The Ādi Granth, or the Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs (1877) · 35

the following Gurus soon commenced, owing to the ahject flattery of their adherents, to identify the Guru with the Supreme himself.' The consequence was such a deification of man as has hardly ever been heard of elsewhere. Life, property and honour were sacrificed to the Guru in a way, which is often revolting to our moral feelings. It was therefore a very fortunate event for the more free and moral development of the Sikh community, that, with the tenth Gui-u Govind Singh, the Guruship was altogether abolished.

"^ith precepts of this kind the disciples of Nanak would have sunk into a state of dull apathy to the world around them, or they would have led a contemplative life in monasteries, as the Buddhists did, if j^anak, cautioned by his many disputes and contentions with the J5gis, and convinced by practical experience of the wickedness and hypocrisy of the erratic Faqirs, had not enjoined to them, to remain in their secular occupation and not to leave the world. It is owing to this sound principle, that the Sikhs have not become a narrow-minded sect of Faqirs, but that they developed themselves by degrees into a political commonwealth.

Nanak and his followers taught, that the state of a householder ((j|*13^) was equally acceptable to Hari as retirement from the world," and that secular business was no obstacle to the attainment of final emancipation. Salvation does not depend on outward circumstances, neither on the per- formance of austerities,' but on the inward state of the mind, which even amongst the daily business of life may remain absorbed in meditation on Hari (this kind of devotion is called J|y|-HJ| or dl-HA-rfJl). The evU practices of the mendicant Faqirs as well as the rogueries of the Brahmans are therefore frequently exposed in the Granth and severely censured. By such pious tricks transmigi-ation cannot be overcome, but the soul gets on the contrary stiU more sullied and depraved.

The institution of caste was not du-ectly assailed by Nanak, though he and the other Bha^ats did not put any stress upon it. He expresses his mind on this point very clearly by saying (Transl. p. 494, III., Pause): "Thou (0 God) acknowledgest the light (that is in him) and dost not ask after (his) caste. For in the other world there is no caste" {cf. also Transl. p. 114, III., Slok I.). Kablr even occasionally ridicules it, as well as the Brahman and the MuUu. Emancipation is not confined to the higher castes, but made accessible to aU men, even to the Candal.^ Different stories are therefore cited in the Granth, that even the lowest men attained to salvation by muttering the name.* Kanak received all men as his disciples without any regard to caste, recognizing in

' Guru Arjun, who oversteps all bounds in the praise of the Guru, says for instance (Siri Rag, Mab. V., Sabd XXIX., 2, Transl. p. 73j:

That really the Guru (not the.Supreme) is meant by these words, is clcaily seen from v. 3. where he savs:

W3 TTST Xlfs 7^^ $fS ^irt Jra Jtm^ II - Arjun says (As5, Mah. V., Sabd CLVII., 2, Transl. p. 573):

f^ f^ f^5 fW3 Ut II "EI^ f3KI JTH'rfH Tt II

dI-dAM3T srftrr II 3ra fi# 35 fx|»HTf7J TT II ' Kablr ridicules occasionally outward austerities; he says (Transl. p. (1(34, IV'., 2):

tR5 t »rfTfe % 31% ^% fe3 f^ »fe7 AltjHj II

^"^ *fe7 t^ "&fS 7>H fsft f^f? ^HTS^ »HT^ft II * See Transl. p. 430, XVII., Paurl. ' See Transl. p. 489, Namdev.

cxii SKETCH OF THE RELIGION OF THE SIKHS.

all the dignity of the human birth, and laid thus the foundation of a popular religion, and it was quite in accordance with these principles, that Guru Govind Singh finally abolished caste altogether in the Khalsa, though the deeply-rooted prejudices of the higher castes refused to submit to it.

The dignity of the Brahmans as family priests, etc., was likewise left untouched, and of nearly all the Gurus it is reported, that they had their family priests, though the teaching of the Brahmans, as well as the authority of the Yedas and Puranas, is often reproved.' It was the last Guru, Govind Singh, who positively prohibited the employment of Brahmans in any capacity, and introduced a new ritual partly taken from the Granth, and partly from his own compositions.

From the foregoing sketch of the Sikh religion, as laid down in the Granth, we must well dis- tinguish the popular notions of the masses. The vulgar are nowhere given to lofty metaphysical speculations; their ideas are concrete and adapted to their every-day wants. Pantheism has never been the religion of a whole nation, or of any large body of men, not even in India, the home of Pantheism. In spite of all the definitions of the Granth, the common people constructed for themselves a God such as they required for their outward and inward wants. The teaching of the Granth gradually disaccustomed them from idolatry and the worship of 'the inferior deities, and impressed them with the idea of One Supreme Lord, whom however they could not realize under the abstract notion of an Absolute Substance, but only as a personal, self-conscious Supreme Being, who created all and governs and disposes all according to his will. It is not improbable, that the Islam had a great share in working silently these changes, which are directly opposed to the teaching of their Gurus. The mass of the Sikh population is now at all events thoroughly imbued with these deistic notions and even educated Sikhs were quite astonished, when I proved to them the contrary from the Granth. I met only a very few devotees, who, being fairly read in the Granth, knew about "the secret."

Guru Govind Singh did not and could not essentially change the teacliing of his predecessors. He describes the Supreme Being nearly in the same terms in his Japjl, as the Adi Granth does, though he was personally addicted to the worship of the goddess Durga; he made the worship of the ■ One Supreme obligatory, though the adoration of the minor deities, as we are taught by his own Granth, was by no means rejected.^

The changes and additions he made in Sikhism concerned chiefly the ceremonial and social duties of his adherents; as he received men of all castes and creeds into the Khalsa and endeavoured

' Nanak says (Asa, Mah. I., Sabd XXI., 4, Transl. p. 502):

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" Tlie Raliit-ncimas go in this respect much fartlier, coiidemuiiig all other worship but that of the One Supreme. The Rahit-nama of Prahlad-rai says, v. 13:

The worship of idols is also positively forbidden in the Rahit-namas; see Prahlad-rai, v. 14:

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" Who adores a stone aud bows his head to any one hut a Sikh: He is a Sakat (and) without a Guru, he is always cursed by the Lord of the world."

SKETCH OF THE RELIGION OF THE SIKHS. cxiii

to weld them into one religious and political body, he set up a number of new ordinances bindin" on all. These injunctions are laid down in a number of so-called RaJut-ndmds or books of conduct ' which all pretend to be dictated by the Guru himself, but none of which appear to be genuine, as they vary very greatly, and were, as may be easily proved, aU composed after the death of the Guru, some of them even as late as the end of the last century. They cannot therefore be adduced as a direct testimony of what Govind Singh himself ordained and introduced into the Khalsa, but only as an evidence of the later development of Sikhism.

The initiatory rite into the Khalsa is the Pahul, which has already been described (p. xc). It is generally administered by five Sikhs and not before the attainment of years of discretion; its administration is considered very meritorious, and by instructing a disciple in the doctrines of the Guru, one will get final emancipation even whilst living.-

Every Sikh is enjoined to read the Granth for his devotion, especially the Japjl of I^anak and the Japjl of Govind Singh; these two he should always read when taking his meals.' In the morning he is to repeat some portion of the Granth, and when beginning any work he is to say an Ardas (>Md-^l('T> prayer, supplication).' In the evening, when taking his food, he is to read the Eahii'as (clfodlfil> supplication), ° consisting of selections from the Adi Granth (see Transl. p. 14, So daru, note 1), to which in later times also some portions from the Granth of Govind Singh were added. As these religious duties took up a great deal of time, they were seldom observed by the vulgar, and are now generally neglected. They content themselves with uttering the ground-mantra ("IT^'T "^trT): Tfe llRT^ JJ^ JJH •

' Two of these Rahit-namas have lately been published in an English translation by Sirdar Attar Singh of Bhadoiir; l)ut it is a pity that he has not given the Gurmukhi text also. Tiie translation is very free and gives only tlie sense generally, not verbally. Fortunately I brought the original text of the Rahit-nama of Prahlad-rai with me, so that I am enabled, for the sake of accuracy, to quote it, where it may seem necessary. The title of Sirdar Attar Singh's publication is: " The Rayhit Nama of Pralad Rai, or the excellent conversa- tion of the Daswan Padsha, and Nand Lai's Raybit Xama, or rules for the guidance of the Sikhs in religious matters." Lahore, printed at the Albert Press, 18/6.

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