Sikhism: The Path of the Masters (Sant Mat) Part 3

Sikhism

The Path of the Masters (Sant Mat) © 1987
By John of AllFaith
Part Three: INDIA BEFORE NANAK

How one views India depends on many things. It is a vast admixture of contradiction, enlightenment, deception, promise disappointment and fulfillment. The French world traveler Madeleine Biardeau has correctly pointed out that, "Westerners arrive on Indian soil in their hundreds more or less persuaded that they will find Enlightenment round the corner. Whereas in fact what they encounter is India, with its dirt, poverty, discomfort, and they never cease reciting what makes this country one of the most backward" (I 5) [see note 9 below].

The first Englishman to visit India (in 1579) was the Jesuit Father Thomas Stevens [see note 10 below]. He wrote a poem in the Konkani dialect entitled the Christian Purana, in which he unsuccessfully sought to convert Indians to his religion (LoI 27). Because of Stevens and two merchants, named Fitch and Newbery, who visited India in 1583, the English developed "a keener desire for trade and exploration in the East" (BI 23). In 1600 Queen Elizabeth granted charter to "certain adventurers for the trade of the East Indies" (SIT XV). They hoped to capture the Indian market and 'make proper Englishmen out of them.' This was the humble beginnings of 'British India' which, with the fall of the Moghul Empire, "brought, province by province, State by State, [India] under the control or under the indirect influence of the British Government" (LoI 394).

Most non-Indians therefore had (and have) unrealistic expectations of India and judge her from their own cultural biases. They generally seek to exploit the country and her people, and hence are disappointed. When one's vision is skewed by ethnocentrism and nationalism, it is impossible to understand another culture, or for that matter, to rightly understand one's own (GSK 24,25). India must be accepted on her own terms. One must allow India to be India, the most unique, ambiguous and seductive land on earth.

According to the fascinating research currently being done by David Frawley, "There is much ground for believing that ancient India was more central to the origins of civilizations than is presently considered, that it may be the source of civilization as we know it ... Though most Western scholars and the current view of history still see a Middle Eastern origin for civilization, much new information is coming out that may challenge this view (GSK 15).

Even Indians view India differently depending upon their cultural and religious projections. It has been said that, from a Western perspective, India should be viewed as the Europe of the East. It is a vastly divergent land with separate cultures and languages and yet is, for the most part, united (or at least related) by a common history of proximity and philosophy.

The Jains and other Indian religions, along with the many Hindu sub-religions, all had critiques to offer. Some viewed India as Bharata-Varsha [see note 11 below], their holy ancestral land, while others saw her as an ancient civilization fallen into degradation and religious harlotry.

For the Muslims, India was a land of polytheistic idol worship and henotheistic confusion. They felt it needed radical cultural and religious reform. If India was to become 'civilized' it needed to convert to Islam. Moreover, India was a land of vast riches and these were desirable to the largely nomadic Muslim rulers. Harmonious with the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslim invaders from Mahmood of Gazni [see note 12 below] in the eleventh century to the Moguls of the sixteenth believed that Indian conversion (and exploitation) would best be achieved peacefully, but if the sword was more efficient, so be it (PWB 445). In the Taj-ul-Ma'asir Hassn Nizam-i-Naishapuri related that when Qutb-ul-Din Aibak (1194-1210) conquered Meerat, "he demolished all the Hindu temples of the city and erected mosques on their sites. In the city of Aligarh, he converted Hindu inhabitants to Islam by the sword and beheaded all those who adhered to their own religion" (quoted in SR 11).

The Punjabis viewed India somewhat differently. They had received the brunt of both Muslim and Hindu aggression. When Guru Nanak began teaching, the Punjabi people were filled with hope that perhaps, at long last, there existed in India a place for them. As Guru Nanak looked at the India of his time (1469-1539) his observations, in brief, were as follows:

• 1) Prior to his day, the atheistic philosophy of Buddhism had degenerated the country by destroying people's faith in God. In time, Buddhism itself waned and was re-Hinduized. Statues of the Buddha and popular boddhisattvas were installed as worshipable murtis [see note 13 below] in Buddhist temples. As the Hindu people saw the Buddhist murtis being installed they did likewise, again placing Images of their own Gods and Goddesses into the mandirs (temples) for public and private worship [see note 14 below]. The Sikhs blame this return to what Nanak viewed as idolatry on the Brahminical priesthood, who "had reduced the religion to a mockery, performing rites and rituals and superstitious ceremonies devoid of any sense and meaning" (SR 10).
• 2) The Buddhist teaching of ahimsa or non-violence and non-resistance were, from Nanak's perspective, making the Indian people weak and unwilling to defend themselves from their various aggressors, especially the Moghul invaders of his day.
• 3) The caste system was another complaint of Guru Nanak. He saw Indian society as so fragmented by castes and sub-castes that "a touch or even a shadow of these untouchables seemed to pollute the higher castes" (SR 10). This racist and classist situation was abhorrent to Nanak.

William Eerdmans says that despite this desire for universal brotherhood, in contemporary Punjabi Sikhism the caste system is still observed in many quarters (WR 199). Pramjit Singh disagrees with his assessment (P).

According to the Sikhs and most other historians, Muslim rule of India was fierce. As stated above [see note 15 below], for the Muslims, peaceful conversion was preferable, but in India the sword proved more effective. They therefore slaughtered men, women and children without mercy, plundering their homes and destroying their temples. According to G.T. Garratt, "The [Muslim] conquest introduced a period of ruthless oppression which went on unmitigated from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, until the ascendancy of the emperor Akbar" (LoI 371). It was during the reign of Akbar and his successors that Sikhism emerged. In order to understand the Sikh religion, a basic understanding of the Moghul period is essential as the drama of those days had tremendous influence on the Gurus and their teachings.

Notes on Page Two

Note 9: India is about 3,287,590 square kilometers. There are over 746 million people with an annual growth rate of 1.9-2.1%. About 80% are Hindu, 11% Muslim, 2.6% Christian and 2% are Sikh. There are also smaller numbers of Jains, Buddhists, Parsis (Zoroastrians) etc. The average life-span is 50-54 years. The literacy rate is 25-36% (ICS xx,xxi).

Note 10 There is also Sighelmus who, during the reign of Alfred, went on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. Thomas at Mailapur but this is not verifiable (PS 414; LoI 27).

Note 11: Bharata-Varsha (India) was named after the Pandava Princes of Mahabharata fame. They were descendents of King Bharata. It was divided into nine khandas or parts: Indra-dweepa, Kaserumat, Tamra-varna, Gabhastimat, Naga-dweepa, Saumya, Gandharva and Varuna (HM 47). See footnote # 9.

Note 12: At the beginning of the eighth century the Arabians conquered the Sind. Two hundred and fifty years later Muhammadan Turks gathered around the north-west mountains of Afghanistan. Ghazni was occupied in 862 and Mahmud, the Sultan of Gazni Afghanistan, made fifteen raids on India, especially Lahore, from 997-1026 (HBI 10).

Note 13: Murtis are visible manifestations of divine beings which are worshipped or meditated upon. They 'channel'the divine presence.

Note 14: It appears that the conjecture is that murtis had never existed in India prior to the birth of Buddhism. This seems untenable. As Danielou explains: However far we reach into the history of Hindu thought we find a coherent use of images to represent abstractions" (GoI 363). It is more likely that the murtis had been removed during Buddhist control of the country and were now being re-installed.

Note 15: See above.

REFERENCES

• BI: History of British India Under the Company and the Crown, P.E. Roberts,
• Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, Oxford University Press, Great
• Britain, 1958
• CC: Shree Caitanya-Caritamrita, Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami, translated by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, New York, 1975
• EDY: Encyclopedic Dictionary of Yoga, Georg Feuerstein, Paragon House, New York, 1990
• ER: Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade, MacMillan Publishing Co. New York, 1987
• G: Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Los Angeles, 1973
• GGS: Hymns From Guru Granth Sahib, Hemkunt Press, New Delhi, 1975
• GiS: The Guru in Sikhism, W. Owen Cole, Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1982
• GM: The Great Moghuls, Bamber Gascoigne, Harper & Row, New York, 1971
• GoI: The Gods of India, Alain Danielou, Inner Traditions International LTD. New York, 1985
• GSK: Gods, Sages and Kings, David Frawley, Passage Press, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1991
• HBI: History of British India, P.E. Roberts, Oxford University Press, 1958
• HM: A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature, John Dowson, M.R.A.S., Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1979
• I: India, Madeleine Biardeau, translated by F. Carter, Vista Books, 1960
• ICS: India: A Country Study, Foreign Area Studies, The American University, United States Government, 1985
• LoI: The Legacy of India G.T. Garrett, Oxford University, Clarendon Press, 1937
• LTM: The Life and Times of Mohammed, Sir John Glub, Stein and Day Publishers, New York, 1971
• M: Mandukyopanishad, Translated by Swami Sarvananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, India, 1972
• NG: National Geographic, April, 1985
• P: Based upon private and public conversations with Pramjit Singh at the El Sobrante Sikh Temple, 3550 Hillcrest Rd. between 10/17/91 and 11/25/91
• PoM: Philosophy of the Masters, Three volumes, Huzur Maharaj Sawan Singh, Radha Soami Satsang, Beas, India, 1972
• PT: The Peacock Throne, Waldemar Hansen, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1972
• PWB: The Portable World Bible, Robert O. Ballou, Penguin Books, 1980
• S: Spirituality: What it is? Kirpal Singh, Ruhani Satsang, Sawan Ashram, Delhi India, 1959
• SB: Shreemad Bhagavatam, Translated by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, New York, 1976
• SED: The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Vaman Shivram Apte, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1989
• SIT: Sources or Indian Tradition, Vol. 2, edited by Wm. Theodore De Bary, Columbia University Press, New York, 1958
• SoS: Ruhani Satsang: Science of Spirituality, Kirpal Singh, Sawan Ashram, Delhi-7, India, 1970
• SR: Sikh Religion, no author given, Sikh Missionary Center, Detroit, 1990
• SW: The Sacred Writings of the Sikhs, Translated by Trilochan Singh, Jodh Singh, Kapur Singh, Bawa Harkishen Singh and Khushwant Singh, Unesco Collection of Representative Works: Indian Series, Samuel Weiser, Inc. New York, 1973
• WR: Eerdmans' Handbook to the World's Religions, Wm. B. Eerdmans, Wm. B. Eerdmans' Publishing Co. Grand Rapids, Mich. 1982

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