Ghostface Buddha's Guide To Sikhism

Here we are again with another installment of Ghostface Buddha's guides. They aren't all going to be about religion, but guess what, this one is. Woop woop.

It was a hazy winter day. As the bus pulled into the town of Anandpur Sahib I was faced with a dilemma: everything I was looking for was the same shade of white as the humid, low-hanging sky. After some wandering the mist lifted and I was able to discern the main gurudwara, an enormous structure of absurd design. It looked like a baby, multi-domed Mughal structure sitting on top of a huge white platform suspended in the air by impressive columns that raised it over an ancient parking deck-like structure of assembly spaces. This gurudwara is the second-holiest shrine of the Sikh religion and marks the spot where the Khalsa, the armed wing of the Sikh religion, was founded in 1699. Around the corner is a smaller gurudwara which marks the spot where the 9th Guru's decapitated head was cremated after being retrieved from the Mughal Emperor's court. There was also a much-beleagured Sikh fort, but I am embarrassed to say that as it stood a kilometer or more away I was completely unable to locate it through the clouds. Nevertheless, being the site most directly related to militant Sikhism, I came almost exclusively for the purpose of hanging around hardcore Sikhs. In particular I wanted to see groups of the Nihangs, an ultra-hardcore orthodox group (Nihang means "Crocodile") that go around in brilliant blue robes wielding scimitars. The holy city of Amritsar draws Sikhs in all their many varieties; Anandpur Sahib is geared more narrowly to sword-brandishing zealots. Though belonging to the same faith, the two shrines give off very different atmospheres, owing to the militant/pacifist paradox lying at the heart of the Sikh religion.

The Sikhs, like so many Indian creeds, were founded by a guru who considered their contemporary Hinduism to be laden with hypocrisy, a ridiculous proliferation of myths and deities, superfluous rituals, and abominable social practices, especially the caste system. The first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak, essentially echoed the complaints of generations of Hindu reformers, but went a bit further in openly calling for his followers to throw away the constraints of mainstream Indian society and actually live by admirable religious principles. Unlike other religious figures who rebelled against Hinduism, such as Buddha and Mahavira, Guru Nanak didn't believe in renunciation of the world, and actively encouraged engagement with the community and having a healthy family life. He did the ascetic thang for a while, and like Buddha decided there must be some sort of compromise from complete asceticism, but leaned far more heavily towards worldly life. Suffused with agrarian metaphors and down-to-earth spiritual advice, his teachings quickly became popuar with the farmers of the Punjab region.

Sikhism is frequently described as a fusion of Hinduism and Islam, which it unashamedly is. The Sikhs'holy book, the Adi Granth , is a collection of the writings of a few of the ten Sikh Gurus, as well as a larger number of Sufi Muslim saints and a handful of Hindu saints, poets, and bards. Guru Nanak's teachings were basically as follows:

1)There is no Hindu and no Mussulman. We're all human beings, man.
2)There is only one God, but this god has no form and no one name.
3)God is Truth, and is everywhere
4)True faith lies not in the performance of rituals or in any external displays, but in righteous living with a pure heart.
5)The same truths apply to people of all religions

The Sikhism of Guru Nanak was essentially Islam phrased for a mostly Hindu audience, and stripped of explicitly mandated social practices that divided the Hindu and Muslim communities. His first disciples came from both faiths and though we mostly won Hindus as converts, Muslims also revered him as a teacher. Then he died.

He was followed by nine other Gurus in succession. The second, his disciple Guru Angad was chiefly responsible for promulgating the Gurmukhi script, which is now used for the Punjabi language. It is a terrible form of writing that looks like this: ਠੀਸ ਇਸ ਆ ਔਤ੍ਰਗੇਔਸ ਅਤ੍ਰੋਕਿਟੀ. Simply disgusting. The fifth guru, Guru Arjun, compiled most of the Adi Granth, further enlarging the spread of this horrible script.

Sikhism is indelibly tied to its roots in the Punjab, where the faith was drastically transformed from its beginnings in the teachings of Guru Nanak by historical events. The most pertinent facts about the Punjab at this time were that A)It was part of the Mughal Empire, ruled by alternatingly tolerant or militant Muslims, B)It is located in India, where the overwhelming Hindu majority has a tendency to drown dissent whenever it isn't getting the tar beaten out of it by the Muslims, and C)It is located directly in the path of every invader that has come to India from Persia and Central Asia for the last 5000 years. Thus, the era of the first nine gurus largely consisted of the agrarian Sikhs getting their shit wrecked by Mughals and Afghans in turn. Things came to a head (har!) when the ninth guru was decapitated by order of the Emperor in Delhi.

The tenth guru, son of the ninth, was understandably perturbed by this development, and decided that the irregularly armed Sikhs should form a proper army for their defense. Guru Gobindh Singh thus formed the Khalsa, a brotherhood of arms sworn to uphold the faith and the freedom of all religions against tyranny when all peaceful means have failed. Needless to say, peaceful means had failed, and this marked a radical transformation of the religion into one of outright militancy against superior odds. At the formation of the Khalsa, which also saw the introduction of the ubiquitous new emblem of Sikhism, which looks as fitting for a galactic battlefleet as it does for a religion. The Sikhs were sworn to the "five K's", which were meant as much to promote a group identity in the face of adversity as they were to promote military discipline, and are as follows:

1)Kesh: to never cut the hair or shave. Hence the turbans.
2)Kungha: to carry a comb in the hair. Because kesh would just get disgusting.
3)Kuchha: to wear a certain style of shorts. Because these were much better battle dress than what the baggy farmers' clothes that were traditional.
4)Kara: to wear a steel bangle on the right wrist, for symbolism.
5)Kirpan: to carry a sword. Typically this means carrying a small ceremonial dagger at all times and wielding a proper sword when appropriate.

There were also four additional rules of conduct.

1) Don't cut your hair. Seriously, guys, I'm saying this twice.
2)To abstain from tobacco, alcohol, and all narcotics. You will find that of all the tenets of the Sikh faith this is the least scrupulously observed in modern Punjab.
3)Don't eat kosher Muslim meat, because the process of killing animals by slow bleeding is cruel.
4)Don't bone any Muslims. (Though the Sikh faith has always been open to outsiders, historians speculate this commandment was issued as the best way to keep his newly outfitted army from raping their way across the Muslim villages of North India.)

It was also by this time custom for all Sikhs to take the surname Singh (for instance the cuddly-looking Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh), which though an admirable way of getting rid of caste-based surnames, is just fucking confusing. It does however provide a handy English slogan for the people of Punjab, who opine that they are the best at pretty much everything, and cheerfully express this belief far and wide with the motto "Singh is King!" I have heard this slogan used to praise the strength of the Sikh religion, the agricultural proficiency of modern Punjabi farmers, Punjabi cooking, and even the sexual prowess of the comparatively liberated Punjabi girls, who are apparently coveted for this talent by men from other parts of India (this information is all too readily volunteered by excitable Indian men after about half a beer).

Gobindh Singh and his army then began an open rebellion against the Mughal Empire and got their asses handed to them. Many years later they became a formidable power, then ran into the British Army, and that was that. However, after some 100 years or so of near-constant war with their neighbors in India and Afghanistan had made them so keen on warfare that they happily joined the British Army that had trounced them, and to this day make up an absurdly disproportionate share of the Indian military. I can't tell you how many times I have been patted down at checkpoints by none other than Lieutenant Singh.

As you can see this is a far cry from the simple words of Guru Nanak, yet the two sides of Sikhism have existed more or less in harmony for centuries. God is both the amorphous source of life and virtue, watering peasant's fields and giving life to babies, and the source of destruction and death, sweeping away injustice and shielding the virtuous with his mighty power.

Sikhs believe in reincarnation and karma, but somewhat more nebulously than the Hindus, and they proclaim that righteous living alone is sufficient for salvation. Essentially, good people go to heaven when they die.

Sikhism is adamant in its denial of idol-worship, and of creating personalities, aspects, and incarnations of God. It is also one of the few Indian religions that has not been transformed by the later deification of its founders or the merger of parts of the mainstream Hindu pantheon into various strata of the cosmos. The Gurus themselves refused to be identified as saints or even as prophets. They were to be regarded merely as teachers. The closest thing Sikhism has to idol worship is the adoration of venerated copies of the Adi Granth, which in some places is treated almost exactly like a Hindu idol in terms of ritual, with the critical difference that nobody expects God to care about this ritual being performed. It is in no way an invocation of higher powers. Sikhism also denies the need for pilgrimage, although being completely swamped by Hindu society of course this has somewhat crept in and visits are frequently paid by observing Sikhs to a handful of special places such as Amritsar.

The Sikhs also don't have priests. Sikh congregations are more like community gatherings, and the leaders of religious meetings are chosen formally or informally from the community. Only in very large temples is there any sort of permanent religious office. They also don't have "temples", as they have no idol to worship and reject the idea that God should have a 'house'(because God is everywhere). Sikh gurudwaras combine the functionality of a temple, a town hall, a school, a hostel, and best of all a free kitchen, which derives from the Sikh belief in hospitality and open hearts to all people, even if they aren't Sikh, and they will never ask for a penny (though you should still offer it).

Of all the Sikh teachings, the most radical was the idea of being part of society while at the same time completely overthrowing the caste system. People of all faiths, classes, colors, and sex are regarded as equal.

NOT

If there is one thing that unites the scatter-shot sects that form the Hindu 'religion', it is the insistence that everybody in India act like a good Indian/Hindu("why, aren't they the same thing?" they like to assume) and know their damn place. You can do pretty much anything and call yourself Hindu and nobody will blink, because Hinduism as a whole isn't really about theology or faith, it's about sociology. And there are a LOT of Hindus in India.

Thus, it was almost tragically inevitable that the wonderful injunction to erase caste barriers was one of the ideas that is in practice almost completely ignored thanks to intercourse with mainstream Indian society. There is nothing in human nature that compels a man to shave, or not carry a comb under a turban other than sheer laziness or external threats. There is however, I am afraid, a near-universal human tendency to be a giant asshole to people lower on the social heirarchy. In a land where over a billion people practice a religion where this relationship receives holy sanction, it is unsurprising that most Sikhs now observe traditional caste restrictions, even if they don't really admit it. The preponderance of Hinduism in India is also responsible for the drift from the religion's Islamic precepts and the adoption of Hindu customs that are not in keeping with the spirit of the scriptures. But with all religions, such is the way of things. Any religion loses its original purity when it collides with the mighty force of the inbred habits of its receiving society.

Of all their unjustified observances of Hindu custom, undoubtedly the most silly is that Sikhs are absolutely crazy about protecting cows, despite there being absolutely nothing in their religion telling them to do so, and the explicit denial that animals are to be revered for anything. If I may understate a bit, on this point contemporary Sikhs and I are deeply at odds.

I was sitting outside the main gurudwara in Anandpur Sahib waiting for the visitors to become more interesting before I went inside. My attentions were particularly drawn to a man wandering around with a wool blanket and a 5-foot spear, which I thought looked strangely quaint and rustic. I then realized that the really interesting people were actually observing me, and a little more intently than I would have liked, considering that one of them had not one but two automatic weapons slung over his shoulder. As me and him made uneasy eyes at each other (I had been rather suspiciously loitering outside with a camera), a pickup truck swerved into a parking space, and out poured the Nahings. There were about a dozen of them, dressed from head to shoulder in blue, with blue and orange turbans, mighty grey beards, and very conspicuous curved scabbards swinging from their hips. There was a general murmuring and I quickly decided to act like a regular-ass tourist immediately and entered the gurudwara with an exaggeratedly gleeful countenance.

The gurudwara was attractive enough, but the weather made it look quite bland on the outside. I entered the inner chambers, curious how the formation of the Khalsa would be remembered. I probably shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. Hymns were being sung to Guru Gobindh's swords. I walked around the temple, and in every corner I looked, lovingly cared-for holy weapons rested on fine cloths, had incense burnt in the air around them, and were the objects of very devout attention from humming bearded men sitting cross-legged on the carpet with swords, daggers, and shotguns in their laps. I saw a glass case with the hymns of the day printed in Punjabi, Hindi, and English.

I could only read a few of the lines because to get closer would have meant stepping over a singing man gently rocking an assault rifle.

He was singing about flowers.