Prelude:
What is Guru Nanak’s expectation of a Sikh? What is the purpose of Sikhi? These are questions which necessitate a profound immersion in the Guru Granth to facilitate a comprehensible answer.
Alongside, the exercise should be augmented by an impartial analysis of the Sikh past. What compelled our forefathers to become Empire-Builders and war to impel radical sociopolitical alterations in their contemporary societal fabric? Did the meditative and renunciative Sikhi of today really enflame them with the drive to wrought their mark upon history? The fact that they believed themselves to be extensions of Guru Nanak’s initial mission, what does it mean for us today?
The answers to these questions are as profound as they are difficult to accept. They are a confluence of the philosophical and historical; a seemingly contradictory synthesis which defines Sikh heritage and is all too common in our past. What is the common strand interlinking them? This is what we will attempt to deduce in this article.
ਦੀਨ-ਦੁਨਿਯਾ:
The 19th century British historian J.D. Cunningham remarks in his epistemic study of Sikhi and Sikh history in comparison to prior subcontinental philosophies:
“But these good and able men appear to have been so impressed with the nothingness of this life, that they deemed the amelioration of man’s social condition unworthy of a thought. They aimed chiefly at emancipation from priestcraft (sic), or from the grossness of idolatory (sic) and polytheism. They formed pious associations of contented Quietists, or they gave themselves up to contemplation of futurity in the hope of approaching bliss, rather than called upon their fellow creatures to throw aside every social as well as religious trammel and to arise a new people freed from the debasing corruption of ages. They perfected forms of dissent rather than planted the germs of nations…It was left to Nanuk (sic) to perceive the true principles of reform, and to lay those broad foundations which enabled his successor Govind (sic)…to give practical effect to the doctrine that the lowest is equal with the highest, in race as in creed, in political rights as in religious hopes.”
-J.D. Cunningham, A History Of The Sikhs, pg. 36.
It should be remembered by the riders of the Colonial Lens gravy-train, who presuppose that anything rendered by a non-Indic traditionalist is somehow polluted from origin, that Cunningham was writing in 1849 after carefully cultivating sources from non-Westernized Sikhs themselves who were at the apex of their cultural and political power. His sentiments regarding the radical uniqueness of Sikhi have been echoed ever since. Even a cursory reading of the Guru Granth substantiates this. The good and able men who Cunningham refers to are none other than the Bhagats whose compositions are also housed within the Sikh canon. However, the Gurus themselves enter into a literary dialogue with these Bhagats to bare the futility of quietism and asceticism. The principles which they reveal through this interchange of words are interrelated to Guru Nanak’s equalizing of ਦੀਨ-ਦੁਨਿਯਾ, with ਦੀਨ being spirituality and ਦੁਨਿਯਾ being temporality.
Miri-Piri:
Unable to comprehend the dynamism of Sikhi and dismissing the Guru Granth as a solely renunciative text, most decolonial and postmodernist academics have instead selected to disassociate Sikh history from Sikhi in a bid to argue that the faith never informed the actions of its adherents. To paraphrase the legendary S. Jagjit Singh, such scholars argue that contemporaneous and external factors compelled sociopolitical forays from the Sikh Gurus and Sikhi itself is an extension of the ascetic Bhakti Movement. The precedent for this argument existed even within a few late 18th-mid 19th century Pujari chronicles who mistakenly presupposed that the paths of the early five Guru and the later five were separate and not ideologically interrelated. Such are the sophists who have furnished us with a relation of the sixth Guru’s officiation as Nanak VI. While the relation itself is historically accurate, the argument that the Guru revealed the unity of Miri-Piri (spiritual and temporal supremacy) is philosophically incorrect. Miri and Piri were and are synonyms for the ਦੀਨ-ਦੁਨਿਯਾ principle but couched in more eloquent and regal terms. The sixth Guru practically implemented them. Rather than reveal, he realized them.
Kalh’s Testimony:
An earlier testimony of Guru Nanak being the progenitor of ਦੀਨ-ਦੁਨਿਯਾ can be found within the Guru Granth itself. These are the words of Bhatt Kalh or the Minstrel Kalh. The Sikh Bhatts, it should be remembered, totaled eleven in number and were associates of the early five Gurus. While hagiographies provide highly ludicrous tales of their origins, a more down to earth theory is that like other early Sikhs they happened upon the Sikh ethos and were employed by the Gurus as religious Minstrels. They traveled far and wide proselytizing and converting thousands to Sikhi and also rendering their own compositions in praise of the Gurus. A select portion of these were appended by Guru Arjan, the fifth Sikh Guru, to the nascent Guru Granth to provide historic and philosophical corroboration. Among them were Kalh’s verses in praise of the first five Gurus. His words on Guru Nanak are quite distinctive and also substantive of how Sikhs of yesteryear perceived Guru Nanak:
ਗਾਵਹਿ ਕਪਿਲਾਦਿ ਆਦਿ ਜੋਗੇਸੁਰ ਅਪਰੰਪਰ ਅਵਤਾਰ ਵਰੋ ॥
ਗਾਵੈ ਜਮਦਗਨਿ ਪਰਸਰਾਮੇਸੁਰ ਕਰ ਕੁਠਾਰੁ ਰਘੁ ਤੇਜੁ ਹਰਿਓ ॥
ਉਧੌ ਅਕ੍ਰੂਰੁ ਬਿਦਰੁ ਗੁਣ ਗਾਵੈ ਸਰਬਾਤਮੁ ਜਿਨਿ ਜਾਣਿਓ ॥
ਕਬਿ ਕਲ ਸੁਜਸੁ ਗਾਵਉ ਗੁਰ ਨਾਨਕ ਰਾਜੁ ਜੋਗੁ ਜਿਨਿ ਮਾਣਿਓ ॥੪॥
“Kapildas sings of Joges(w)ar who he believes to be the true Avatar. Jamd(a)gan and his son Parsuram sing of the one they believe to be infinite. Akrur and Bidar sing of the one they deem to be the soul of all. But Kalh sings only of Guru Nanak who has shown us the way ofਰਾਜੁ ਜੋਗੁ .”
-Guru Granth, 1389.
What is more intriguing is that Kalh repeats the term ਰਾਜੁ ਜੋਗੁ three terms within the space of a few verses. What is ਰਾਜੁ ਜੋਗੁ or Raaj-Jog? Our current simplifications of Gurbani supplant ਜ with ਯ and render Jog into Yog to argue that Guru Nanak was a practitioner of Raja-Yoga or Kingly equipoise in which the soul is rendered detached from the world; a semi-morbid state. In reality, Raaj-Jog refers to the seemingly irreconcilable paradigms of temporal authority (Raaj) and spiritual pre-eminence (Jog). Kalh avows that Guru Nanak united both by ironing out any discrepancies. The spiritual paradigm was not one of asceticism but cultivating virtue under Hukam to become ethically and morally preeminent; enough to take over temporal authority.
Why ਰਾਜੁ ਜੋਗੁ ?
Indeed, why Raaj-Jog? For Guru Nanak the Sikh was to be the epitome of human perfection. Their Khalsa Jog was to inform their deportment in the temporal world. By the very innate perfectness of this Jog they were to pursue the art of perfection in each and every field they took to; so much so that they became leaders in their own right particularly in the field of ਰਾਜੁ or sovereignty and leadership as this was and is the apex of temporality.
In Guru Nanak’s eyes religious equality was half the game and could not be implemented without sociopolitical equality. What was the point of existence behind a faith which could not guarantee any equality in practice? For this reason the Guru intended and established the ideological and philosophical foundation for the eventual manifestation of the Khalsa; a fraternity of orthodox Sikhs unquestionably dedicated to their ਰਾਜੁ and their Guru’s ਜੋਗੁ .
For the Khalsa the separation of state and faith does not wholly exist. Faith as long as it provides ethicality and morality must inform the state. When a state regresses from its obligations, faith is to correct it. No faith other than Sikhi can do this as the ideal of Raaj-Jog is not a wholesome caliphate type theocracy where the freedom of conscience is suppressed. But rather a set-up in which all citizens are free to pursue a beneficial purpose; the acquirement and cultivation of wisdom while aiding the less fortunate among them. ਰਾਜੁ ਜੋਗੁ is not the key to a Utopia. On the contrary it emphasizes the shouldering of responsibility by its adherents. While perfection is a perpetual pursuit, ਰਾਜੁ ਜੋਗੁ ensures that any imperfection is answered and dismantled at the earliest. This emphasis on superhuman effort is what made our Khalsa ancestors worthy of ruling over the masses.
Conclusion:
Guru Nanak’s expectation from a Sikh and the purpose of Sikhi is the one and the same: the pursuit of perfection in each and every field they take to. The herculean reforming of themselves from common, base humans into virtuous Khalsas also explicates how and why the imbibers of Sikhi have always been subject to malicious attacks from antithetical forces. Now, more than ever, we are required to undergo the same reformation which our predecessors underwent through the aegis of the Guru Granth. Only then can we lay claim to being the new generation of the Khalsa.
I actually think this the main difference between Hinduism and Sikhism and the split between the 2 religions, the highest ideal in Hinduism is the brahmin while for us it is the Raaj-Yog/King-Yogi i.e. the ultimate Kshatriya which was manifested thru the Gurus and final Guru bestowed this sovereignty to Sikhs ("Khalsa mera roop hai khas"), Khalsa is highest while for the Hindu the brahmin is the highest, it is a varnic difference between ideals. One cannot exist underneath the other otherwise u have major contradictions - this solves Hum Hindu hain vs Hum Hindu nahin. Also their is more of a merger with the varna virtues Guru Sahib was farmer, set up a city/anandpur, wrote divine wisdom, a servant of the Guru (Bhai Lehna), was a philospher, musician etc.