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Sikhism. Guru Nanak founded the Sikh religion in the Punjab region of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent in the 15th century and opposed many traditional practices like fasting, Upanayana, idolatry, caste system, ascetism, azan, economic materialism, and gender discrimination. [1] Guru Gobind Singh, tenth of the ten Sikh Gurus ...
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Sikhism, religion and philosophy founded in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent in the late 15th century. Its members are known as Sikhs. The Sikhs call their faith Gurmat (Punjabi: “the Way of the Guru”). According to Sikh tradition, Sikhism was established by Guru Nanak (1469–1539) and subsequently led by a succession of nine other Gurus. All 10 human Gurus, Sikhs believe, were inhabited by a single spirit. Upon the death of the 10th, Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708), the spirit of the eternal Guru transferred itself to the sacred scripture of Sikhism, Guru Granth Sahib (“The Granth as the Guru”), also known as the Adi Granth (“First Volume”), which thereafter was regarded as the sole Guru. In the early 21st century there were nearly 25 million Sikhs worldwide, the great majority of them living in the Indian state of Punjab.
The following discussion of the lives of the 10 Gurus relies on the traditional Sikh account, most elements of which are derived from hagiographic legend and lore and cannot be verified historically. This point should be borne in mind throughout, especially in the sections on the early Gurus.
Sikh in Punjabi means “learner,” and those who joined the Sikh community, or Panth (“Path”), were people who sought spiritual guidance. Sikhs claim that their tradition has always been separate from Hinduism. Nevertheless, many Western scholars argue that in its earliest stage Sikhism was a movement within the Hindu tradition; Nanak, they point out, was raised a Hindu and eventually belonged to the Sant tradition of northern India, a movement associated with the great poet and mystic Kabir (1440–1518). The Sants, most of whom were poor, dispossessed, and illiterate, composed hymns of great beauty expressing their experience of the divine, which they saw in all things. Their tradition drew heavily on the Vaishnava bhakti (the devotional movement within the Hindu tradition that worships the god Vishnu), though there were important differences between the two. Like the followers of bhakti, the Sants believed that devotion to God is essential to liberation from the cycle of rebirth in which all human beings are trapped; unlike the followers of bhakti, however, the Sants maintained that God is nirgun (“without form”) and not sagun (“with form”). For the Sants, God can be neither incarnated nor represented in concrete terms.
Certain lesser influences also operated on the Sant movement. Chief among them was the Nath tradition, which comprised a cluster of sects, all claiming descent from the semilegendary teacher Gorakhnath and all promoting Hatha Yoga as the means of spiritual liberation. Although the Sants rejected the physical aspects of Hatha Yoga in favor of meditation techniques, they accepted the Naths’ concept of spiritual ascent to ultimate bliss. Some scholars have argued that the Sants were influenced by Islam through their contact with the Mughal rulers of India from the early 16th century, but there is in fact little indication of this, though Sufism (Islamic mysticism) may have had a marginal effect.
Mar 3, 2012 · Brief history of Sikhism. Text for children. Sikhism was founded in the early fifteenth century by their founder and spiritual teacher called Guru Nanak. He was firmly of the belief that all people were born equal and should have equal opportunities. Guru means "spiritual leader" and he guided his people in the way of God's will or Hukam ...
Sep 30, 2009 · Sikh world history Origins of Sikhism. Sikhism was born in the Punjab area of South Asia, which now falls into the present day states of India and Pakistan. The main religions of the area at the ...
Sikhism ( / ˈsɪkɪzəm / SIK-iz-əm ), also known as Sikhi ( Punjabi: ਸਿੱਖੀ Sikkhī, [ˈsɪk.kʰiː] ⓘ, from ਸਿੱਖ, Sikh, 'disciple / learner'), [i] is an Indian religion [9] and philosophy [10] in particular for the Sikh ethnoreligious group that originated in the Punjab region of India [ii] around the end of the 15th ...
Oct 3, 2008 · History of Sikhism. The word "Sikh" is derived from the Sanskrit 'shishya' meaning disciple. Sikhs are the disciples of their ten Gurus beginning with Guru Nanak (1469 - 1539) and ending with Guru Gobind Singh (1666 -1708) and their perpetual "living" Guru, the Guru Granth Sahib. There are over 23 million Sikhs in the world today, the vast ...
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However, Sikh political history may be said to begin in 1606, with the death of the fifth Sikh guru, Guru Arjan Dev. Religious practices were formalised by Guru Gobind Singh on 30 March 1699, when the Guru initiated five people from a variety of social backgrounds, known as the Panj Piare ( ' beloved five ' ), to form a collective body of initiated Sikhs, known as the Khalsa ( ' pure ' ).
