Sikhism (redirected from Sikh Dharma)

Sikhism (sĭk`ĭzəm), religion centered in the Indian state of Punjab, numbering worldwide some 19 million. Some 300,000 Sikhs live in Britain, and there are smaller communities in North America, Australia, and Singapore. By the late 1990s Sikhism was the world's fifth largest faith and had some 175,000 U.S. adherents and 225,000 in Canada. Sikhism is heterodox, combining the teachings of Bhakti Hinduism and Islamic Sufism.

The founder and first Sikh guru, the mystic Nanak (c.1469–c.1539), proclaimed monotheism, the provisional nature of organized religion, and direct realization of God through religious exercises and meditation; he opposed idolatry, ritual, an organized priesthood, and the caste system. Angad (1504–52), the second guru, separated the ascetics (udasis) from the laity, eliminated most features of Hinduism, and introduced the Gurmukhi script. Under the fourth guru, Ram Das, Amritsar was founded as a sacred city. Arjun, the fifth guru, compiled devotional poetry by earlier Sikh gurus and other prominent saints into the Sikh scripture, the Adigranth, which remains central to Sikh religious life. Under succeeding gurus the Sikh community gradually united and began to develop military power; the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb responded by executing the ninth guru and ordering the destruction of Sikh temples.

In 1699, Govind Singh (1666–1708), the tenth and final guru, instituted certain practices that have become fundamental to Sikh identity. Through an initiatory rite, after which the initiate takes the surname Singh [lion], he created the military fraternity called the Khalsa, or "pure," whose ideal was the soldier-saint. He introduced the Sikh practices of wearing a turban, carrying a dagger, and never cutting the hair or beard.

By the late 18th cent. the Sikhs had conquered most of the Punjab and established various feudal states; their greatest leader was Ranjit Singh (1780–1839), who established a Sikh kingdom in the Punjab. After his death, conflict with the British caused the Sikh Wars and the subjugation of the Punjab, after which Sikh soldiers formed a significant part of the British armies in India. Despite Sikh protests, the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent divided their homeland. Militant Sikhs and Hindu Jats fought the Muslims of Punjab in a struggle that resulted in over a million casualties. Some 2.5 million Sikhs migrated from West Punjab (in Pakistan) into East Punjab (in India). The years immediately following partition brought a period of relative stability and prosperity.

More recently, militant Sikhs have called for an autonomous Sikh state, Khalistan, within or separate from India. Turmoil in the Punjab erupted in the early 1980s, marked most dramatically by the 1984 storming by the Indian Army of the Golden Temple at Amritsar, which had been taken over by militant Sikhs. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in reprisal, after which mobs (some incited by local Congress party leaders) massacred Sikhs throughout India: in Delhi alone, more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed. Religious hostilities and communal violence in the Punjab continued into the early 1990s.

Bibliography

See K. Singh, A History of the Sikhs (2 vol., 1963–66); J. D. Cunningham, A History of the Sikhs (repr. 1966); G. Singh, The Religion of the Sikhs (1971); W. H. McLeod, Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion (1976); J. O'Connell, ed., Sikh History and Religion in the Twentieth Century (1988).

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Sikhism

Indian religion founded in the late 15th century by Nanak, the first of the Sikh leaders titled Guru. Most of the religion's 25 million members, called Sikhs, live in the Punjab—the site of their holiest shrine, the Golden Temple, and the principal seat of Sikh religious authority, the Akal Takht. The Adi Granth is the canonical scripture of Sikhism. Its theology is based on a supreme God who governs with justice and grace. Every human being, irrespective of caste or gender, has the opportunity to become one with God. The basic human flaw of self-centredness can be overcome through proper reverence for God, commitment to hard work, service to humanity, and sharing the fruits of one's labour. Sikhs consider themselves disciples of the 10 human Gurus; the Adi Granth assumed the position of Guru after the death of the last human Guru, Gobind Singh (1666–1708). Sikhs accept the Hindu ideas of samsara and karma. The dominant order of Sikhism, into which most Sikh boys and girls are initiated at puberty, is the Khalsa. The emblems of the Khalsa, called the five Ks, are kes (uncut hair), kangha (a comb), kachha (long shorts), kirpan (a sword), and karka (a steel bracelet).