Guru Nanak’s legacy; Half a Millennium Later
Dr. I.J. Singh
[Eighth Annual Conference On Sri Guru Granth Sahib (2019)]
Abstract:
Jam packing 550 years of journey into 200 words seems like a fool’s errand. My presentation delineates the borders of Guru Nanak’s mission with a skeletal outline.
India was then a mélange of nation-states rarely at peace with each other and easy prey to invaders and fortune hunters. It was ruled by aggressive Islamists. The subjects, Hindu society, was riven by a rigid caste structure and a degraded place of women.
Free people need freedom of speech, participatory self-governance with accountability, security, economic progress, infrastructure and ethical code for a productive life.
A paradigm shift was necessary but one cannot be accomplished in a day, or a year. This is exactly what Guru Nanak launched. From the advent of Nanak to the mature structure of his vision took about 240 years in the making. I trace him and the Gurus that followed him for milestones in the journey. Specific highlights are briefly presented and a new nation without borders – Sikhi or Sikhism — resulted.
The journey continues. How do we see the trajectory of the path we are on? The legacy and the onus rest on those who see themselves as Sikhs.
About the author:
I.J. SINGH came to the United States in 1960 on a Murry & Leonie Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. He received a PhD in anatomical sciences from the University of Oregon Medical School (now Oregon Health Sciences University), and a DDS from Columbia University. He is a professor emeritus of anatomical sciences at New York University. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Sikh Review (Calcutta) as well as Nishaan (New Delhi), and writes a regular internet column on Sikhi
Video of Presentation
Body of Paper
GURU NANAK’S LEGACY; Half a Millennium Later
I.J. Singh
Guru Nanak’s perspective on humanity is larger than life and timeless. Today, a worldwide growing circle of more than 25 million Sikhs and non-Sikhs revere his message. Lets’ parse some historical nuggets and impactful events of his meaningful life.
Instead of a paean of praise to Nanak, the man and Guru, I offer an overview of the transformative agenda he gifted us.
Religions cannot always hold a nation together. Bangladesh and Pakistan are both Muslim nations; their 24 years old union collapsed in 1971. Muslim nations of the Middle East remain mostly at logger heads. Sunni and Shia Muslims like Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews not too fond of each other. Explore the long factional history on the 250 sects of Christianity.
Ground Realities in Punjab at Guru Nanak’s Time
India was never a single unified nation except under the British and the Mughals. A mélange of independent or quasi-independent nation-states, each with distinct culture, language, cuisine, music and ethos, India was easy pickings for invaders with limited manpower. Since 1947 it is a politically unified nation, but fragmentation persists.
For centuries, India was ruled by Muslim invaders ruthlessly bent on converting natives, even by force. Hindu society, despite noble antecedents, was hamstrung by decadent religious culture, reprehensible caste system that exists today, and shamefully degraded place of women. A divided society had lost its moral compass, often willing to sell out to robber-barons. This is what the young Nanak saw.
How to Reclaim Humanity and Dignity?
A better tomorrow requires an ethical code, freedom of speech and action, participatory self-governance, transparent accountability, security, economic progress and infrastructure.
Easier said than done! Two choices surface: evolution or revolution. Revolutions are bloody. They change rulers but not as easily a people’s mindset that reflects inter-generational culturally ingrained habits of the heart. These traditions — the paradigm or default position of the mind — define the self. Lasting paradigm shifts demand time that transcends generations.
Guru Nanak launched exactly a transformative paradigm shift that took almost 240 years to bear fruit in its modern form. The path was mine-laden. Muslims, with connivance of some Hindu rulers, went on the warpath to defend their politico-religious dominance. Hindus saw Sikhi as undermining their hold on the people with challenging ideas about timeless but backward teachings on caste, place of women, idol worship etc.
The first step was to bring the dispossessed people into a community. Guru Nanak started a free kitchen (langar) where people would come together, prepare and serve food to all irrespective of caste, creed, color or gender. Enjoy a meal, listen to uplifting poetry and teachings with music (keertan), and relate to each other as equals. In the traditional society, high and low castes would never mix or break bread together. Nanak dismissed such notions. He taught people how to live with each other — not caring if they were sharing their lives with a king or pauper, Brahmin or an untouchable. In India of that time, this was revolutionary.
Guru Nanak’s teachings begin with an alphanumeric of his own design – Ik Oankaar. Ik stands for the number One; Oankaar speaks of the Creator. If one can sense the Oneness of the Creator, there is no room left for a separate Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Muslim Sikh, or Brand X, form of God. That would be a lesser god, not worthy of worship. Guru Nanak’s Creator has no physical form and transcends all descriptions. This infinite reality by definition can never be captured by our finite mind or language.
This profound message framed the fundamentals of a productive meaningful life in the language of the people as poetry to be musically rendered. Why? Because, at best, the spoken word settles in the head, music takes the message to the heart. And what exactly is the mind or the soul but both the heart and the head put together. Poetry is roomful of allegories, metaphors and analogies to hold the mind. The compositions used the classical timeless Raga system of Indian musicology. Music and poetry are thus interpreted, internalized, integrated, not literally rendered. Guru Nanak, accompanied by a Muslim musician, Mardana, took his message across much of the known world of that time.
Did Nanak Intend to Start a New Faith?
I believe he did! He traveled throughout India, modern Pakistan and beyond — South to Sri Lanka, North beyond Tibet, East to Assam, perhaps even China, and West to Afghanistan, Mecca, Turkey and neighboring areas. Guru Nanak held dialogues with scholars of many faiths. After four odysseys, he returned to Punjab and founded Kartarpur, now in Pakistan, as the Sikh model of Utopia where he nurtured the first Sikh community. Kartarpur became a bustling presence with businesses and traders. The community prospered. Guru Nanak lived there with his wife and two sons, preached the Sikh way of life and tilled his farm.
Kartarpur, was a magical step forward towards development of economically viable infrastructure. It was not near any Hindu or Muslim religious center. Never did he recommend that Sikhs go to a Hindu or Muslim place of worship. His center in Kartarpur was the community’s hub and place of worship. If he entered a Hindu or a Muslim place of worship it was not to join the rite but to impart a lesson.
Passing the Torch
If a business or shop closes its doors at the death of the founder isn’t it a failed venture? An enterprise must continue past the generations to become an institution or movement.
How to rebuild a people decimated by centuries of invasions? A massive transformative task needs more than hours, days, or years. Many dots to connect. life models, habits of the heart to be minutely re-explored, modified, even replaced. Habits of the heart are never easy to reform. A paradigm shift is necessary.
Guru Nanak lived centuries ago. Times change; newer questions surface. His message and Sikh institutional development continued by his nine successors. Significantly all ten Gurus; wrote under the name and authority of Nanak.
Lehna succeeded Nanak, became Guru Angad, and shifted his base to Khadur Sahib. Now there were two urban centers flourishing in Punjab. He systematized the rules of Gurmukhi and its script — the language of the people. Prior to this Sanskrit, the language of the Brahmin elite, was the only medium deemed fit to convey scriptural teaching, hence available only to Brahmins.
Amardas, the third Guru, chose Goindwal as his base, creating a third Sikh community without diminishing the luster of Kartarpur and Khadur Sahib. He upended the injustice to women, by appointing them to leadership positions in spreading Sikhi’s message. He encouraged widows to remarry and condemned the horrendous Hindu practice of satee – self-immolation by widows. He started the tradition of twice-yearly conclaves of Sikhs, to reconnect and confer on issues that impact the community.”
Guru Ramdas followed. He founded Ramdaspur that became Amritsar. It remains, over 400 years later, the largest, most important commercial, cultural and educational hub of Punjab. It defines, through its history, the Sikh psyche today;
Guru Arjan completed the development of Amritsar and Harmandar (Golden Temple), compiled writings of the previous four Gurus, along with his own, added compositions of a few selected Hindu and Muslim saints and poets whose views resonated with Sikhi, and installed the compilation as the first rendition of Sikh scripture (Adi Granth) in 1604 — as the authoritative document on Sikh ethos. Amritsar has been the defacto capital of Sikh activities, social, educational, administrative or political, whether local or international since that time; Guru Arjan was the first Sikh martyr in the cause of freedom of religion. The lesson: One must learn to die before picking up a weapon.
In the 100 years since Guru Nanak, much had changed. Islam had become aggressively fanatic. The Sikh movement, continuing to emphasize peaceful coexistence with others, had acquired heft and visibility. Sikhi’s message: The Creator is not found in seclusion, ascetism or renunciation but within the active worldly life – the two are not mutually exclusive. Guru Arjan had been martyred. So, Guru Hargobind, the sixth Founder-Guru formally enunciated the doctrine of Meeri-Peeri that emphatically merges the internal spiritual life of worship, prayer and the mind with the outwardly directed worldly pursuit of action. These two primary fundamentals of Sikh existence must never be sundered.Sikhs are to be peaceful and non-violent but not pacifist. So, Guru Hargobind wore two swords –of Meeri and Peeri, recognizing that a successful human life is one of action (Meeri), never torn asunder from its spiritual foundations (Peeri). The good life demands both. He raised a militia to counter armed warfare thrust upon him; each subsequent Guru maintained armed militia. Guru Hargobind built the townships of Hargobindpur, Mehraj and Kiratpur, even a mosque for the many Muslims in that area. Briefly, Meeri-Peeri and Akal Takht that he defined and built are at the core of nation building and critical to Sikh history and Sikh values. The term nation here does not imply geographical lines drawn in the sand.
The brief stints of the seventh and eighth Gurus, Har Rai and Harkishan were times of consolidation for the community. Guru Har Rai was dedicated to ecological concerns; Guru Harkishan is remembered for service to the poor during a horrendous epidemic.
Guru Tegh Bahadur founded Anandpur and Paonta Sahib. His martyrdom asserted the universal right of religious freedom – for Hindus to refuse conversion to Islam under duress. Guru Tegh Bahadur himself was not a Hindu. The underlying principle here (often misattributed to Voltaire): “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Guru Gobind Singh deserves much more than the brief space here. In 1699 he brought the transformative change started by Guru Nanak to its mature form. He created the community of Khalsa that changed the face of Punjab into a free outer directed people at peace with their inner self — the underpinnings of Meeri-Peeri that must remain in sync. Guru Gobind Singh also added Guru Tegh Bahadur’s compositions and prepared the final recension of the Adi Granth that he installed as the Guru Granth. He initiated Sikhs into the Khalsa order, then pleaded that Sikhs initiate the Guru as Khalsa. This novel idea of Gur-Chela in Sikhi antedates the Servant-Leader concept that you might encounter in modern academic programs in Management
Sikhi had come a long way. Guru Gobind Singh saw that Sikhs had earned self-governance. He decreed, that henceforth, in Sikh praxis Guru Granth remains the repository of all Sikh spiritual heritage while temporal authority rests in the Sikh community acting in awareness of the spiritual heritage that guides them.
An unforgettable historical nugget from the time of Guru Nanak unerringly captures the magic of Sikh teaching. It describes the Sikh way of life as a triad of 1. honest earnings, 2. sharing rewards of life with the needy, best labeled seva; langar being one of many possibilities, and 3. remaining always connected to the one Creator common to all, regardless of caste, color, creed, gender or religious/cultural or national identities.
In early 17th century, Sikhs had evolved the traditions of Sarbat Khalsa where community representatives would meet in conclaves — like town hall meetings that you see across America today – to debate and discuss issues of peace and war or critical turns in directions, including traditions, Code of Conduct (Rehat Maryada), protocols and related Constitutional matters may be revisited as needed. The system exists but degraded by neglect and human inertia. In any path we need to know where we are at a given point. Even more critical is the trajectory of the path. Then thejourney becomes the destination. Guru Nanak, uniquely founded and shaped our journey that still tugs at us. There can be no better legacy. The journey started with Guru Nanak. It does not end with his mortal life or with ours.
The onus is ours.