its conception of deity and man and his salvation, its ethics, philosophy and praxis and Yoga – all derive from that source. It believes in Brahma-Vada, in Advaita, in Soham, in Maya, in Karma and Rebirth, in Mukti and Nirvana, in the Middle Path (in its Yogic sense), in the Backward Journey and the Reversed Current, in death-in-life, the Tenth Gate and the Fourth State. It prescribes the path of action, devotion and knowledge.
**Ram Swarup, “Hindu Roots of Sikhism”, The Indian Express (6 February 1991); Republished in Hinduism and Monotheistic Religions. 2009. pp. 279-281] [https://cisindus.org/2021/01/30/hindu-roots-of-sikhism-1/] [https://cisindus.org/2021/02/03/hindu-roots-of-sikhism-2/] [https://cisindus.org/2021/02/13/hindu-roots-of-sikhism-3/]
*J.D. Cunningham, in his History of the Sikhs (1849), tells us how Guru Govind Singh “became an irreconcilable foe of the Muhammadan name and conceived the noble idea of moulding the vanquished Hindus into a new and aspiring people.” Lord Hardinge (1844-48), in his official papers always referred to Ranjit Singh’s Kingdom as the “last Hindu kingdom in India”. Sir John Lawrence (1865), the British Viceroy, described the Sikhs as “fanatical Hindus”. To the British Government when it occupied the Punjab, “Sikhism was little more than a political association, formed exclusively from among Hindus, which men would join or quit according to the circumstances of the day.”
**J.D. CUnningham, Lord Hardinge quoted in Ram Swarup, “Hindu Roots of Sikhism”, The Indian Express (6 February 1991); Republished in Hinduism and Monotheistic Religions. 2009. pp. 279-281] [https://cisindus.org/2021/01/30/hindu-roots-of-sikhism-1/] [https://cisindus.org/2021/02/03/hindu-roots-of-sikhism-2/] [https://cisindus.org/2021/02/13/hindu-roots-of-sikhism-3/]
*However, the very first scholar, Dr. Earnest Trumpp, a German of wide European repute, who was employed by the British to study Sikhism in depth brought no consolidation to these interpretations. In Sikhism, both in its birth and subsequent career, Trumpp found no newness, no revolt against its parent religion, no Semitic influence. He said that Guru Nanak, the founder figure of Sikhism, had “no idea of starting a new religious sect”, that he followed in all essential points the common Hindu philosophy of those days”, more particularly” the system laid down in the Bhagvad-Gita, which was very popular among the Bhagats”... About Nanak’s alleged rejection of Hindu gods, Trumpp said that “we should be wrong in assuming that Nanak forbade the worship of other gods […] Far from doing so, he took over the whole Hindu Pantheon, with all its mythological background with the only difference that the whole was subordinated to the Supreme Brahm.” This, however, was no different from the established Puranic practice... He also rejected the view which was being currently canvassed that Nanak was a “synthesizer” who “endeavored” to unite the Hindu and Muhammadan idea about God”. According to him, “Nanak remained a thorough Hindu, according to all his views, and if he had communion ship with Musalmans and many of these even became his disciple, it was owing to the fact that Sufism, which all these Muhammadans were professing, was in reality nothing but a pantheism, derived directly from Hindu sources, and only outwardly adapted to the forms if Islam.” Thus it was not Sikhism that derived from Sufism, but Sufic pantheism itself derived from Hindu sources... According to Trumpp, he (Gobind Singh) 'relapsed in many points into Hinduism, he being a special votary of Durga'.
**Earnest Trumpp, quoted in Ram Swarup, “Hindu Roots of Sikhism”, The Indian Express (6 February 1991); Republished in Hinduism and Monotheistic Religions. 2009. pp. 279-281] [https://cisindus.org/2021/01/30/hindu-roots-of-sikhism-1/] [https://cisindus.org/2021/02/03/hindu-roots-of-sikhism-2/] [https://cisindus.org/2021/02/13/hindu-roots-of-sikhism-3/]
* Cliches of this kind, stereotypes of this kind, divide us....In other cases—much of the writing of British scholars on Sikhism around the turn of the century is a case ii point— thegeneralisation is set forth as part of a design. The title of the then Lt Governor, M..Macauliffe's work tells its tale, ''A Lecture om the Sikh Religion and its Advantages to the State''. He is candid about the impetus of the new approach:<br>At former [census] enumerations village Sikhs in their ignorance generally recorded themselves as Hindus, as indeed they virtually were. With the experience gained by time, a sharp line of demarcation has now been drawn between Sikhs and Hindus...<br> The cliches, the stereotypes were part of a conscious policy by which to further imperialist interests.
**Macauliffe quoted in Arun Shourie, Religion in Politics, page 321
* To early European writers, it did not occur to regard Sikhism as different from Hinduism, an observation which agreed with the Sikhs’ own self-perception. The fashion to regard them as distinct belonged to the future of a more defined imperialist purpose.
**Ram Swarup, Hinduism and monotheistic religions (2009)
*Indeed, we are face to face with a strange kind of Sikhism. The Sikh Gurus had worked and fought for the resurgence of Hinduism but now we are told that this resurgence is precisely the cause of Sikh uneasiness. Guru Govind Singh started sending Sikh Gyanis to Varanasi to learn Sanskrit and to study the Epics, the Puranas and other classics to understand the Adi Granth itself, but the neo-Akali ideologues find Sanskrit and these classics objectionable. Maharaja Ranjit Singh banned cow-killing in his kingdom and a hundred Sikhs were blown to smithereens by the British because they stood for cow-protection, but now it is an anathema to secularist Akali scholars. The fact is that it is not the old Sikhism of the Gurus but a new version of it which has been taking shape under the impact of very different ideological and political forces that we are meeting. This neo-Akalism is a child of self-alienation and spiritual illiteracy and it, is at odd not only with Hinduism but for that very reason with Sikhism itself.
** Quoted from the preface by Ram Swarup in Gurbachan, S. T. S., & Swarup, R. (1991). Muslim League attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947.
== External links ==
| |||