Sikhism

What it is

The religion founded by Guru Nanak in fifteenth-century Punjab, followed by around 25 to 30 million people.

Its opening statement, the Mūl Mantar, begins Ik Onkār — one reality, one being — and proceeds: true by name, creative in person, without fear, without enmity, timeless in form, unborn, self-existent.

The practical core is three commitments, and they are as central as any doctrine:

• Nām japṇā — remembrance of the divine name, in meditation and daily life
• Kirat karō — earning an honest living by one's own work
• Vaṇḍ chakkō — sharing what one has with others

And it should be stated plainly at the outset that Sikhism is not a syncretic blend of Hinduism and Islam. This claim appears constantly in Western reference works, and Sikhs reject it emphatically. Guru Nanak's teaching is presented within the tradition as revelation, not synthesis, and it rejects central elements of both — caste, ritual bathing, idol worship, asceticism, and priestly mediation among them.

Where it came from

Guru Nanak (1469–1539) was born near Lahore. The founding account describes him disappearing into a river for three days and returning with the words: there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim — meaning that the categories were not what mattered.

Nine Gurus followed him. The line closed with Guru Gobind Singh (d. 1708), who declared that after him the eternal Guru would be the scripture itself — the Gurū Granth Sāhib — which is therefore treated as a living Guru rather than a book, installed on a throne, ceremonially put to rest at night, and read aloud continuously on occasions.

The scripture's composition is remarkable and worth pausing on. Compiled by Guru Arjan in 1604 and completed by Gobind Singh, it contains hymns by the Sikh Gurus — and also hymns by Hindu and Muslim saints: Kabīr, Ravidās (a Dalit leatherworker), Nāmdev, Shaikh Farīd. A scripture that canonises the devotional poetry of other religions' saints, including a man from an untouchable caste, is doing something few scriptures do.

The Khalsa was founded in 1699, when Guru Gobind Singh initiated a body of committed Sikhs identified by the five Ks — kesh, uncut hair; kangha, a comb; kaṛā, a steel bracelet; kachhera, a particular undergarment; and kirpān, a small sword. Men took the name Singh, lion, and women Kaur, princess — abolishing the caste identifiers that surnames carried.

Two Gurus were executed by Mughal emperors. Guru Arjan in 1606, and Guru Tegh Bahadur in 1675 — the latter, by the Sikh account, for defending the right of Kashmiri Hindus to practise their own religion. A religious leader executed for protecting a different religion's freedom is an unusual thing to have at the centre of a tradition.

How it is practised

At the gurdwara, where the Gurū Granth Sāhib is read and sung — kīrtan, devotional singing, is central — and in daily prayer at home.

Langar is the institution most worth understanding. Every gurdwara operates a free kitchen serving anyone who comes, of any religion, caste, gender or none, seated together on the floor at the same level. It was instituted by the Gurus explicitly as an assault on caste, since sharing food across caste lines was precisely what caste prohibited. The Golden Temple at Amritsar serves on the order of a hundred thousand meals a day, every day, run by volunteers.

What we can and cannot say

We can say the anti-caste commitment is doctrinal and institutional rather than aspirational, and that caste distinctions nonetheless persist socially among Sikhs — a gap the tradition's own reformers address.

We can say the tradition is emphatic about its own distinctness and has spent two centuries correcting the syncretism claim, generally without success in Western reference material.

We can say the modern history includes severe violence. In 1984 the Indian Army assaulted the Golden Temple complex during Operation Blue Star, killing large numbers including civilians and damaging the Akal Takht. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards months later, and in the anti-Sikh pogroms that followed in Delhi and elsewhere, some three thousand Sikhs were killed — with substantial documented evidence of organised participation and of impunity afterwards.

And Sikhs are among the most misidentified people in the West. Turbans and beards have made them targets of anti-Muslim violence they have no connection to. Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered in Arizona four days after 11 September 2001. In 2012 a white supremacist killed six people at a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Sikh organisations have spent two decades doing public education that should not have been necessary.

We cannot summarise a living tradition in an article, and this one describes rather than instructs.

Further reading

• Eleanor Nesbitt, Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (2016).
• The Gurū Granth Sāhib in translation, available online through Sikh organisations.
• Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh's work, particularly on gender in the tradition.