Thursday, October 09, 2008

Sikhism: The Path of the Masters Post 3 of 8


Sikhism

Sikhism

The Path of the Masters (Sant Mat)

By Sat Kewal Singh (John of AllFaith) © 1987 (revised 10.04.08)
Part 3: India Before Guru Nanak

How one views India depends on many things. India is a vast mixture of contradiction, enlightenment, deception, promise, disappointment and fulfillment. The famed French 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) note 9..

The first reported Englishman to visit India (in 1579) was Jesuit Father Thomas Stevens note 10.. Father Stevens wrote a poem in the Konkani dialect entitled the Christian Purana, in which he unsuccessfully sought to convert Indians to Christiaanity (LoI 27). Because of Father 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). The economic missionaries hoped to capture the Indian market and 'make proper Englishmen out of them.' This was the humble beginnings of what came to be known as '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).

The British presence in India was from the very beginning designed to be one of conquest and exploitation. For this reason the West failed to gain from the vast wisdom India has to offer the world. For instance, consider Lord Macaulay's address before the British Parliament on February 2,1835:

Most non-Indians therefore had (and have) unrealistic expectations of India and judge her from their own cultural biases. Missionaries today are more than ever destroying traditional Indian culture, religion and familial stability. Spiritual India may well cease to exist within our lifetime if these Christian and Muslim missionaries are not stopped (for more on this view the PDF file on my main blog). Westerners who go to India generally seek to exploit the country and her people in various ways and hence are disappointed at what they find. When ones vision is skewed by ethnocentrism, nationalism and greed, it is impossible to understand another culture, or for that matter to rightly understand ones own (GSK 24,25). India must be accepted on her own terms. India has 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 [and/or African] 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 Sikhs, the Jains, the Buddhists, and the other Indian religions, along with the many Hindu sub-religions, all had critiques to offer. Some view India as Bharata-Varsha note 11., their holy ancestral land, while others see her as an ancient civilization fallen into degradation and religious harlotry. Others see India and a mirror of the planet's past, present and future. Indeed in many ways India is indicative of life on Planet Earth.

For the Muslims and Christians who are so eager to convert the Subcontinent and destroy its rich traditions, India is seen as a land of polytheistic idol worship and henotheistic confusion. Such people believe India needs radical cultural and religious reform, according to their image of holiness of course. If India is to become truly 'civilized' they say it needs to convert to Islam or to Christianity.

Moreover India is seen as a land of vast riches and historically these riches have been desirable to the largely nomadic Muslim rulers who have sought to control the region. Harmonious with the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), Muslim invaders from Mahmood of Gazni note 12. 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). Much Indian blood has been shed by the Islamic Ummah in India.

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 the Hindu inhabitants to Islam by the sword and beheaded all those who adhered to their own religion" (quoted in SR 11). The typically peaceful Indians of whatever religion have long been persecuted by the Deen and Ummah of Islam.

Historically the Punjabis have viewed India somewhat differently having received the brunt of both Muslim and Hindu aggression. They were often forced to defend their lands on all sides while be embraced by neither Hindus nor Muslims.

When Guru Nanak began to reveal his teachings, 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 Guru Nanak's day, the non-theistic philosophies of Buddhism had degenerated the country by destroying people's faith in the One God. Hindus had always held diverse understandings and philosophies about the nature of God, however under Buddhism many, perhaps most, Hindus embraced atheism. In time Buddhism finally waned however and India was gradually re-Hinduized although it was forever altered by the teachings of the Buddha. Statues of the Buddha and popular boddhisattvas began being installed as worshipful murtis note 13. in Buddhist temples. As Hindus saw the Buddhist murtis being installed they did likewise, again placing images of their own traditional deities back into the mandirs (temples) for public and private worship note 14.. But new philosophies also arose merging Buddhist and Vedic understandings and altering the nature, role and functions of the deities.

    Sikhs often blame this return to what Guru Nanak viewed as idolatry on the Brahminical priesthood, whom he said, "had reduced the religion to a mockery, performing rites and rituals and superstitious ceremonies devoid of any sense and meaning" (SR 10).

  • 2) The significant Buddhist teaching of ahimsa or non-violence and non-resistance were, from Guru 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 being 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 Guru Nanak and he stressed the essential equality of all people. Equality became a hallmark of Sikh teaching and religion.

According to people like William Eerdmans despite this desire for universal brotherhood, in contemporary Punjabi Sikhism the caste system is still observed in many quarters (WR 199). I spoke with a Sikh teacher named Pramjit Singh and he disagreed with this assessment (P).

According to the Sikhs and most other historians, Muslim rule of India was fierce. As stated above note 15., for the Muslims, peaceful conversion was preferable, but in India the sword proved more effective and the Ummah in India was ruthless. In the name of Allah and His Prophet Muslims slaughtered men, women and children by the thousands without mercy, plundering their homes and destroying their ancient temples. According to G.T. Garratt, "The [Muslim] conquest [of India] 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 the Great 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, their teachings and their followers.

Continue on to Part 4: The Peacock Throne




Notes for Part Three

    • 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).Return
    • 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). Return
    • 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. Return
    • 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). Return
    • Note 13: Murtis are visible manifestations of divine beings which are worshipped or meditated upon. They 'channel'the divine presence. Return
    • 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. Return
    • Note 15: See above. Return
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