The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1

4. Sikh initiation and rules

“The word Sikh is said to be derived from the common Hindu term Sewak and to mean simply a disciple; it may be applied therefore to the followers of Nānak who held aloof from Govind Singh, but in practice it is perhaps understood to mean only the latter, while the Nānakpanthis are considered as Hindus. A true Sikh always takes the termination Singh to his name on initiation, and hence they are sometimes known as Singhs in distinction to the Nānakpanthis. A man is also not born a Sikh, but must always be initiated, and the pāhul or rite of baptism cannot take place until he is old enough to understand it, the earliest age being seven, while it is often postponed till manhood. Five Sikhs must be present at the ceremony, when the novice repeats the articles of the faith and drinks sugar and water stirred up with a two-edged dagger. At the initiation of women a one-edged dagger is used, but this is seldom done. Thus most of the wives of Sikhs have never been initiated, nor is it necessary that their children should become Sikhs when they grow up. The faith is unattractive to women owing to the simplicity of its ritual and the absence of the feasts and ceremonies so abundant in Hinduism; formerly the Sikhs were accustomed to capture their wives in forays, and hence perhaps it was considered of no consequence that the husband and wife should be of different faith. The distinguishing marks of a true Sikh are the five Kakkas or K’s which he is bound to carry about his person: the Kes or uncut hair and unshaven beard; the Kachh or short drawers ending above the knee; the Kasa or iron bangle; the Khanda or steel knife; and the Kanga or comb. The other rules of conduct laid down by Guru Govind Singh for his followers were to dress in blue clothes and especially eschew red or saffron-coloured garments and caps of all sorts, to observe personal cleanliness, especially in the hair, and practise ablutions, to eat the flesh of such animals only as had been killed by jatka or decapitation, to abstain from tobacco in all its forms, never to blow out flame nor extinguish it with drinking-water, to eat with the head covered, pray and recite passages of the Granth morning and evening and before all meals, reverence the cow, abstain from the worship of saints and idols and avoid mosques and temples, and worship the one God only, neglecting Brāhmans and Mullas, and their scriptures, teaching, rites and religious symbols. Caste distinctions he positively condemned and instituted the prasād or communion, in which cakes of flour, butter and sugar are made and consecrated with certain ceremonies while the communicants sit round in prayer, and then distributed equally to all the faithful present, to whatever caste they may belong. The above rules, so far as they enjoin ceremonial observances, are still very generally obeyed. But the daily reading and recital of the Granth is discontinued, for the Sikhs are the most uneducated class in the Punjab, and an occasional visit to the Sikh temple where the Granth is read aloud is all that the villager thinks necessary. Blue clothes have been discontinued save by the fanatical Akāli sect, as have been very generally the short drawers or Kachh. The prohibition of tobacco has had the unfortunate effect of inducing the Sikhs to take to hemp and opium, both of which are far more injurious than tobacco. The precepts which forbid the Sikh to venerate Brāhmans or to associate himself with Hindu worship are entirely neglected; and in the matter of the worship of local saints and deities, and of the employment of and reverence for Brāhmans, there is little, while in current superstitions and superstitious practices there is no difference between the Sikh villager and his Hindu brother.”³⁹¹

5. Character of the Nānakpanthis and Sikh sects

It seems thus clear that if it had not been for the political and military development of the Sikh movement, it would in time have lost most of its distinctive features and have come to be considered as a Hindu sect of the same character, if somewhat more distinctive than those of the Nānakpanthis and Kabīrpanthis. But this development and the founding of the Sikh State of Lahore created a breach between the Sikhs and ordinary Hindus wider than that caused by their religious differences, as was sufficiently demonstrated during the Mutiny. In their origin both the Sikh and Nānakpanthi sects appear to have been mainly a revolt against the caste system, the supremacy of Brāhmans and the degrading mass of superstitions and reverence of idols and spirit-worship which the Brāhmans encouraged for their own profit. But while Nānak, influenced by the observation of Islamic monotheism, attempted to introduce a pure religion only, the aim of Govind was perhaps political, and he saw in the caste system an obstacle to the national movement which he desired to excite against the Muhammadans. So far as the abolition of caste was concerned, both reformers have, as has been seen, largely failed, the two sects now recognising caste, while their members revere Brāhmans like ordinary Hindus.

6. The Akālis

The Akālis or Nihangs are a fanatical order of Sikh ascetics. The following extract is taken from Sir E. Maclagan’s account of them:³⁹²

“The Akālis came into prominence very early by their stout resistance to the innovations introduced by the Bairāgi Banda after the death of Guru Govind; but they do not appear to have had much influence during the following century until the days of Mahārāja Ranjit Singh. They constituted at once the most unruly and the bravest portion of the very unruly and brave Sikh army. Their headquarters were at Amritsar, where they constituted themselves the guardians of the faith and assumed the right to convoke synods. They levied offerings by force and were the terror of the Sikh chiefs. Their good qualities were, however, well appreciated by the Mahārāja, and when there were specially fierce foes to meet, such as the Pathāns beyond the Indus, the Akālis were always to the front.

“The Akāli is distinguished very conspicuously by his dark-blue and checked dress, his peaked turban, often surmounted with steel quoits, and by the fact of his strutting about like Ali Bāba’s prince with his ‘thorax and abdomen festooned with curious cutlery.’ He is most particular in retaining the five Kakkas, and in preserving every outward form prescribed by Guru Govind Singh. Some of the Akālis wear a yellow turban underneath the blue one, leaving a yellow band across the forehead. The yellow turban is worn by many Sikhs at the Basant Panchmi, and the Akālis are fond of wearing it at all times. There is a couplet by Bhai Gurdās which says:

 
Siah, Sufed, Surkh, Zardae,
Jo pahne, sot Gurbhai;
 

or, ‘Those that wear black (the Akālis), white (the Nirmalas), red (the Udāsis) or yellow, are all members of the brotherhood of the Sikhs.’

“The Akālis do not, it is true, drink spirits or eat meat as other Sikhs do, but they are immoderate in the consumption of bhāng. They are in other respects such purists that they will avoid Hindu rites even in their marriage ceremonies.

“The Akāli is full of memories of the glorious day of the Khālsa; and he is nothing if he is not a soldier, a soldier of the Guru. He dreams of armies, and he thinks in lakhs. If he wishes to imply that five Akālis are present, he will say that ‘five lakhs are before you’; or if he would explain he is alone, he will say that he is with ‘one and a quarter lakhs of the Khālsa.’ You ask him how he is, and he replies that ‘The army is well’; you inquire where he has come from, and he says, ‘The troops marched from Lahore.’ The name Akāli means ‘immortal.’ When Sikhism was politically dominant, the Akālis were accustomed to extort alms by accusing the principal chiefs of crimes, imposing fines upon them, and in the event of their refusing to pay, preventing them from performing their ablutions or going through any of the religious ceremonies at Amritsar.”

7. The Sikh Council or Guru-Māta. Their communal meal

The following account was given by Sir J. Malcolm of the Guru-Māta or great Council of the Sikhs and their religious meal:³⁹³ “When a Guru-Māta or great national Council is called on the occasion of any danger to the country, all the Sikh chiefs assemble at Amritsar. The assembly is convened by the Akālis; and when the chiefs meet upon this solemn occasion it is concluded that all private animosities cease, and that every man sacrifices his personal feelings at the shrine of the general good.

“When the chiefs and principal leaders are seated, the Adi-Granth and Dasama Pādshāh Ka Granth³⁹⁴ are placed before them. They all bend their heads before the Scriptures and exclaim, ‘Wah Guruji ka Khālsa! wah Guruji ka Fateh!’³⁹⁵ A great quantity of cakes made of wheat, butter and sugar are then placed before the volumes of their sacred writings and covered with a cloth. These holy cakes, which are in commemoration of the injunction of Nānak to eat and to give to others to eat next receive the salutation of the assembly, who then rise, while the Akālis pray aloud and the musicians play. The Akālis, when the prayers are finished, desire the Council to be seated. They sit down, and the cakes are uncovered and eaten by all classes of the Sikhs, those distinctions of tribe and caste which are on other occasions kept up being now laid aside in token of their general and complete union in one cause. The Akālis proclaim the Guru-Māta, and prayers are again said aloud. The chiefs after this sit closer and say to each other, ‘The sacred Granth is between us, let us swear by our Scriptures to forget all internal disputes and to be united.’ This moment of religious fervour is taken to reconcile all animosities. They then proceed to consider the danger with which they are threatened, to devise the best plans for averting it and to choose the generals who are to lead their armies against the common enemy.” The first Guru-Māta was assembled by Guru Govind, and the latest was called in 1805, when the British Army pursued Holkar into the Punjab. The Sikh Army was known as Dal Khālsa, or the Army of God, khālsa being an Arabic word meaning one’s own.³⁹⁶ At the height of the Sikh power the followers of this religion only numbered a small fraction of the population of the Punjab, and its strength is now declining. In 1911 the Sikhs were only three millions in the Punjab population of twenty-four millions.

Smārta Sect

Smārta Sect.—This is an orthodox Hindu sect, the members of which are largely Brāhmans. The name is derived from Smriti or tradition, a name given to the Hindu sacred writings, with the exception of the Vedas, which last are regarded as a divine revelation. Members of the sect worship the five deities, Siva, Vishnu, Sūraj or the sun, Ganpati and Sakti, the divine principle of female energy corresponding to Siva. They say that their sect was founded by Shankar Achārya, the great Sivite reformer and opponent of Buddhism, but this appears to be incorrect. Shankar Achārya himself is said to have believed in one unseen God, who was the first cause and sole ruler of the universe; but he countenanced for the sake of the weaker brethren the worship of orthodox Hindu deities and of their idols.

Image of the prophet Swāmi Nārāyan in the Teli temple at Burhānpur

Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect

1. The founder

Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect. ³⁹⁷—This, one of the most modern Vaishnava sects, was founded by Sahajānand Swāmi, a Sarwaria Brāhman, born near Ajodhia in the United Provinces in A.D. 1780. At an early age he became a religious mendicant, and wandered all over India, visiting the principal shrines. When twenty years old he was made a Sādhu of the Rāmānandi order, and soon nominated as his successor by the head of the order. He preached with great success in Gujarāt, and though his tenets do not seem to have differed much from the Rāmānandi creed, his personal influence was such that his followers founded a new sect and called it after him. He proclaimed the worship of one sole deity, Krishna or Nārāyana, whom he identified with the sun, and apparently his followers held, and he inclined to believe himself, that he was a fresh incarnation of Vishnu. It is said that he displayed miraculous powers before his disciples, entrancing whomsoever he cast his eyes upon, and causing them in this mesmeric state (Samādhi) to imagine they saw Sahajānand as Krishna with yellow robes, weapons of war, and other characteristics of the God, and to behold him seated as chief in an assembly of divine beings.

2. Tenets of the sect

His creed prohibited the destruction of animal life; the use of animal food and intoxicating liquors or drugs on any occasion; promiscuous intercourse with the other sex; suicide, theft and robbery, and false accusations. Much good was done, the Collector testified, by his preaching among the wild Kolis of Gujarāt;³⁹⁸ his morality was said to be far better than any which could be learned from the Shāstras; he condemned theft and bloodshed; and those villages and Districts which had received him, from being among the worst, were now among the best and most orderly in the Province of Bombay. His success was great among the lower castes, as the Kolis, Bhīls and Kāthis. He was regarded by his disciples as the surety of sinners, his position in this respect resembling that of the Founder of Christianity. To Bishop Heber he said that while he permitted members of different castes to eat separately here below, in the future life there would be no distinction of castes.³⁹⁹ His rules for the conduct of the sexes towards each other were especially severe. No Sādhu of the Swāmi-Nārāyan sect might ever touch a woman, even the accidental touching of any woman other than a mother having to be expiated by a whole-day fast. Similarly, should a widow-disciple touch even a boy who was not her son, she had to undergo the same penalty. There were separate passages for women in their large temples, and separate reading and preaching halls for women, attended by wives of the Achāryas or heads of the sect. These could apparently be married, but other members of the priestly order must remain single; while the lay followers lived among their fellows, pursuing their ordinary lives and avocations. The strictness of the Swāmi on sexual matters was directed against the licentious practices of the Mahārāj or Vallabhachārya order. He boldly denounced the irregularities they had introduced into their forms of worship, and exposed the vices which characterised the lives of their clergy. This attitude, as well as the prohibition of the worship of idols, earned for him the hostility of the Peshwa and the Marātha Brāhmans, and he was subjected to a considerable degree of persecution; his followers were taught the Christian doctrine of suffering injury without retaliation, and the devotees of hostile sects took advantage of this to beat them unmercifully, some being even put to death.

3. Meeting with Bishop Heber

In order to protect the Swāmi, his followers constituted from themselves an armed guard, as shown by Bishop Heber’s account of their meeting: “About eleven o’clock I had the expected visit from Swāmi-Nārāyan. He came in a somewhat different guise from all which I expected, having with him near 200 horsemen, mostly well-armed with matchlocks and swords, and several of them with coats of mail and spears. Besides them he had a large rabble on foot with bows and arrows, and when I considered that I had myself an escort of more than fifty horses and fifty muskets and bayonets, I could not help smiling, though my sensations were in some degree painful and humiliating, at the idea of two religious teachers meeting at the head of little armies, and filling the city which was the scene of their interview with the rattling of gunners, the clash of shields and the tramp of the war-horse. Had our troops been opposed to each other, mine, though less numerous, would have been doubtless far more effective from the superiority of arms and discipline. But in moral grandeur what a difference was there between his troop and mine. Mine neither knew me nor cared for me; they escorted me faithfully and would have defended me bravely, because they were ordered by their superiors to do so. The guards of Swāmi-Nārāyan were his own disciples and enthusiastic admirers, men who had voluntarily repaired to hear his lessons, who now took a pride in doing him honour, and would cheerfully fight to the last drop of blood rather than suffer a fringe of his garment to be handled roughly.... The holy man himself was a middle-aged, thin and plain-looking person, about my own age, with a mild expression of countenance, but nothing about him indicative of any extraordinary talent. I seated him on a chair at my right hand and offered two more to the Thākur and his son, of which, however, they did not avail themselves without first placing their hands under the feet of their spiritual guide and then pressing them reverently to their foreheads.”

4. Meeting with Governor of Bombay

Owing, apparently, to the high moral character of his preaching and his success in reducing to order and tranquillity the turbulent Kolis and Bhīls who accepted his doctrines, Swāmi-Nārāyan enjoyed a large measure of esteem and regard from the officers of Government. This will be evidenced from the following account of his meeting with the Governor of Bombay:⁴⁰⁰ “On the receipt of the above two letters, Swāmi-Nārāyan Mahārāj proceeded to Rājkote to visit the Right Honourable the Governor, and on the 26th February 1830 was escorted as a mark of honourable reception by a party of troops and military foot-soldiers to the Political Agent’s bungalow, when His Excellency the Governor, the Secretary, Mr. Thomas Williamson, six other European gentlemen, and the Political Agent, Mr. Blane, having come out of the bungalow to meet the Swāmi-Nārāyan, His Excellency conducted the Swāmi, hand in hand, to a hall in the bungalow and made him sit on a chair. His Excellency afterwards with pleasure enquired about the principles of his religion, which were communicated accordingly. His Excellency also made a present to Swāmi-Nārāyan of a pair of shawls and other piece-goods. Swāmi-Nārāyan was asked by the Governor whether he and his disciples have had any harm under British rule; and His Excellency was informed in reply that there was nothing of the sort, but that on the contrary every protection was given them by all the officers in authority. His Excellency then asked for a code of the religion of Swāmi-Nārāyan, and the book called the Shiksapatri was presented to him accordingly. Thus after a visit extending to an hour Swāmi-Nārāyan asked permission to depart, when he was sent back with the same honours with which he had been received, all the European officers accompanying him out of the door from the bungalow.”

5. Conclusion

The author of the above account is not given, and it apparently emanates from a follower of the saint, but there seems little reason to doubt its substantial accuracy, and it certainly demonstrates the high estimation in which he was held. After his death his disciples erected Chauras or resthouses and monuments to his memory in all the villages and beneath all the trees where he had at any time made any stay in Gujarāt; and here he is worshipped by the sect. In 1901 the sect had about 300,000 adherents in Gujarāt. In the Central Provinces a number of persons belong to it in Nimār, principally of the Teli caste. The Telis of Nimār are anxious to improve their social position, which is very low, and have probably joined the sect on account of its liberal principles on the question of caste.

Images of Rāma, Lachman and Sīta, with attendants

Vaishnava, Vishnuite Sect

1. Vishnu as representing the sun

Vaishnava, Vishnuite Sect.—The name given to Hindus whose special deity is the god Vishnu, and to a number of sects which have adopted various special doctrines based on the worship of Vishnu or of one of his two great incarnations, Rāma and Krishna. Vishnu was a personification of the sun, though in ancient literature the sun is more often referred to under another name, as Savitri, Surya and Aditya. It may perhaps be the case that when the original sun-god develops into a supreme deity with the whole heavens as his sphere, the sun itself comes to be regarded as a separate and minor deity. His weapon of the chakra or discus, which was probably meant to resemble the sun, supports the view of Vishnu as a sun-god, and also his vāhan, the bird Garūda, on which he rides. This is the Brāhminy kite, a fine bird with chestnut plumage and white head and breast, which has been considered a sea-eagle. Mr. Dewar states that it remains almost motionless at a great height in the air for long periods; and it is easy to understand how in these circumstances primitive people mistook it for the spirit of the sky, or the vehicle of the sun-god. It is propitious for a Hindu to see a Brāhminy kite, especially on Sunday, the sun’s day, for it is believed that the bird is then returning from Vishnu, whom it has gone to see on the previous evening.⁴⁰¹ A similar belief has probably led to the veneration of the eagle in other countries and its association with the god of the sky or heavens, as in the case of Zeus. Similarly the Gayatri, the most sacred Hindu prayer, is addressed to the sun, and it could hardly have been considered so important unless the luminary was identified with one of the greatest Hindu gods. Every Brāhman prays to the sun daily when he bathes in the morning. Vishnu’s character as the preserver and fosterer of life is probably derived from the sun’s generative power, so conspicuous in India.

As the sun is seen to sink every night into the earth, so it was thought that he could come down to earth, and Vishnu has done this in many forms for the preservation of mankind.