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ABSTRACT
The paper presents three short essays on three specific institutions or symbolic representations, namely, Akal Takht Sahib, purusharthas, and the ‘demon’ king Ravana in order to highlight certain aspects of Sikh axiology as I see it. The essays reveal that the integration of the spiritual (sannyas), the material (grihasta) and the temporal (rajya) in the life of individual and society lies at the heart of Sikhism.
Acknowledgements
I thank Prof Patrick Olivelle, University of Texas at Austin (USA), for reading the first two essays and making helpful comments. The responsibility for whatever shortcomings that still remain in the text is wholly mine. I am also beholden to the unknown reviewer who reviewed my article for this journal and made useful suggestions, which have been taken care of in the revised version.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 (a) Two of my earlier papers – ‘Raj karega Khalsa: Understandiing the Sikh Theory of Religion and Politics’ (1999) and ‘The Five Symbols of Sikhism’ (2014) − provide the necessary backdrop/foundatioin to the three essays. (b) A version of the essay ‘The Meaning of Akal Takht’ first appeared in The Sikh Review (December, 2015). The theory or philosophy behind the creatioin of Akal Takht is spelt out fully in my 1999 paper. (c) I should also state that the truth about the integration of the spiritual and the temporal in Sikhi(sm), manifest in such well-known conceptual pairs as grihasta and sannyas, miri and piri, degh and teg, etc., is now held to be axiomatic even if the exact nature of this integration is open to dispute.
2 Only the first use of non-English words has been italicised.
3 Akal Takht Sahib is the highest seat of religious authority for Sikhs, from where commands or edicts (hukamnamas) are issued to the community whenever required. Harmandir Sahib or Darbar Sahib (the Golden Temple in English) is, literally, the ‘temple of God’. Both the sacred places are part of a bounded and meaningful complex or whole.
4 ‘And this God of Guru Nanak is something like the personal Allah of Mohammed, something like the impersonal immanence of the Hindu’s Para Brahman and it is the Father-like concept of the Christian’ (Puran Singh Citation1993, 37).
5 According to Mohan Singh Diwana mulmantra is not a technically correct nomenclature. Diwana terms it ‘a garland of attributes of God’ (Citation1979, 46).
6 Mohan Singh Diwana’s Presidential Address to The All-India Oriental Conferene held at Ahmedabad, Gujarat titled ‘Mysticism Philosophy Religion’ (Citation1953, 1–71) is of relevance in this context. The Address is not directly related to Sikhism, but it is inspired by it. A lengthy excerpt from Diwana’s Address is available in All India Oriental Conference (Citation1953, 77–90).
7 ‘God’ is being used in the text not as a proper noun, but as a descriptve term for the Supreme Being.
8 The convention is to refer to God as Purukh (from Sanskrit Purush) which is a masculine noun. But this is a linguistic convention. In Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture, God is said to have no gender (ਸੁੰਨ ਮੰਡਲ ਇਕੁ ਜੋਗੀ ਬੈਸੇ ॥ ਨਾਿਰ ਨ ਪੁਰਖੁ ਕਹਹੁ ਕੋਊ ਕੈਸੇ ॥ GG: 685) or else He is described as both father and mother, brother and son (e.g., ਭਾਈ ਪੂਤੁ ਿਪਤਾ ਪ੍ਭੁ ਮਾਤਾ ॥ GG: 240), The spiritual relation between a human being and God is conceived as between the bride and bridegroom or between wife and husband.
9 Sirhindi belonged to the Naqshbandi Sufi order, which was committed to the doctrine of wahdat al-shuhud (unity of appearance; homogeneity vs heterogeneity) instead of wahdat al-wujud (unity of existence; unity in variety) followed by all other Sufi orders in India, for example, Chishti, Qadiri, Suhrawardi, etc.
10 Kapur Singh (Citation1975) was the first to make this point. He also makes it clear that Guru Nanak’s purukh is not the same as the purusha of the Vedas or the Sankhya. Purukh and qudret is a radically new combination.
11 In fact, Guru Nanak Sahib had already started putting his philosophy or vision of truth into practice at a village Kartarpur (now in Narowal district of Pakistan), where he settled after his long udasis (peregrinations) across India and Asia. At Kartarpur, Babaji lived as a householder and farmer and there his followers, both Hindu and Muslim, congregated to listen to his discourses and kirtan. Very little is known exactly how community life was conducted at Kartarpur. The successor Gurus followed suit and introduced many new practices and established towns and gurdwaras consistent with the Sikh vision. What Guru Hargobind Sahib specifically did by setting up Akal Takht was thus captured in an earlier article: ‘All the Gurus were concerned, in one way or another, with questions of truth and questions of power. However, the first half of the Guru-period, from Guru Nanak to Guru Arjun Dev, was taken up largely with questions of truth and the consolidation of the doctrine. The second half of the Guru-period, from Guru Arjun Dev to Guru Gobind Singh, explicitly dealt with the questions of power, including chiefly the contradiction of religious equality and plural society, on one side, and the assymetries of power, on the other. It was Guru Arjun indeed who combined the two concerns in equal measure with his pontificate marking the strategic transition from one accent to the other … The execution of Guru Arjun Dev [partly for his religion and partly for his politics] moved the succeeding Gurus and the Sikhs from criticism and individual martyrdom to collective defence and offence against the Mughal State. Guru Arjun’s son Guru Hargobind discarded the seli-topi and the necklace of renunciation at the time of succession and instead wore two swords of miri and piri, of temporal power and spiritual power, as symbols of his indivisible sovereignty. He kept a standing army and built Akal Takht as the throne of the True King, the Guru and God’ (Bhupinder Singh Citation1999, 94–95).
Indeed, the creation of Akal Takht opposite Harmandir Sahib was, in a sense, the first concrete, material manifestation of the integration of spiritual authority and temporal power in Sikhi. There was a unity in the duality of the two institutions, bhedabheda. Akal Takht was originally created to symbolise the defence of dharma, truth, and justice against political tyranny and it is unique. Whether the union of spirituality and temporal power has been rightly understood or practiced by the Sikhs is a question outside the scope of this article.
12 See Bhupinder Singh (Citation1999, 94–95), where the formulation was first made.
13 The date is accepted following Gurbilas Patshahi Chhevin, but some distinguished scholars, including Kapur Singh and Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha, reject it. See Dilgeer (Citation2011, 34).
14 ‘This is true symbolism [as against allegory], where the particular represents the more general, not as a dream or shadow, but as a living, perceptible, and instantaneous revelation of the unfathomable’ (Goethe quoted in Flax Citation1983, 83).
15 All those who are not Sikhs by birth or baptism.
16 The complementarity is also reflected in the fact that every night the living Guru − Guru Granth Sahib − is brought to Akal Takht for rest in the royal chamber known as Kotha Sahib. The same Guru abides in Harmandir as well as Akal Takht Sahib.
17 Recall Bhagavad-gita (4.7):
yada yada hi dharmasya/ glanir bhavati bharata abhyutthanam adharmasya/ tadamanam srjamy aham‘O Bharata (Arjuna), whenever there is a decline in righteousness and an upsurge in unrighteousness, then I manifest Myself (in personal form).’
According to Sikhism, God does not incarnate in human or personal form; therefore, Guru Gobind Singh institutes Khalsa as an enduring arrangement for restoring dharma or justice whenever it declines. The obligation is shifted to Guru Panth, the Khalsa Confraternity, the disciples of God or Guru.
18 See Bhupinder Singh (Citation2014).
19 Uberoi (Citation1996, 17).
20 The statement may appear a bit abrupt and non sequitur. Let me explain. That Sikhism upholds equality and pluralism is generally accepted. Sikhism does not recognise or allow any kafir or shudra in its system. For Sikhism, as already clarified, all religions are true and equal as well as imperfect. And Sikhism completely rejects varnasharamadharma as will become clearer in the next two essays. The third essay on Ravana is devoted to the espousal of self-rule or self-government in Sikhism. But Akal Takht itself stands for people’s kingship. It needs to be rubbed in, however, that moral self-government is but the ultimate value or goal in Sikhism.
21 (a) The Sanskrit spellings are retained. In gurbani or Punjabi generally, they are spelt as dharam, arth, kaam, and mokh/moksh (b) Bhagavata Purana regards bhakti as the fifth purushartha.
22 Varnas are Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra; ashramas are brahmcharya, grihasta, vanprasta and sannyas; and gunas are the well-known triad of sattvic, rajas and tamas.
23 T.N. Madan (Citation1982) covers many of these scholars.
24 While recapitulating the conclusions, it is indeed necessary to explain, even if briefly, the various aspects of the Brahmanical view of purusharthas, including their evolution and terminology such as trivarga and chaturvarga, before showing how the Sikh view differs from the Brahmanical and the Buddhist ones.
25 Hitherto, the definition of purusharthas as the aims or goals of human life has been held to be axiomatic. But in a recent article Patrick Olivelle (Citation2019, 381–396) has shown dissent and proposed an alternative definition of purusharthas on the basis of a fresh examination of its etymology: ‘The three concepts—dharma, artha, kāma—comprehended by trivarga do not constitute goals or aims of human life, as they are so often depicted in modern scholarship. They represent three major domains of human activities and pursuits that are beneficial to persons who perform them’ (395). Olivelle may well be right in terms of etymology, but I see little of philosophical import in the distinction between trivarga-chaturvarga/ purusharthas as desirable ends of human existence and purusharthas as ‘pursuits beneficial to persons who perform them’. I may also point out that Olivelle adhered to the standard definition of purusarthas as ‘aims of human life’ in his earlier work The Aśrama System (Citation1993, 216) but has revised his view in his 2019 article.
26 P.V. Kane (Citation1962, 1631) summarises the Hindu view of moksha as follows: ‘The 4th Purusartha Moksa can be obtained only by a few. It is not a bow which every man or any man can make strung.It was a very difficult path like a razor’s edge (Katha Upanshad 111.14), far more difficult than the path of devotion to a Personal God (Bhagavadgita XII. 5) The Upanisadic doctrine of liberation comes to this that man’s nature is really divine, that it is possible for a human being to know and become actually identified with the Godhead, that this should be the ultimate goal of man’s life, that this can be achieved by one’s own efforts, but the way to achieve this goal is most difficult and requires the aspirant to give up egotism, selfishness and worldly attachments. Besides, there is another difficulty. The conceptions about moksha differ in the different sohools of thought like Nyaya Sankhya, Vedanta.. Even in the Vedanta the conception about Moksha on the part of the different acharyas differs. Some declared that there were four stages in Mukti viz. Salokya (place in Lord’s world), Samipya (proximity), Sarupya (attaining same form as God) and Sayujya (absorption).’
27 According to Bronkhorst (Citation2007), the problematics of karmic retribution and rebirth were formed in ‘Greater Magadha’, an area to the east of the Ganga and the Yamuna confluence, which was outside the Brahmanical influence. It was in ‘Greater Magadha’ that Jainism, Ajivikism, and Buddhism emerged as three great responses to the problematics of karmic retribution and rebirth (sansara) and proposed three distinct ways to liberation (nirvana) from sansara. The Brahmanical tradition did not share the belief in karmic retribution and rebirth and in fact ‘took long to accept and absorb these new ideas’ (Bronkhorst Citation2007, 102).
28 See Chakrabarti (Citation2003). For Vedic references to kama, see Benton (Citation2006, 108–112). Arthashastra is known to be ‘distillation of earlier works on the subject’ (Olivelle Citation2013, 6), as is Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra.
29 See Ramachandran (Citation1980, 19–20). The concepts of shreyas and preyas appeared in Katha Upanishad and as far as I know, were first applied to purusharthas by Ramachandran (Citation1980, 19–20).
30 For details, see Malamoud (Citation1982).
31 The correspondence or correlation between purusharthas and ashramas is a matter of controversy. Many distinguised scholars, including Romilla Thapar, Charles Malamoud, Klostermaier, Y. Krishan, Arvind Sharma, and K.N. Sharma, for instance, hold that such a correlation exists, but according to Patrick Olivelle there is no evidence in ancient or medieval texts to support such a conclusion except in the case of sannyas and moksha: ‘The only clear historical relationship between a puruśārtha and an aśrama is found between renunciation and liberation. The tradition is unanimous that the last aśrama is devoted solely to the pursuit of liberation, or at least the world of Brahmā. We have seen that renunciation is often referred to simply as mokṣa. Even in passages that establish this relationship, however, mokṣa is not presented as one of the puruśārthas’ (Olivelle Citation1993, 215–219). However, this is not Malamoud’s view: ‘If mokṣa is the sole preoccupation of the saṁnyasins and of them alone, it is clear that kāma and artha are pactically forbidden to a Brahmin student, who must concentrate on dharma. The same may be said for vānaprastha, with however the rider that this third stage is sometimes considered as the antechamber, as it were, of the fourth. It is thus the householder, gṛhastha, who must know how to combine and balance the three puruśārtha of the trivarga, since it is only at this stage is it dharmic to devote oneself to artha and kāma’ (Citation1982, 52). Malamoud’s logic is persuasive despite the absence of supportive textual evidence of the kind demanded by Olivelle.
32 ‘Down the centuries the Hindu traditions have been caught in an internal and unresolved conflict not just between two institutions – married household life and celibate renunciation – but also between the two value systems represented by these two institutions. We have seen many and repeated attempts to bring these two poles of the tradition together, always with limited success. This long debate, with echoes in the ancient Upaniṣads, epics, Dharmaśastras, and medieval theological tracts, continues in India today … ’ (Olivelle Citation2003, 285).
33 Sikhism has some affinity with Bhakti tradition in regard to purusharthas. Below are two references to views expressed on purusharthas in Bhagavata Purana and Chaitanya Vaishnavism culled from Tapasyananda (Citationn.d., 38):
[Krishna says:] The holy men who have deep-rooted love for Me and see Me in everything … they do not care for four types of Mukti (liberation) to which they are eligible by virtue of their service to Me. How little would they care for the perishable attainments of this world. (Bhagavata Purana IX: 66–67)
In pursuance of … [the] teachings found in the Bhagavata, the followers of the Chaitanya school of Vaishnavism maintains that one who aspires to be a true vaishnav should eschew all the four usually accepted purusarthas of Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha and have Bhakti of the nature of Priti,the fifth purushartha, as their goal. Bhakti in this sense is the eternal service of God with unflagging love for Him as one’s own.
Patrick Olivelle (Citation2003, 283–284), has more to say on bhakti, moksha and sannyas (renunciation). Sikhism holds devotion to God or nam simrin as the highest purushartha and jivan mukti − the state of sahaj and vismad − as the supreme goal of human life, but it does not eschew the four purusharthas but embraces them. But note that Sikhism not only conserves purusharthas but also transforms their character by detaching them from both the Brahamanical varnashrarmadharma and the Buddhist dhamma of renunciation. Thus, in terms of the character of pursharathas as well as the way they are won through nam simrin, kirt and seva, the Sikh view of purusharthas differs in kind from the Brahmanical and Buddhist views.
34 ‘ … the Brahmans at court and in the world preoccupied with the outward forms of the ritual and perhaps too much concerned for their emoluments, had become rather Brahmans by birth (brahmabandhu) rather than Brahmans in the sense of Upanishads and Buddhism, "Knowers of Brahm" (brahmavit)’ (Coomaraswamy Citation1999, 47).
35 Sikhism explicitly rejects mundan and sunnat, depilation and circumcision, as means of initiation.
36 Since, according to Uberoi (Citation1996, 15), medieval Islam was similarly divided into ‘the three respective spheres of hukumat (the state power), shari’at (the social order) and tariqat or haqiqat (the Sufi sect, taken as a way of salvation)’, Guru Nanak’s message was equally relevant to the Muslims.
37 There are many Ramayana versions and traditions, but the Valmiki Ramayana remains the foundational and hegemonic text. The narrative of the Valmiki Ramayana is woven around (a) Rama’s exile to the forest for14 years, (b) his wife Sita’s abduction by Ravana, the Lord of Lanka, and (c) her retrieval by Rama.
Essays by Thapar (Citation2013, 208–262) and Goldman and Goldman (Citation2004) offer a fair introduction to the epic, including its brief résumé. For a full English version based on the critical edition of Valmiki Ramayana published by the Oriental Institute, Baroda, see R.P. Goldman (Citation1984–2016). The variety of Ramayana narratives and traditions is well captured, inter alia, in Paula Richman (Citation1991) and V. Raghavan (Citation1980).
The Sikh connection to Ramayana is via Ramavatar ─ a poetic narrative comprising 864 cantos and composed in over a dozen metres ─ to be found in the highly controversial Dasam Granth, the part or the whole of which is attributed to Guru Gobind Singh. Baljit Tulsi has translated Ramavatar into English and Punjabi and commented on it at length in a book (Citation1967) and an article (Citation1980). Ramavatar deviates from the Valmiki Ramayana in some important details, but shares its view of the battle between Rama and Ravana as a battle between Good and Evil or dharma and adharma but without interrogating what kind of dharma Rama stands for. Both Ramayana and Mahabharata reaffirm the Brahmanical varnashramadharma even while cleverly putting the Brahmin characters in both the epic battles on the side of ‘adharma’.
Another text in the Dasam Granth, the well-known Bachitranatak, traces the genealogies of Bedis and Sodhis, the sub-castes/gotras respectively of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh, to Rama’s sons Lava and Kusha (see Diwana Citation1982, 5).
Guru Granth Sahib makes some passing references to Ravana as a symbol of egotism and worldly temptations.
38 For information on Ravana, see Benjamin Walker (Citation1968, 290–292) and Fn. 39 below.
39 Who were the rakshasas? The etymology or the origin of rakshasas is uncertain. It has been suggested that the tag was applied to the aboriginal forest tribes and then extended to those anarya and even ‘Aryan’ clans that did not follow the Brahmanical varnashramadharma. See Sheldon Pollock (Citation1991, 68–84), Thapar (Citation2013, 208–268), and Goldman (Citation2016, 36–53). According to Pollock, the rakshasas signify, ‘generalised imaginative representations, large symbolic responses to important human problems … And what are these, after all, but the responses and representations of specific historical people, the traditional Indians who created and experienced the Ramayana, as a way of interpreting their problematic historical world’ (71). Goldman notes that ‘the picture Vālmīki presents of the rākṣasas is complicated. His epic is peopled by numerous rākṣasas, the representation of whom, as Hopkins has noted, is diverse, presenting a complex and seemingly contradictory picture; for, in his words, “They help the gods; they fight against the gods. They are beautiful; they are hideous. They are weaker than gods or Gandharvas; they overcome the gods with ease. They protect; they injure.” Others have noted this complexity and have offered various analyses, taking their lead from Hopkins’ (38). Thapar holds that the Aryan kingdoms like Kosala (Ayodhya) that were in the process of consolidation and expansion regarded the resisting aboriginal tribes as well as the chiefships or lineage-based societies negatively, that is, as rakshasas. She writes: ‘The rākṣasa and the vānara communities, to which respectively Rāvaṇa and Hanumān belong, are closer in form and spirit to chiefships, whereas the kingdom of Rāma is the exemplar of early kingship. The hostility or the alliances in some instances are symbolic of the fading away of the earlier [lineage-based] society and the increasing success of kingdoms’ (Citation2013, 232).
40 Uberoi’s formulation (Citation1996, 20).
41 Contrasting the diffused lineage-based or clan society of Lanka rakshasas with the kingdom of Kosala (Ayodhya), Thapar (Citation2013) writes that the rakshasas do not ‘observe the varṇāśramadharma, and therefore rules of social hierarchy, commensality, consanguinity, and pollution. In fact they reverse the rules. They do have some social differentiations, but not deeply marked and not derived from caste’ (234). The opposite is the case in Rama’s kingdom: ‘With the establishing of a kingdom, caste becomes an important source of identity … This is noticeable in the elevated status of the brāhmaṇa in contrast to the śūdra, and the prohibition on the mixing of castes.The reign of Rāma will ensure the system of varṇas; and references to varṇas and śūdras increase in the later sections [of the Ramayana]. The abject condition of the sūdra is clear from the story of Rāma killing Śambūka, the śūdra who had dared to become an ascetic … Rāma’s action is justified as conforming to the rules of varṇa’ (231). Again: ‘Rāma was expected to protect the four varṇas. By implication, he would be opposed to those that did not organize their society accordingly, such as the rākṣasas’ (234-235). Thapar concludes: ‘The Rāmāyaṇa eulogizes the kingdom as nurturing the sources of wealth and its administration, maintaining the distinction of caste and hierarchy, and supporting those who were the legitimizers of the system [the Brahmins]. This is not characteristic of rākṣasa society. In juxtaposing two systems and endorsing one as historically superior to the other, the Rāmāyaṇa can be seen as a charter of validation for kingdoms established in areas of erstwhile chiefships. Alternative polities had to be discredited’ (242). Therefore, ‘In terms of the polity it represents, the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa narrates the victory of kingship over the clan societies of the rākṣasas’ (60).
42 ‘Guru Gobind Singh … foreshadows the transference of sovereignty to the People’s Padshahi … And Guru Gobind Singh’s polity is to transfer the soul of a True King to the whole people’ (Puran Singh Citation1993, 24).