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GURSIKH
19 October 2008, 02:35 AM
guru nanak rejected vaishnav , shivite , dev pooja such as ganesh , hanuman ...and devi pooja durga , kali , vaishno mata ...and stone pooja as done in every hindu temple .


acc to guru there is only one formless and birthless , the father of the above mention gods ,


fateh

Harjas Kaur
19 October 2008, 03:15 AM
deleted

Harjas Kaur
19 October 2008, 04:46 AM
deleted

GURSIKH
19 October 2008, 09:59 AM
thanx Harjas sory for omitting kaur

gurbani reject s these deities , i m giving quotes

1 here kabir ji reject krishna

ਲਖ ਚਉਰਾਸੀਹ ਜੀਅ ਜੋਨਿ ਮਹਿ ਭ੍ਰਮਤ ਨੰਦੁ ਬਹੁ ਥਾਕੋ ਰੇ ॥
Wandering through 8.4 million incarnations, Krishna's father Nand was totally exhausted.


ਭਗਤਿ ਹੇਤਿ ਅਵਤਾਰੁ ਲੀਓ ਹੈ ਭਾਗੁ ਬਡੋ ਬਪੁਰਾ ਕੋ ਰੇ ॥੧॥
Because of his devotion, Krishna was incarnated in his home; how great was the good fortune of this poor man! ||1||


ਤੁਮ੍ਹ੍ਹ ਜੁ ਕਹਤ ਹਉ ਨੰਦ ਕੋ ਨੰਦਨੁ ਨੰਦ ਸੁ ਨੰਦਨੁ ਕਾ ਕੋ ਰੇ ॥
You say that Krishna was Nand's son, but whose son was Nand himself?


ਧਰਨਿ ਅਕਾਸੁ ਦਸੋ ਦਿਸ ਨਾਹੀ ਤਬ ਇਹੁ ਨੰਦੁ ਕਹਾ ਥੋ ਰੇ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
When there was no earth or ether or the ten directions, where was this Nand then? ||1||Pause||


ਸੰਕਟਿ ਨਹੀ ਪਰੈ ਜੋਨਿ ਨਹੀ ਆਵੈ ਨਾਮੁ ਨਿਰੰਜਨ ਜਾ ਕੋ ਰੇ ॥
He does not fall into misfortune, and He does not take birth; His Name is the Immaculate Lord.


[ਕਬੀਰ ਕੋ ਸੁਆਮੀ ਐਸੋ ਠਾਕੁਰੁ ਜਾ ਕੈ ਮਾਈ ਨ ਬਾਪੋ ਰੇ ॥੨॥੧੯॥੭੦॥
Kabeer's Lord is such a Lord and Master, who has no mother or father. ||2||1


here naam dev ji rejected ram , shiva and so on

ਆਜੁ ਨਾਮੇ ਬੀਠਲੁ ਦੇਖਿਆ ਮੂਰਖ ਕੋ ਸਮਝਾਊ ਰੇ ॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
Today, Naam Dayv saw the Lord, and so I will instruct the ignorant. ||Pause||


ਪਾਂਡੇ ਤੁਮਰੀ ਗਾਇਤ੍ਰੀ ਲੋਧੇ ਕਾ ਖੇਤੁ ਖਾਤੀ ਥੀ ॥
O Pandit, O religious scholar, your Gayatri was grazing in the fields.


ਲੈ ਕਰਿ ਠੇਗਾ ਟਗਰੀ ਤੋਰੀ ਲਾਂਗਤ ਲਾਂਗਤ ਜਾਤੀ ਥੀ ॥੧॥
Taking a stick, the farmer broke its leg, and now it walks with a limp. ||1||


ਪਾਂਡੇ ਤੁਮਰਾ ਮਹਾਦੇਉ ਧਉਲੇ ਬਲਦ ਚੜਿਆ ਆਵਤੁ ਦੇਖਿਆ ਥਾ ॥
O Pandit, I saw your great god Shiva, riding along on a white bull.


ਮੋਦੀ ਕੇ ਘਰ ਖਾਣਾ ਪਾਕਾ ਵਾ ਕਾ ਲੜਕਾ ਮਾਰਿਆ ਥਾ ॥੨॥
In the merchant's house, a banquet was prepared for him - he killed the merchant's son.

ਪਾਂਡੇ ਤੁਮਰਾ ਰਾਮਚੰਦੁ ਸੋ ਭੀ ਆਵਤੁ ਦੇਖਿਆ ਥਾ ॥
O Pandit, I saw your Raam Chand coming too


ਰਾਵਨ ਸੇਤੀ ਸਰਬਰ ਹੋਈ ਘਰ ਕੀ ਜੋਇ ਗਵਾਈ ਥੀ ॥੩॥
; he lost his wife, fighting a war against Raawan. ||3||


ਹਿੰਦੂ ਅੰਨ੍ਹ੍ਹਾ ਤੁਰਕੂ ਕਾਣਾ ॥
The Hindu is sightless; the Muslim has only one eye.


ਦੁਹਾਂ ਤੇ ਗਿਆਨੀ ਸਿਆਣਾ ॥
The spiritual teacher is wiser than both of them.


ਹਿੰਦੂ ਪੂਜੈ ਦੇਹੁਰਾ ਮੁਸਲਮਾਣੁ ਮਸੀਤਿ ॥
The Hindu worships at the temple, the Muslim at the mosque.


ਨਾਮੇ ਸੋਈ ਸੇਵਿਆ ਜਹ ਦੇਹੁਰਾ ਨ ਮਸੀਤਿ ॥੪॥੩॥੭॥
Naam Dayv serves that Lord, who is not limited to either the temple or the mosque. ||4||3||7||



here naam dev reject your bhairo , sheetla and maha mai


Gond:


ਭੈਰਉ ਭੂਤ ਸੀਤਲਾ ਧਾਵੈ ॥
One who chases after the god Bhairau, sheetla .


ਖਰ ਬਾਹਨੁ ਉਹੁ ਛਾਰੁ ਉਡਾਵੈ ॥੧॥
is riding on a donkey, kicking up the dust. ||1||


ਹਉ ਤਉ ਏਕੁ ਰਮਈਆ ਲੈਹਉ ॥
I take only the Name of the One Lord.


ਆਨ ਦੇਵ ਬਦਲਾਵਨਿ ਦੈਹਉ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
I have given away all other gods in exchange for Him. ||1||Pause||


ਸਿਵ ਸਿਵ ਕਰਤੇ ਜੋ ਨਰੁ ਧਿਆਵੈ ॥
That man who chants "Shiva, Shiva", and meditates on him,


ਬਰਦ ਚਢੇ ਡਉਰੂ ਢਮਕਾਵੈ ॥੨॥
is riding on a bull, shaking a tambourine. ||2||


ਮਹਾ ਮਾਈ ਕੀ ਪੂਜਾ ਕਰੈ ॥
One who worships the maha mai


ਨਰ ਸੈ ਨਾਰਿ ਹੋਇ ਅਉਤਰੈ ॥੩॥
will be reincarnated as a woman, and not a man. ||3||


ਤੂ ਕਹੀਅਤ ਹੀ ਆਦਿ ਭਵਾਨੀ ॥
You are called the Primal Goddess.


ਮੁਕਤਿ ਕੀ ਬਰੀਆ ਕਹਾ ਛਪਾਨੀ ॥੪॥
At the time of liberation, where will you hide then? ||4||


ਗੁਰਮਤਿ ਰਾਮ ਨਾਮ ਗਹੁ ਮੀਤਾ ॥
Follow the Guru's Teachings, and hold tight to the Lord's Name, O friend.


dear do'nt debate on names as in only jaap sahib guru sahib gave more than 2000 names of god

god created millions of krishna s like worms

ਨਮੋ ਆਦਿ ਅਭੰਗੇ ਨਮੋ ਆਦਿ ਅਭੰਗੇ ॥੫॥੯੫॥
नमो आदि अभंगे नमो आदि अभंगे ॥५॥९५॥
Salutation to Him, Who is Primal and Immortal; Salutation to Him who is Primal and Immortal.5.95.

ਕਿਤੇ ਕ੍ਰਿਸਨ ਸੇ ਕੀਟ ਕੋਟੈ ਉਪਾਏ ॥
किते क्रिसन से कीट कोटै उपाए ॥
He hath Created millions of Krishnas like worms.

ਉਸਾਰੇ ਗੜ੍ਹੇ ਫੇਰਿ ਮੇਟੇ ਬਨਾਏ ॥
उसारे गड़्हे फेरि मेटे बनाए ॥
He Created them, annihilated them, again destroyed them, still again Created them.


...

ਕ੍ਰਿਸਨ ਔ ਬਿਸਨ ਜਪੇ ਤੁਹਿ ਕੋਟਿਕ ਰਾਮ ਰਹੀਮ ਭਲੀ ਬਿਧਿ ਧਿਆਯੋ ॥
क्रिसन औ बिसन जपे तुहि कोटिक राम रहीम भली बिधि धिआयो ॥
Thou hast meditated on millions of Krishnas, Vishnus, Ramas and Rahims.

ਬ੍ਰਹਮ ਜਪਿਓ ਅਰੁ ਸੰਭੁ ਥਪਿਓ ਤਹਿ ਤੇ ਤੁਹਿ ਕੋ ਕਿਨਹੂੰ ਨ ਬਚਾਯੋ ॥
ब्रहम जपिओ अरु स्मभु थपिओ तहि ते तुहि को किनहूं न बचायो ॥
Thou hast recited the name of Brahma and established Shivalingam, even then none could save thee.



and plz read the following as in hindu gods ganeshs name come first but my father says

ਮੈ ਨ ਗਨੇਸ਼ਹਿ ਪ੍ਰਿਥਮ ਮਨਾਊਂ ॥ ਕਿਸ਼ਨ ਬਿਸ਼ਨ ਕਬਹੂੰ ਨਹ ਧਿਆਊਂ ॥ਕਾਨ ਸੁਨੇ ਪਹਿਚਾਨ ਨ ਤਿਨ ਸੋਂ ॥ ਲਿਵ ਲਾਗੀ ਮੋਰੀ ਪਗ ਇਨ ਸੋਂ ॥੪੩੪॥
मै न गनेशहि प्रिथम मनाऊं ॥ किशन बिशन कबहूं नह धिआऊं ॥कान सुने पहिचान न तिन सों ॥ लिव लागी मोरी पग इन सों ॥४३४॥
I do not adore Ganesha in the beginning and also do not mediatate on Krishna and Vishnu; I have only heard about them with my ears and I do not recognize them; my consciousness is absorbed at the feet of the immortal .



and more about vedas and puranas

ਸ੍ਵੈਯਾ ॥
स्वैया ॥
SWAYYA

ਪਾਂਇ ਗਹੇ ਜਬ ਤੇ ਤੁਮਰੇ ਤਬ ਤੇ ਕੋਊ ਆਂਖ ਤਰੇ ਨਹੀ ਆਨਿਯੋ ॥ ਰਾਮ ਰਹੀਮ ਪੁਰਾਨ ਕੁਰਾਨ ਅਨੇਕ ਕਹੈਂ ਮਤਿ ਏਕ ਨ ਮਾਨਿਯੋ ॥
पांइ गहे जब ते तुमरे तब ते कोऊ आंख तरे नही आनियो ॥ राम रहीम पुरान कुरान अनेक कहैं मति एक न मानियो ॥
O God ! the day when I caught hold of your feet, I do not bring anyone else under my sight; none other is liked by me now; the Puranas and the Quran try to know Thee by the names of Ram and Rahim and talk about you through several stories, but I do not accept any of their opinions;

ਸਿੰਮ੍ਰਿਤਿ ਸਾਸਤ੍ਰ ਬੇਦ ਸਭੈ ਬਹੁ ਭੇਦ ਕਹੈ ਹਮ ਏਕ ਨ ਜਾਨਿਯੋ ॥ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਅਸਿਪਾਨਿ ਕ੍ਰਿਪਾ ਤੁਮਰੀ ਕਰਿ ਮੈ ਨ ਕਹਿਯੋ ਸਭ ਤੋਹਿ ਬਖਾਨਿਯੋ ॥੮੬੩॥
सिम्रिति सासत्र बेद सभै बहु भेद कहै हम एक न जानियो ॥ स्री असिपानि क्रिपा तुमरी करि मै न कहियो सभ तोहि बखानियो ॥८६३॥
The Simritis, Shastras and Vedas describe several mysteries of yours, but I do not agree with any of them. O sword-wielder God! This all has been described by Thy Grace, what power can I have to write all this?.863.



And also, why does it bother you so much to come to a Hindu forum and tell Hindus that Sikh's reject Hinduism? I mean, why would you bother with what Hindus believe if you have no respect or understanding of Hindu philosophy and teaching?


dear it bothers me bcoz it bothered my father also .



fateh jiyo ji

satay
19 October 2008, 12:06 PM
Namaskar,


guru nanak rejected vaishnav , shivite , dev pooja such as ganesh , hanuman ...and devi pooja durga , kali , vaishno mata ...and stone pooja as done in every hindu temple .


Guru Gobind who actually created sikhism into a formal religion was a kali devotee and did puja to kali murthi before he went on every fight against the mullahs. Please check Sikh history.



acc to guru there is only one formless and birthless , the father of the above mention gods ,


fateh

Guru Nanak took the best ideas from both Hinduism and Mullahism and was advocating the nirguna brahman, the thesis of Vedanta! However, your statement the formless is the 'father' is incorrect as that which is formless or nirguna cannot actually take the 'form' of a 'father' otherwise it won't be formless anylonger.

In the true sense of the word, Guru Nanak was a Vedantist.

In any case, Hindus in general don't care what sikhism has to say about its philosophies or the way of worship. This is because sikhism outside of punjab is sort of a foreign religion to most Indian or at least that is my experience.

PS: Please consider reading the forum rules by clicking on FAQ. Flaming on this site is not allowed and I have no trouble in redirecting you to other forums on the internet where you can work your own personal agenda better.

Thanks,

satay
19 October 2008, 12:12 PM
Namaskar,



Just to make foolish statements such as you have made, and personal PMs to me such as you have made?


Please report all such activities to me. All forum rules apply even on PM communication and abuse of others by any other member is not allowed even if it is hidden under Personal Messages.

sm78
20 October 2008, 02:40 AM
guru nanak rejected vaishnav , shivite , dev pooja such as ganesh , hanuman ...and devi pooja durga , kali , vaishno mata ...and stone pooja as done in every hindu temple .


acc to guru there is only one formless and birthless , the father of the above mention gods ,


fateh

Dear Friend, being an tough iconoclast is a not enough to be a good muslim ... but for now you are ok, as long as we idol worshipers are still around, the mullah will treat you as a dear friend.

I don't know what Guru Govind Singh Ji have said to you ... oh, what has come to be of his life's work.

Harjas Kaur
20 October 2008, 05:45 AM
deleted

Singh Khalsa
27 October 2008, 07:19 AM
Vaheguroo Ji Ka Khalsa Vaheguroo Ji Ki Fateh


Namaskar,



Guru Gobind who actually created sikhism into a formal religion was a kali devotee and did puja to kali murthi before he went on every fight against the mullahs. Please check Sikh history.

Well that would depend on which version of history we choose to read! I have been studying the history of my Gurus (by their grace alone) since being a little child, this is one thing I have never come across :)
So I think it is alot better to see Guru Gobind Singh Ji's OWN writings to understand Guru Maharaj's beliefs. Guru Gobind Singh Ji has written so much that there is no area we can have doubts about.
Firstly, what has Guru Gobind Singh Ji said about himself?

"Consider me as His(God's) servant and do not think of any difference between me and the Lord.32."

Now, how can we possibly say that Guru Gobind Singh Ji worshipped any devi? If we say this we are saying that he who is the Lord himself worshipped a goddesss!

I think you should read more of Guru Gobind Singh Ji's bani to understand who he prayed to, banis like Akal Ustat, Jap Ji Sahib etc. all make 100% clear that Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj was prayed only to one God, Akal Purakh Vaheguroo.
Please read Chaupai Sahib, a very short bani of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, translation of which can be read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaupai_(Sikhism)#Translation_and_Transliteration_in_English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaupai_%28Sikhism%29#Translation_and_Transliteration_in_English)


You say that Guru Gobind Singh Ji did murti pooja, do you know what Guru Ji himself said about this?

While worshipping stones some people are bowing before them and some others are withholding idols of stones in their necks. Some people have faith that God is in the south while others consider God, is toward the west and they are bowing their heads in those directions. Some people are worshiping idols foolishly while others are adoring the dead. The whole world is busy in such false performances without knowing the secret mystery of God. (Akal Ustat, Guru Gobind Singh Ji)

I have killed hill Rajas (kings) who are bent on mischief. They are stone idol worshippers, I break idols and I worship one Lord. (Zaffarnama, Guru Gobind Singh Ji)

Furthermore Sikhism is a path started by Vaheguru himself, and revealed to the world through Satguru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj the roop of Nirankar himself.




Guru Nanak took the best ideas from both Hinduism and Mullahism and was advocating the nirguna brahman, the thesis of Vedanta!This statement is extremely insulting to me, a shisya of Dhan Dhan Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj. Guru Nanak Dev Ji did not 'take' anything from anywhere, for he is the Lord himself. As stated in Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj the only source of Gurbani is God alone:


"O (Bhai) Lalo! As the Lord’s word comes to me so I deliver it."


and

“O Gursikhs! Know that the Baani, the Word of the True Guru, is true, absolutely true. The Creator Lord Himself causes the Guru to chant it.”

and many more, please consult the following articles for further information:
http://www.sikhism101.com/node/144
http://www.sikhism101.com/node/145

Furthermore the idea of God as formless is present in many religions, not just Vedism, so that is a very tribalistic mentality to think that anything that someone else beleives that has also been mentioned in the Vedas must have been taken from there.



However, your statement the formless is the 'father' is incorrect as that which is formless or nirguna cannot actually take the 'form' of a 'father' otherwise it won't be formless anylonger.Perhaps this is the case for Hinduism however in Gurbani Vaheguroo has been referred to as both 'father' and 'mother', on various occasions.



In the true sense of the word, Guru Nanak was a Vedantist.This is quite a hurtful and offensive statement. As I have stated many times, Guru Nanak Dev Ji is GOD himself, God is not bound by any ideology or scripture. Furthermore, Guru Nanak Dev Ji has clearly REJECTED the Vedas and all other hindu religious scriptures in Gurbani:

"The Simritee is the daughter of the Vedas, O Siblings of Destiny. She has brought a chain and a rope. ||1||" (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 329)

"The Vedas and the Scriptures are only make-believe, O Siblings of Destiny; they do not relieve the anxiety of the heart." (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 727)

"Except the Word of the Guru, all other word is false. False is the Word that is not the true Guru’s. False are the speakers, false are the hearers, false are those who speak and recite." (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 917)


The Simritees and the Shaastras discriminate between good and evil, but they do not know the true essence of reality. (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 920)


The great volumes of the Simritees and the Shaastras only extend the extension of attachment to Maya. (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 1053)



And not forgetting Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj:

"I do not accept the doctrines enunciated by various faiths, believing in Ram, Rahim, Puranas and Qoran.
The Simritis, Shastras and Vedas mention different concepts but I do not subscribe to any of them.
O God, the Sword-bearer (of justice)! With Your Grace, all that has been uttered by me has been done under Your command."



Dear Friend, being an tough iconoclast is a not enough to be a good muslim ... but for now you are ok, as long as we idol worshipers are still around, the mullah will treat you as a dear friend.

I don't know what Guru Govind Singh Ji have said to you ... oh, what has come to be of his life's work.

On behalf of the original poster, please make clear what you are insinuating by this statement, I hope you are aware that Sikhs are not muslims and have nothing to do with mullahs.



Vaheguroo Ji Ka Khalsa Vaheguroo Ji Ki Fateh

TatTvamAsi
27 October 2008, 10:22 PM
Furthermore the idea of God as formless is present in many religions, not just Vedism, so that is a very tribalistic mentality to think that anything that someone else beleives that has also been mentioned in the Vedas must have been taken from there.


How ignorant can you be? The Vedas are the OLDEST scriptures known to mankind and even the anti-Hindu anti-Indian filth will tell you that! Therefore, anything that resembles any philosophy of the Vedas has most definitely been COPIED and STOLEN from it. There is no beating around the bush for that.

It is quite simple. At the time of the birth of Sikhism, Hinduism had degraded into mere ritualistic "bhakti" traditions in which most people blindly believed (still do) something and followed tradition. The "formless" you talk about is enshrined in the Rig Veda which is eternal; and the oldest religious text in existence! Therefore, any semblance of doubt regarding "others" coming up with their own theories for that is absolute nonsense!

This is time when real low-level people are born. And hence a "follow the leader" type faith is required. As you can see, all religions like Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, and especially the cults like christianity and islam have arisen in the Kali Yuga.

Sanatana Dharma is eternal; regardless of what others think. Therefore, the principles stated in the Vedas about the nature of reality are not mere speculations and ramblings of some old coot in the forest/desert. They are the culmination of the EXPERIENCES of the rishis in Ancient India (Aryavarta).

Funny how Buddhists, Sikhs, and other "dharmic" faith followers are vehemently anti-Hindu and of course the untouchable filth that are christians/muslims around the world as well. Times are tough for Hindus! tsk tsk.

Sudarshan
29 October 2008, 09:13 AM
A religeous fundamentalist can always find some quotes from the founders of the religion to support their fundamentalist beliefs. We can even find copious amounts of narrow minded thought in almost all of our own AchAryas.

When a guru says that he is the only way to the truth, he is speaking the truth. A guru's follower should not try to follow many paths at once because it leads nowhere. This is the reason why many gurus ( even genuine ones) choose to elevate himself and his teachings above everybody else.

The disciple should use his brain to understand the grand scheme of God that allows many beliefs and religions to ultimately lead to him. The fundamentalist easily falls a victim to the idea that he alone is right and everyone else is wrong. But a guru cannot be understood so easily from his words.

A guru who does not show conviction in his teachings will not be accepted by his students. People want to hear absolute truth all the time and do not entertain the idea that truth is beyond words and no guru can ever explain the truth. But guru still has to convince his shishyas and give them hope and encouragement. So they claim to know the only truth and deny the teachings of others so that his students may follow him whole heartedly. Gurus are not to be blamed. People are not satisfied with half truths. Many Gurus have little choice because people are immature.

Sikhism is nothing more than an amalgam of vedic and quranic thought. Nothing original in it. It might hurt but this is the fact. Vedas are much older than any other scripture and all religions and beliefs that arose in the East ( and even the west) copied vast amounts of vedic teaching often without acknowledging it. There is nothing wrong in copying the truth. Be happy with your beliefs.

devotee
29 October 2008, 09:46 AM
I wish I had not read this thread ! Is these all words of hatred taught in Sikhism ? It leaves me disappointed to see that these egotist sayings are attributed to highly revered souls.

My feeling is that these distortions are added later on by the organised religious bodies to keep their folks together ... at the cost of bonhomie between the two sects. These cannot be the words of Guru Nanak !

"My doctrine is better than all "others" ... my book is the one & only word of God" ... This thinking is nauseating ! It is sick mentality. It is like someone saying, "I am the only enlightened one. All others are false !". This statement shows how enlightened that fellow is ! Egotism & enlightenment together can make only an imaginary mixture for the consumption of the gullibles & the simpletons !

OM

Sudarshan
30 October 2008, 10:51 AM
I wish I had not read this thread ! Is these all words of hatred taught in Sikhism ? It leaves me disappointed to see that these egotist sayings are attributed to highly revered souls.


I think only some Sikhs are like this. You can find Hindus, Buddhists, Jains etc like this too. Fanatics abound in every faith. They are in less numbers generally compared to Semetic religions.




My feeling is that these distortions are added later on by the organised religious bodies to keep their folks together ... at the cost of bonhomie between the two sects. These cannot be the words of Guru Nanak !


I dont think so. Sectarian thoughts exist in the writings of many saints/prophets. Medieval literature shows little tolerance for each other. Even vedantic traditions were hostile towards each other.

For eg, Jesus says that 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

This is certainly a very sectarian message when taken literally. Each religion has its own name and definition for God the father and God the son. It is the idea expressed through words such as father/son that is important. But people usually forget the idealogy and instead fight over names, forms and qualities attributed to these terms. Jesus was certainly not wrong here because no one goes to the father ( the absolute) without the son ( guru or manifest form of God). By taking the son of God to be the historical Jesus who was crucified his message is converted into a narrow minded view. What is narrowminded is to think that God has only one son who will appear in only one place in the universe at a particular point of time. It is demeaning God to limit him like that.

This is why I said guru must be understood more carefully than his mere words. Fundamentalism is easy to support using any scripture and guru's words. It is much harder to apply reason and think in a more mature way.( than reducing God to one's childish imaginations). People easily fall for the trap.

indiansikhhindu
09 June 2009, 06:43 PM
i would just like to add that person who said u cnt belive guru nanak would say that first he did not say that it was shri guru gobind singh who said that. The Sri Guru Granth Sahib which was contains Guru nanaks teaching Cleary pays its respect to shiva, vishnu and brahma..What Guru gobind singh was talkin about was a time when india had been corrupted by islam and its own beliefs in mere idol worship..Guru Gobind singh wanted sikhs and hindus to return to worshipping the creator not merely by idol worship but by good deeds and actions...so his remarks on destroying idols wasnt an attack hinduism but an attack on not being a good person and just relying on a stone idol... idol worship was never condonmed by either sikh or hindu faiths butit was accpeted as path to enlighment as a focus of our fiath and devotion..but mere devotion without good deeds is wrong. Evn most sikh families have images ofthe gurus to focus their worship...even in islam (a religon which converts, in my opinion is not faith) every muslim faces east (god is everywhere not just east) they touch and kiss the black stone. so my point is idol worhsip is the focus and the path of reachin good karma by your deeds..inwhich once you reach enlightment the need for idols will not be required as you have reached nirvana..


This is The Sri Guru Granth Sahib the first verses composed by Guru nanak.

Obeisance, obeisance to Her, the Primal, the Immaculate, without beginning, without end, Immutable through all ages.
Aykaa maa-ee, jugat viaaee, tin chalay parvaan.
The Mother was conceived alone in some mysterious way and She procreated three deities.
Ik sansaaree, ik bhandaaree, ik laa-ay deeban.
One was Creator, one Sustainer, and one Destroyer of the world.
Jiv tis bhaavai, tivai chalaavai, jiv havai phurmaan.
The world moves as She ordains and as She pleases.
Oh vaykahi, onaa nadar na aavai, buhutaa ayho vidaan.
She sees all, but no one sees Her: this is a great wonder."
"Gurmukh naadang, gumukh vaydang, gurmukh rahe-aa samaa-ee. (stanza 4)
Through the Enlightener’s Word is attained the Mystic Sound; Through the Enlightener’s Word, the Divine Knowledge; And through the Enlightener’s Word is realized the All-Pervasiveness of God.
Gur eesar, gur gorakh barmaa, gur paarbatee maa-ee.
The Enlightener Herself is Shiv, Vishnoo, Barmaa; The Enlightener Herself is Paarvati, the Mother-Goddess...
Su-ast aath, baanee barmaa-o. Sat suhaan sadaa man chaa-o. (stanza 20)
Obeisance to Her, who is Herself Mahamaya, the Primal Word and Barmaa. She is Truth, Consciousness, and Bliss...
Aakhaih barmay, aakhaih ind. Aakhaih, gopee tai govind. (stanza 25)
The Barmaa and Indr utter Her Greatness, So also the Gopees and Krishna.
Aakhaih eesar, aakhaih sidh. Aaakhaih, kaytay keetay budh.
Shiv and Sidh speak of Her Glories, so also many gnostics created by Her."


in every faith u get fundamentalist who want to prove thier faith as the ONE...and in todays day capitalism, marketing, commericalism, movies history has been distorted, and now we get india which hasnt had the time to heal after islamic and british invasions to wipe hinduism fiath out making fiends into enemies..

today people have forgotten how integrated indian faiths where and ppl today use that fiath to their own needs......for their own gain..but it cleary states Guru nanaks view on hinduism....with great respect.


arjun london sikh.23

kv_rangan
29 January 2010, 10:58 PM
Vaheguroo Ji Ka Khalsa Vaheguroo Ji Ki Fateh



Well that would depend on which version of history we choose to read! I have been studying the history of my Gurus (by their grace alone) since being a little child, this is one thing I have never come across :)
So I think it is alot better to see Guru Gobind Singh Ji's OWN writings to understand Guru Maharaj's beliefs. Guru Gobind Singh Ji has written so much that there is no area we can have doubts about.
Firstly, what has Guru Gobind Singh Ji said about himself?

"Consider me as His(God's) servant and do not think of any difference between me and the Lord.32."

Now, how can we possibly say that Guru Gobind Singh Ji worshipped any devi? If we say this we are saying that he who is the Lord himself worshipped a goddesss!

I think you should read more of Guru Gobind Singh Ji's bani to understand who he prayed to, banis like Akal Ustat, Jap Ji Sahib etc. all make 100% clear that Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj was prayed only to one God, Akal Purakh Vaheguroo.
Please read Chaupai Sahib, a very short bani of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, translation of which can be read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaupai_(Sikhism)#Translation_and_Transliteration_in_English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaupai_%28Sikhism%29#Translation_and_Transliteration_in_English)


You say that Guru Gobind Singh Ji did murti pooja, do you know what Guru Ji himself said about this?

While worshipping stones some people are bowing before them and some others are withholding idols of stones in their necks. Some people have faith that God is in the south while others consider God, is toward the west and they are bowing their heads in those directions. Some people are worshiping idols foolishly while others are adoring the dead. The whole world is busy in such false performances without knowing the secret mystery of God. (Akal Ustat, Guru Gobind Singh Ji)

I have killed hill Rajas (kings) who are bent on mischief. They are stone idol worshippers, I break idols and I worship one Lord. (Zaffarnama, Guru Gobind Singh Ji)

Furthermore Sikhism is a path started by Vaheguru himself, and revealed to the world through Satguru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj the roop of Nirankar himself.



This statement is extremely insulting to me, a shisya of Dhan Dhan Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj. Guru Nanak Dev Ji did not 'take' anything from anywhere, for he is the Lord himself. As stated in Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj the only source of Gurbani is God alone:


"O (Bhai) Lalo! As the Lord’s word comes to me so I deliver it."


and

“O Gursikhs! Know that the Baani, the Word of the True Guru, is true, absolutely true. The Creator Lord Himself causes the Guru to chant it.”

and many more, please consult the following articles for further information:
http://www.sikhism101.com/node/144
http://www.sikhism101.com/node/145

Furthermore the idea of God as formless is present in many religions, not just Vedism, so that is a very tribalistic mentality to think that anything that someone else beleives that has also been mentioned in the Vedas must have been taken from there.


Perhaps this is the case for Hinduism however in Gurbani Vaheguroo has been referred to as both 'father' and 'mother', on various occasions.


This is quite a hurtful and offensive statement. As I have stated many times, Guru Nanak Dev Ji is GOD himself, God is not bound by any ideology or scripture. Furthermore, Guru Nanak Dev Ji has clearly REJECTED the Vedas and all other hindu religious scriptures in Gurbani:

"The Simritee is the daughter of the Vedas, O Siblings of Destiny. She has brought a chain and a rope. ||1||" (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 329)

"The Vedas and the Scriptures are only make-believe, O Siblings of Destiny; they do not relieve the anxiety of the heart." (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 727)

"Except the Word of the Guru, all other word is false. False is the Word that is not the true Guru’s. False are the speakers, false are the hearers, false are those who speak and recite." (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 917)


The Simritees and the Shaastras discriminate between good and evil, but they do not know the true essence of reality. (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 920)


The great volumes of the Simritees and the Shaastras only extend the extension of attachment to Maya. (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 1053)



And not forgetting Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj:

"I do not accept the doctrines enunciated by various faiths, believing in Ram, Rahim, Puranas and Qoran.
The Simritis, Shastras and Vedas mention different concepts but I do not subscribe to any of them.
O God, the Sword-bearer (of justice)! With Your Grace, all that has been uttered by me has been done under Your command."




On behalf of the original poster, please make clear what you are insinuating by this statement, I hope you are aware that Sikhs are not muslims and have nothing to do with mullahs.



Vaheguroo Ji Ka Khalsa Vaheguroo Ji Ki Fateh

Sat Sri Akal,

Dear Singh,
May Akal Purakh bless you.

I'm reading the Adi Granth.

But I have come across some contradictary statements.



Look at Bhagat Kabir's bani
ਕਮਲਾਪਤਿ ਕਵਲਾ ਨਹੀ ਜਾਨਾਂ ॥੩॥
कमलापति कवला नही जानां ॥३॥
Vishnu the Lord of Lakshmi and Lakshmi herself - none of them know the Lord. ||3||

But as u can see in Guru Arjun's statement here
ਬਿਨਵੰਤਿ ਨਾਨਕ ਮੇਰੀ ਆਸ ਪੂਰਨ ਮਿਲੇ ਸ੍ਰੀਧਰ ਗੁਣ ਨਿਧਾਨ ॥੪॥੧॥੧੪॥
बिनवंति नानक मेरी आस पूरन मिले स्रीधर गुण निधान ॥४॥१॥१४॥
Prays Nanak, my hopes are fulfilled; I have met the Lord, the Lord of Lakshmi, the treasure of excellence. ||4||1||14||


Look at Bhagat Sain's statements
ਵਾਰਨੇ ਜਾਉ ਕਮਲਾ ਪਤੀ ॥੧॥
वारने जाउ कमला पती ॥१॥
I am a sacrifice to the Lord of Lakshmi. ||1||

Again Guru Arjan's statements

ਮੁਕੰਦ ਮਨੋਹਰ ਲਖਮੀ ਨਾਰਾਇਣ ॥
मुकंद मनोहर लखमी नाराइण ॥

Liberator, Enticing Lord, Lord of Lakshmi, Supreme Lord God.

Bhagat Kabir
ਜਹ ਪਉੜੇ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਕਮਲਾ ਕੰਤ ॥੪॥
जह पउड़े स्री कमला कंत ॥४॥
The Supreme Lord, the Lord of Lakshmi dwells there. ||4||


Guru Nanak Dev's
ਮਿਹਰਵਾਨ ਮਧੁਸੂਦਨ ਮਾਧੌ ਐਸੀ ਸਕਤਿ ਤੁਮ੍ਹ੍ਹਾਰੀ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
मिहरवान मधुसूदन माधौ ऐसी सकति तुम्हारी ॥१॥ रहाउ ॥

O Merciful Lord, Destroyer of demons, Lord of Lakshmi, such is Your Power - Your Shakti.

San't Nabdeo
ਨਾਮੇ ਕੇ ਸੁਆਮੀ ਸੀਅ ਬਹੋਰੀ ਲੰਕ ਭਭੀਖਣ ਆਪਿਓ ਹੋ ॥੪॥੨॥
नामे के सुआमी सीअ बहोरी लंक भभीखण आपिओ हो ॥४॥२॥

Naam Dayv's Lord Master brought Sita back, and gave Sri Lanka to Bhabheekhan. ||4||2||

ਪੂਤੁ ਪ੍ਰਹਿਲਾਦੁ ਕਹਿਆ ਨਹੀ ਮਾਨੈ ਤਿਨਿ ਤਉ ਅਉਰੈ ਠਾਨੀ ॥੨॥
पूतु प्रहिलादु कहिआ नही मानै तिनि तउ अउरै ठानी ॥२॥

ਰਾਮੁ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%81) ਕਹੈ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%B9%E0%A9%88) ਕਰ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%B0) ਤਾਲ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%A4%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B2) ਬਜਾਵੈ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%9C%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B5%E0%A9%88) ਚਟੀਆ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%9A%E0%A8%9F%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%86) ਸਭੈ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%AD%E0%A9%88) ਬਿਗਾਰੇ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%97%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%87) ॥੧॥
रामु कहै कर ताल बजावै चटीआ सभै बिगारे ॥१॥

He chants the Lord's Name, clapping his hands to keep the beat; he has spoiled all the other students. ||1||

ਦੁਸਟ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%A6%E0%A9%81%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%9F) ਸਭਾ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%AD%E0%A8%BE) ਮਿਲਿ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AE%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%B2%E0%A8%BF) ਮੰਤਰ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A8%B0) ਉਪਾਇਆ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%89%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%87%E0%A8%86) ਕਰਸਹ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%B9) ਅਉਧ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%85%E0%A8%89%E0%A8%A7) ਘਨੇਰੀ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%98%E0%A8%A8%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%80) ॥
दुसट सभा मिलि मंतर उपाइआ करसह अउध घनेरी ॥

The council of villains met and resolved to send Prahlaad into the life hereafter.

ਗਿਰਿ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%97%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BF) ਤਰ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%A4%E0%A8%B0) ਜਲ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%9C%E0%A8%B2) ਜੁਆਲਾ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%9C%E0%A9%81%E0%A8%86%E0%A8%B2%E0%A8%BE) ਭੈ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AD%E0%A9%88) ਰਾਖਿਓ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%96%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%93) ਰਾਜਾ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%9C%E0%A8%BE) ਰਾਮਿ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%AE%E0%A8%BF) ਮਾਇਆ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AE%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%87%E0%A8%86) ਫੇਰੀ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AB%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%80) ॥੩॥
गिरि तर जल जुआला भै राखिओ राजा रामि माइआ फेरी ॥३॥
Prahlaad was thrown off a mountain, into the water, and into a fire, but the Sovereign Lord God saved him, by changing the laws of nature. ||3||

ਕਾਢਿ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%A2%E0%A8%BF) ਖੜਗੁ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%96%E0%A9%9C%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%81) ਕਾਲੁ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B2%E0%A9%81) ਭੈ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AD%E0%A9%88) ਕੋਪਿਓ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%95%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%93) ਮੋਹਿ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%BF) ਬਤਾਉ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%A4%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%89) ਜੁ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%9C%E0%A9%81) ਤੁਹਿ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%81%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%BF) ਰਾਖੈ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%96%E0%A9%88) ॥
काढि खड़गु कालु भै कोपिओ मोहि बताउ जु तुहि राखै ॥
Kādẖ kẖaṛag kāl bẖai kopi▫o mohi baṯā▫o jo ṯuhi rākẖai.
Harnaakhash thundered with rage and threatened to kill Prahlaad. "Tell me, who can save you?


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कहि नामदेउ हम नरहरि धिआवह रामु अभै पद दाता ॥५॥३॥९॥

Says Naam Dayv, I meditate on the Lord, the Man-lion, the Giver of fearless dignity. ||5||3||9||

ਪਾਖੰਤਣ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%96%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A8%A3) ਬਾਜ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%9C) ਬਜਾਇਲਾ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%9C%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%87%E0%A8%B2%E0%A8%BE) ॥
पाखंतण बाज बजाइला ॥
Playing on the instrument of the feathered wings,

ਗਰੁੜ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%97%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%81%E0%A9%9C) ਚੜ੍ਹ੍ਹੇ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%9A%E0%A9%9C%E0%A9%8D%E0%A8%B9%E0%A9%8D%E0%A8%B9%E0%A9%87) ਗੋਬਿੰਦ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A6) ਆਇਲਾ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%86%E0%A8%87%E0%A8%B2%E0%A8%BE) ॥੧੫॥
गरुड़ चड़्हे गोबिंद आइला ॥१५॥
the Gobinda came, mounted on the eagle garura. ||15||


ਅਪਨੇ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%85%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%A8%E0%A9%87) ਭਗਤ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AD%E0%A8%97%E0%A8%A4) ਪਰਿ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BF) ਕੀ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%95%E0%A9%80) ਪ੍ਰਤਿਪਾਲ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AA%E0%A9%8D%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B2) ॥
अपने भगत परि की प्रतिपाल ॥

He cherished His devotee,

ਗਰੁੜ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%97%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%81%E0%A9%9C) ਚੜ੍ਹ੍ਹੇ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%9A%E0%A9%9C%E0%A9%8D%E0%A8%B9%E0%A9%8D%E0%A8%B9%E0%A9%87) ਆਏ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%86%E0%A8%8F) ਗੋਪਾਲ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B2) ॥੧੬॥
गरुड़ चड़्हे आए गोपाल ॥१६॥

and the Lord came, mounted on the eagle garura. ||16||

ਨਾਮੇ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%A8%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%87) ਨਾਰਾਇਨ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%A8%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%87%E0%A8%A8) ਨਾਹੀ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%A8%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B9%E0%A9%80) ਭੇਦੁ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%AD%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%A6%E0%A9%81) ॥੨੮॥੧॥੧੦॥
नामे नाराइन नाही भेदु ॥२८॥१॥१०॥
There is no difference between Naam Dayv and the Lord. ||28||1||10||
Kabir
ਜਲ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%9C%E0%A8%B2) ਥਲ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%A5%E0%A8%B2) ਰਾਖਨ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%96%E0%A8%A8) ਹੈ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B9%E0%A9%88) ਰਘੁਨਾਥ (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.dictionary?Param=%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%98%E0%A9%81%E0%A8%A8%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%A5) ॥੩॥੧੦॥੧੮॥
जल थल राखन है रघुनाथ ॥३॥१०॥१८॥


Who's Raghunath? The Lord of Raghu clan

Guru Ram Das
जपिओ नामु सुक जनक गुर बचनी हरि हरि सरणि परे ॥
ਜਪਿਓ ਨਾਮੁ ਸੁਕ ਜਨਕ ਗੁਰ ਬਚਨੀ ਹਰਿ ਹਰਿ ਸਰਣਿ ਪਰੇ ॥

Suk-deva and Janak meditated on the Naam; following the Guru's Teachings, they sought the Sanctuary of the Lord, Har, Har.

Suk-deva was the son of Maharshi Byaas

Page 1309, Line 8 (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.gurbani?Action=Page&Param=1309&english=t&id=56116#l56116)
ਜਾਤ ਨਜਾਤਿ ਦੇਖਿ ਮਤ ਭਰਮਹੁ ਸੁਕ ਜਨਕ ਪਗੀਂ ਲਗਿ ਧਿਆਵੈਗੋ ॥
जात नजाति देखि मत भरमहु सुक जनक पगीं लगि धिआवैगो ॥

Do not be fooled by appearances of high and low social class. Suk Dayv bowed at the feet of Janak, and meditated.

Page 1389, Line 15 (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.gurbani?Action=Page&Param=1389&english=t&id=59192#l59192)
ਗਾਵਹਿ ਜਨਕਾਦਿ ਜੁਗਤਿ ਜੋਗੇਸੁਰ ਹਰਿ ਰਸ ਪੂਰਨ ਸਰਬ ਕਲਾ ॥
गावहि जनकादि जुगति जोगेसुर हरि रस पूरन सरब कला ॥

King Janak and the great Yogic heroes of the Lord's Way, sing the Praises of the All-powerful Primal Being, filled with the sublime essence of the Lord.


Page 1391, Line 10 (http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.gurbani?Action=Page&Param=1391&english=t&id=59247#l59247)
ਤੂ ਤਾ ਜਨਿਕ ਰਾਜਾ ਅਉਤਾਰੁ ਸਬਦੁ ਸੰਸਾਰਿ ਸਾਰੁ ਰਹਹਿ ਜਗਤ੍ਰ ਜਲ ਪਦਮ ਬੀਚਾਰ ॥
तू ता जनिक राजा अउतारु सबदु संसारि सारु रहहि जगत्र जल पदम बीचार ॥
You are the incarnation of King Janak; the contemplation of Your Shabad is sublime throughout the universe. You abide in the world like the lotus on the water.

kv_rangan
23 June 2010, 12:27 PM
Yes my friend... I throughly agree with you... Now I have many instances...
If the Sikhs show 3 instances... I can show... a lot...
okay... If they do not want to be with us... let them be separate...
But the following lines are facts...
Guru Nanak Dev's Bani
=====================
Page 1190, Line 18
मिहरवान मधुसूदन माधौ ऐसी सकति तुम्हारी ॥१॥ रहाउ ॥
O Merciful Lord, Destroyer of Mahiravan, Madhusudhan (Destroyer of Madhu), Madho, such is Your Power - Your Shakti. ||1||Pause||
---Mahiravan... oh... read Ramayan... okay?
Guru Amardas's Bani
===================
Page 443
हरणाखसु दुसटु हरि मारिआ प्रहलादु तराइआ ॥ 13
Hari killed the wicked Harnaakhash, and saved Prahlaad.

जन की पैज रखै राम नामा प्रहिलाद उधारि तराए ॥ 16
Ram's Name preserves the honor of His servant, as He preserved and emancipated Prahlaad.

Page 637:
प्रहिलाद जन तुधु राखि लए हरि जीउ हरणाखसु मारि पचाइआ ॥
You protected Your servant Prahlaad, O Dear Hari, and annihilated Harnaakhash.

Page 1133, Line 3
गुर उपदेसि प्रहिलादु हरि उचरै ॥
Following his Guru's instructions, Prahlaad chanted the Name of Hari;

Page 1133, Line 6
प्रहलाद का राखा होइ रघुराइआ ॥३॥
Raghurai is the Savior of Prahlaad. ||3||

Page 1133, Line 8
हरणाखसु नखी बिदारिआ प्रहलादु लीआ उबारि ॥४॥
Harnaakhash was torn apart by His claws, and Prahlaad was saved. ||4||

Page 1133,

Line 12
दैत पुत्रु प्रहलादु गाइत्री तरपणु किछू न जाणै सबदे मेलि मिलाइआ ॥१॥ रहाउ ॥
Prahlaad, the demon's son, knew nothing of the Gayatri and nothing about ceremonial water-offerings to his ancestors; but through the Word of the Shabad, he was united in Hari's Union

Line 13
अनदिनु भगति करहि दिन राती दुबिधा सबदे खोई ॥
Night and day, he performed devotional worship service, day and night, and through the Shabad, his duality was eradicated.

Line 14
सदा निरमल है जो सचि राते सचु वसिआ मनि सोई ॥२॥
Those who are imbued with Truth are immaculate and pure; the True Lord abides within their minds. ||2||

मूरख दुबिधा पड़्हहि मूलु न पछाणहि बिरथा जनमु गवाइआ ॥
The fools in duality read, but they do not understand anything; they waste their lives uselessly.

संत जना की निंदा करहि दुसटु दैतु चिड़ाइआ ॥३॥
The wicked demon slandered the Saint, and stirred up trouble. ||3||

संत जना का हरि जीउ राखा दैतै कालु नेड़ा आइआ ॥४॥
Hari became the Savior of the Saint, and the demonic Death could not even approach him

आपणी पैज आपे राखै भगतां देइ वडिआई ॥
The Lord Himself saved his honor, and blessed his devotee with glorious greatness.

प्रहलादु दुबिधा न पड़ै हरि नामु न छोडै डरै न किसै दा डराइआ ॥
Prahlaad did not read in duality, and he did not abandon Hari Naam; he was not afraid of any fear.

Guru Ram Das's Bani
===================
Page 507:
सरणागति प्रहलाद जन आए तिन की पैज सवारी ॥२॥
Bhagat Prahlaad sought Your Sanctuary, and You saved his honor.

गुरमुखि प्रहिलादि जपि हरि गति पाई ॥6॥
As Gurmukh, Prahlaad meditated on Hari, and was saved.

Page 601:
प्रहिलादु जनु सद हरि गुण गावै हरि जीउ लए उबारे ॥२॥
Prahlaad, Hari's humble servant, constantly sang the Glorious Praises of Hari, and the Dear Lord saved him. ||2||
(Hari...?Prahlaad????)
Page 799, Line 2
सरणि परे सेई जन उबरे जिउ प्रहिलाद उधारि समईआ ॥१॥ रहाउ ॥
Those humble beings who seek the Lord's Sanctuary are saved, like Prahlaad; they are emancipated and merge with the Lord. ||1||Pause||

Page 984, Line 6
ध्रू प्रहिलादु बिदरु दासी सुतु गुरमुखि नामि तरे ॥१॥ रहाउ ॥
Dhroo, Prahlaad and Bidar the slave-girl's son, became Gurmukh, and through the Naam, crossed over. ||1||Pause||

Page 1117, Line 3
सिम्रिति सासत्र सभनी सही कीता सुकि प्रहिलादि स्रीरामि करि गुर गोविदु धिआइआ ॥
The Simritees and the Shaastras all confirm that Suk Dayv and Prahlaad meditated on the Guru, Govinda, and knew Him as Sri Raam.
--Why Suk Dev and Prahlaad are here...?(Govinda meaning Go: Cow,Vinda: makes it happy)

Guru Arjan Dev's Bani
=====================
Page 199, Line 6
सो बैसनो है अपर अपारु ॥ कहु नानक जिनि तजे बिकार ॥४॥९६॥१६५॥
Infinitely invaluable is that Vaishnaav, that worshipper of Vishnu, says Nanak, who has renounced corruption. ||4||96||165||
--Why is he invaluable???(For the uninitiated... invaluable means highly precious... please refer dictionary?
Page 274, Line 6
बैसनो सो जिसु ऊपरि सुप्रसंन ॥
The true Vaishnaav (the devotee of Vishnu) is the one with whom God is thoroughly pleased.

Page 462, Line 15
बिनवंति नानक मेरी आस पूरन मिले स्रीधर गुण निधान ॥४॥१॥१४॥
Prays Nanak, my hopes are fulfilled; I have met the Lord, the Lord of Lakshmi, the treasure of excellence. ||4||1||14||
--Why Lord of Lakshmi?...Why not others or Nirgun Bhagwaan????
Page 300, Line 12
सो सुरता सो बैसनो सो गिआनी धनवंतु ॥
They are intuitively wise, and they are Vaishnaavs, worshippers of Vishnu; they are spiritually wise, wealthy and prosperous.
---Why onl;y Vaishnavaas....???? Why statements are contradictory?

Guru Arjan Dev -

Page 999, Line 6
कीनी रखिआ भगत प्रहिलादै हरनाखस नखहि बिदारे ॥
He saved His devotee Prahlaad, and tore Harnaakhash with his nails.

Page 1082, Line 12
मुकंद मनोहर लखमी नाराइण ॥
Mukunda, Manohara, Lakshmi Narayana, Supreme Lord God.
Who are Mukund, Manohar, Lakhmi Narain?
Sant Namdev's bani
==================
Page 1105, Line 13
भगत हेति मारिओ हरनाखसु नरसिंघ रूप होइ देह धरिओ ॥
For the sake of His devotee Prahlaad, God assumed the form of the Narsingh (man-lion), and killed Harnaakhash.

Page 1167, Line 3
जउ गुरदेउ तनि चक्र लगाइआ ॥
When the Divine Guru grants His Grace, one's body is stamped with the sacred mark of Vishnu.
---Why the mark of Vishnu should be stamped because of Guru's grace????

Bhagat Sain's bani
==================
Page 695, Line 10
वारने जाउ कमला पती ॥१॥
I am a sacrifice to the Lord of Lakshmi. ||1||

Kabir Das's Bani
================
Page: 337
ध्रू प्रहिलाद जपिओ हरि जैसे ॥१॥
Just as Dhroo and Prahlaad meditated on Hari
कहु कबीर भजु सारिगपानी ॥
Says Kabeer, meditate, vibrate upon Saringpaani (Saranga Paani)

Page 856, Line 7
संत प्रहलाद की पैज जिनि राखी हरनाखसु नख बिदरिओ ॥३॥
He preserved the honor of Prahlaad, and destroyed Harnaakhash with his nails. ||3||

Page 856, Line 11
कहि कबीर संसा भ्रमु चूको ध्रू प्रहिलाद निवाजा ॥२॥५॥
Says Kabeer, my skepticism and doubt have been dispelled; the Lord has exalted me, as He did Dhroo and Prahlaad. ||2||5||
---Who are Dhroo(Dhruva) and Prahlaad???? (Pl. refer Srimad Bhagavatam)
Now don't come and say that.. this Narhari is different from Vishnu's Narsingh autar, blah,blah,blah... Truth has been put forth here. If u do not want to associate with Hindus... well... fine go ahead...

Page 1162,
Line 11
दुआदस दल अभ अंतरि मंत ॥
The Lord's secret is within the twelve petals of the heart-lotus

Line 12
जह पउड़े स्री कमला कंत ॥४॥
The Supreme Lord, the Lord of Lakshmi dwells there. ||4||

Page 1194,

माधउ दारुन दुखु सहिओ न जाइ ॥
O Madhau, I cannot endure this agonizing pain.

सनक सनंदन सिव सुकादि ॥ नाभि कमल जाने ब्रहमादि ॥
Sanak, Sanandan, Shiva and Suk Dayv, were born out of Brahma's naval chakra.

कबि जन जोगी जटाधारि ॥ सभ आपन अउसर चले सारि ॥२॥
The poets and the Yogis with their matted hair all lived their lives with good behavior. ||2||

तू अथाहु मोहि थाह नाहि ॥
You are Unfathomable; I cannot know Your depth.

प्रभ दीना नाथ दुखु कहउ काहि ॥
O God, Master of the meek, unto whom should I tell my pains?

मोरो जनम मरन दुखु आथि धीर ॥
Please rid me of the pains of birth and death, and bless me with peace.

सुख सागर गुन रउ कबीर ॥३॥५॥
Kabeer utters the Glorious Praises of God, the Ocean of peace. ||3||5||

darshansingh
22 July 2010, 01:47 PM
Sanatana Dharma is eternal; regardless of what others think. Therefore, the principles stated in the Vedas about the nature of reality are not mere speculations and ramblings of some old coot in the forest/desert. They are the culmination of the EXPERIENCES of the rishis in Ancient India (Aryavarta).

Funny how Buddhists, Sikhs, and other "dharmic" faith followers are vehemently anti-Hindu and of course the untouchable filth that are christians/muslims around the world as well. Times are tough for Hindus! tsk tsk.

Dear TattvamAsi,

Getting ego about "My Religion is better" is out of place given the same religion preaches about shedding one's ego.

There are significant problems in Hindu Organization:
1. Hindus don't have missionaries.
2. Percentage of Hindus who know core philosophy of their religion would be least among all religions
3. Percentage of Hindus who say they are atheists (and not hindus) would be highest.

Work has to be done to achieve this.

Example, you know 30-50% motels in US are owned by Hindu Patels. Yet every motel room has a bible, and none has bhagwad geeta. Its not the matter of cost. Its matter of the attitude.

Believer
23 July 2010, 12:08 AM
Example, you know 30-50% motels in US are owned by Hindu Patels. Yet every motel room has a bible, and none has bhagwad geeta. Its not the matter of cost. Its matter of the attitude.

I got a headache reading the thread, so I stopped and will leave it to my esteemed friends to sort things out. About no Bhagwad Gita in the Patel owned motels, click on the following link.....

http://cbs5.com/video/?id=67219@kpix.dayport.com

darshansingh
24 July 2010, 11:39 AM
I got a headache reading the thread, so I stopped and will leave it to my esteemed friends to sort things out. About no Bhagwad Gita in the Patel owned motels, click on the following link.....

http://cbs5.com/video/?id=67219@kpix.dayport.com

Thats great news. Thanks for the information

darshansingh
04 August 2010, 02:25 PM
KV Ranganji,

I went through your posts. I didn't understand the point you want to convey.
Could you please tell it briefly.

darshansingh
05 August 2010, 05:39 PM
My feeling is that these distortions are added later on by the organised religious bodies to keep their folks together ... at the cost of bonhomie between the two sects. These cannot be the words of Guru Nanak !


You know - most of the quoted text was Namdev Ji's Bani. Namdev Ji is highly revered hindu saint, who was born in Maharashtra. He lived few hundred years before Nanak.

His bani is part of Guru Granth Sahib.

Don't see it out of context. Namdev ji was a sargun bhagat when he started, but eventually realized God through Nirgun Bhakti. And these words must have been said (my guess) to reiterate the point that he is now bhagat of nirgun God. Its the same story with Dhanna, Ramanand, Jaidev, whose bani is again part of Guru Granth.

The basis of sikhism is "One God, Truth, Creator, Fearless, Enviless, Timeless, Birthless, Obtained by the Grace of God"
(These are first lines of Guru Granth)
So its clearly apparent that we don't consider anybody who has taken birth to be worshiped as God. (Nanak or any other guru is also not worshipped by sikhs; they are revered)

Note: There are some verses in Guru Granth which revere Krishna (who took birth)

There is big difference in reverence and worship.

darshansingh
05 August 2010, 05:52 PM
Rangan Ji,

Guru Granth Sahib has various synonyms for God - Ram, Mohan, Gopal and so on.
Why ?
Because you have to call nirgun God also by some name. Incidently, the word waheguru, the sikh's "name" for God occurs less that 20 times in 1430 pages of guru granth sahib.

And Dhruv, Prahlad, Janak, Krishna, Narad, Vidur and many others are considered saints and are highly revered in Guru Granth Sahib. As I said in my last post - there is difference in reverence and worship.

kv_rangan
02 October 2010, 04:04 AM
Rangan Ji,

Guru Granth Sahib has various synonyms for God - Ram, Mohan, Gopal and so on.
Why ?
Because you have to call nirgun God also by some name. Incidently, the word waheguru, the sikh's "name" for God occurs less that 20 times in 1430 pages of guru granth sahib.

And Dhruv, Prahlad, Janak, Krishna, Narad, Vidur and many others are considered saints and are highly revered in Guru Granth Sahib. As I said in my last post - there is difference in reverence and worship.


Lol!! Look here guys...
In bani of Sain ji, Arjan Devji and Kabir ji, etc we can see they are literallky worshipping Narsing... Nar har, Ram and Krishan. Now this fellow says it is "reverance".

There is enough of a prima facie case that Sikhism is a Hindu sect pure and simple.

Now shall we analyze top to bottom... I know it will be too much... but just analyze the points...

1. Are Sikhs Muslims?
If we accept the historical definition of “Hindu” given by the Muslims, there is simply no doubt about it: all Sikhs fall under the heading “Indian Pagans”, for they are neither Muslims nor Christians, Jews or Parsis. So, Sikhs are Hindus. Unless…

Unless Sikhs are some kind of Muslims. Ram Swarup starts his survey of the genesis of Sikh separatism with the discovery that T.P. Hughes’ Dictionary of Islam, written in the British-Indian colonial context, devotes the third-longest of its articles (after Muhammad and Qur’ân) to the lemma Sikhism. According to Ram Swarup, “it must be a strange sect of Islam where the word ‘Mohammed’ does not occur even once in the writings of its founder, Nanak.” Nor did later Gurus include the praise of Mohammed in the Guru Granth.

Hughes himself admits at the outset that the readers may be surprised to find Sikhism treated as a sect of Islam, but promises to show that “the religion of Nanak was really intended as a compromise between Hinduism and Muhammadanism, if it may not even be spoken of as the religion of a Muhammadan sect”. His endeavour is significant for two trends affecting the Sikh position in India’s religious spectrum: Sikh rapprochement with Islam for the sake of distinguishing itself from Hinduism, and the British colonial policy (which also employed scholars) of isolating the Sikh community and forging it into a privileged collaborating enclave in native society.

To start with the first point, it is a general rule that any enumeration of the distinctive elements of Sikhism by proponents of Sikh separateness exclusively mentions points which distinguish it from Hinduism and bring it closer to Islam. Thus, Khushwant Singh names the crucial difference: “The revolt of Sikhism was not against Hinduism but against its Brahminical form. It was based on two things: the concept of God as unity, a God who was nirankâr (formless). Therefore, Sikhism rejected the worship of idols. It also rejected the caste system. It was, as the cliché goes, an acceptance of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.”

The said cliché is actually a self-formulation of Protestant Christianity; in India, it was also enunciated by Keshub Chunder Sen of the Brahmo Samaj, but there is nothing particularly Sikh about it. Khushwant Singh also calls Sikhism “prophet-based” and “monotheistic”, both Biblical-Islamic notions but now central items in Sikh separatist discourse.

The question may be asked whether the alleged non-polytheism of Guru Nanak really is the same thing as the Biblical-Quranic worship of a “jealous God”. Sri Aurobindo, for one, insisted on the radically different spirit in Sikhism as compared with Islam: “Those ways of Indian cult which most resemble a popular form of Theism, are still something more; for they do not exclude, but admit the many aspects of God. (…) The later religious forms which most felt the impress of the Islamic idea, like Nanak’s worship of the timeless One, Akâla, and the reforming creeds of today, born under the influence of the West, yet draw away from the limitations of western or Semitic monotheism. Irresistibly they turn from these infantile conceptions towards the fathomless truth of Vedanta.” Just as Christians in debate with Islam affirm: the fact that both your God and my God are described as single and unique, does not imply that they are the same.

The most striking point, however, is that none of the elements of Sikh doctrine mentioned by Khushwant Singh sets Sikhism apart from Islam; he could have mentioned the Sikh attachment to the taboo on cow-slaughter, but significantly overlooks it. In militant Sikhism, we find a whole list of concepts and institutions remoulded or newly created in the image of Islamic (or Christian) counterparts, e.g. guru has become a synonym for rasűl, hukumnâma for fatwa, dharmyuddh for jihâd, pîrî-mîrî for khîlafat. And of course Khâlistân (from Arabic khalîs, “unmixed”) is the Sikh separatist equivalent for Pâkistân, both meaning “land of the pure”

In order to bolster their separateness from Hinduism, Sikh separatists magnify the Islamic element in Sikhism. An element of this tendency is the replacement of Sanskrit-based terms with Persian terms, e.g. the Hari Mandir, “Vishnu temple”, in Amritsar is preferably called Darbâr Sâhib, “venerable court session (of the Timeless one)”. Another expression of this tendency is the induction of Muslim divines into Sikh history, e.g. the by now widespread story that the foundation stone of the Hari Mandir was laid by the Sufi pîr Mian Mir. After this story was repeated again and again in his weekly column by Khushwant Singh, Sita Ram Goel wrote a detailed survey of the oldest and modernst sources pertaining to the construction of the Hari Mandir, found no trace of Mian Mir there, and concluded: “I request you to (…) stop propping up a blatant forgery simply because it has become popular and is being patronised by those who control the neo-Sikh establishment.” Khushwant Singh never mentioned Mian Mir again.

Goel’s general position is that modern Sikh self-historiography is full of concoction, starting with insertions and changes in 19th-century editions of older texts, all of it in unsubtle appropriation of the latest ideological fashions. He argues that Sikh history was magnified both by Anglo-secularist authors (Sikhism as a “proto-secular” religion of “Hindu-Muslim synthesis” free of “Brahminical superstition”) and by Hindu nationalists (Sikhism as the “sword-arm of Hinduism”) simply because the Sikhs were a privileged and prosperous community. As often, the present power equation determines the relative importance of individuals and groups in the history books. In Goel’s view, Guru Nanak was by no means greater than other Sants like Garibdas (to whose panth Goel’s own family belonged), he only has the benefit of an assertive constituency of followers in the present.

Likewise, Rajendra Singh, a Sikh anti-separatist author and regular contributor to the RSS weekly Panchjanya, claims that even (not to say especially) the key moments of Sikh history are often concoctions. Thus, the founding of the martial Khalsa order by Guru Govind Singh in 1699, with the beard as part of its dress code, is put in doubt by a post-1699 painting of a clean-shaven Govind Singh. He also points out that many stories about the lives of the Gurus are obvious calks on Puranic or Islamic stories.

Neither Goel nor Rajendra Singh has so far worked out these arguments in writing, so I will not pursue this line of debate here. Yet, my impression from the available literature is that a close verification of the now-popular version of Sikh history is indeed called for.

Thus, Khushwant Singh relates about the martyrdom of the fifth Guru, Arjun Dev: “Among his tormentors was a Hindu banker whose daughter’s hand Arjun had refused to accept for his son.” In the main text, he relates this story as a fact, but in footnote, he adds that “there is nothing contemporary on record to indicate that the Hindu banker, Chandu Shah, was in any way personally vindictive towards the captive Guru”, then justifies the inclusion of the story with reference to colonial historian Max Arthur Macauliffe. And that is one case where he explicitates the conflict between the assurance given by his most important secondary source (Macauliffe) and the silence of the “contemporary records” consulted by himself; in numerous cases, however, he follows Macauliffe without conveying what the original record has to say.

Most things in Sikhism can be traced either to Hindu origins or to borrowings from Islam. But for centuries, one thing which put the Sikhs firmly in the Hindu camp was the continuous hostility with the Islamic Empire of the Moghuls and with the Muslim Afghans. After Partition, there were practically no Muslims left in East Panjab, and the contrast with Hinduism could now receive the full emphasis for the first time. In that context, separatist Sikhs resorted to highlighting existing or introducing new elements borrowed from Islam. It is typical that in his overview of the elements which make up Sikh identity, Khushwant Singh overlooks specific Sikh commandments which set Sikhism apart from Islam, e.g. the prohibition on marrying Muslim women and on eating halâl meat. In his case, I have no reason to surmise any bad faith: if he conveys this politically sanitized reading of Sikh identity, it is because that happens to be the received wisdom now.

To the extent that Sikhism leans towards Islam, it does undeniably set itself apart from Hinduism. The anti-separatist argument will therefore necessarily consist in branding the Islamic elements in Sikhism as late and disingenuous borrowings, or as mere externalities not affecting the essentially Hindu core of Sikhism. They should at any rate be viewed in their historical context: by Guru Nanak’s time, Panjab had been under Muslim rule for five centuries, and a number of Muslim customs had passed into common use among Hindus, as lamented by Nanak himself. Likewise, much Persian and Muslim terminology seeped into the language of Panjabi Hindus.

2. Hinduism as a boa constrictor
Ram Swarup relates how the British had been disappointed with the conclusions of the first scholar who investigated and translated Sikh Scriptures, the German Indologist and missionary Dr. E. Trumpp, who had found Guru Nanak a “thorough Hindu” and his religion “a Pantheism derived directly from Hindu sources”. This was not long after the 1857 Mutiny, when the Sikhs had fought on the British side, and the British were systematically turning the Sikhs into one of the privileged enclaves in native society with whose help they wanted to make governing India easier for themselves.

So, according to Ram Swarup, other scholars were put to work to rewrite Sikh history in the sense desired by the British: “Max Arthur Macauliffe, a highly placed British administrator (…) told the Sikhs that Hinduism was like a ‘boa constrictor of the Indian forest’ which ‘winds its opponent and finally causes it to disappear in its capacious interior’. The Sikhs ‘may go that way’, he warned. He was pained to see that the Sikhs regarded themselves as Hindus which was ‘in direct opposition to the teachings of the Gurus’. (…) The influence of scholarship is silent, subtle and long-range. Macauliffe and others provided categories which became the thought-equipment of subsequent Sikh intellectuals.”

The “boa constrictor” account is repeated by Khushwant Singh, who is very attached to “Sikh separate identity which we are trying to, and perhaps will go on trying to maintain”.

He is worried by Hindu open-mindedness: “Hinduism has this enormous capacity of taking everything in its embrace: you can be an idol worshipper, you can be an idol breaker; you can believe in one god, you can believe in a thousand gods; you can have a caste system, you can deny the caste system; you can be an agnostic, atheist, or whatever else you like, and remain a Hindu. What can you do about it? It is this power of absorption of Hinduism, that it is even willing to recognize Prophet Mohammed as an Avatar of Vishnu, that poses the real challenge to other religions.” The statement contains exaggerations (idol breaker, Mohammed as avatar?!), , but we get the message: Hinduism’s accommodation of different spiritual approaches is a problem for separatists.

This is yet another instance of how Hindus are “damned if they do, damned if they don’t”: had they been intolerant, this would of course be held against them, but even when they are found to be tolerant and accommodating, it is still interpreted as an evil design. When Hinduism integrates new elements, it is not proof of broad-mindedness, but of a strategy of swallowing the minorities.” As Arun Shourie remarks, after describing some examples of how Hindu tradition has integrated “Dravidian” and “Aryan” elements: “Why is it that (…) for our columnists and our communists that decision is yet another instance of the devious devices by which Hinduism has been ‘swallowing up’ other traditions?”

In the case of Sikhism, at any rate, the boa metaphor does not really fit the case: Sikhism has sprung from Hinduism, and it is not as if the two were strangers who met one day and then the one decided to swallow up the other. But it may be said that in the 19th century, Hinduism was reabsorbing Sikhism, and that it may yet complete this process in the future.

3. Sikhs were Hindus (note I use the past tense 'were' and not present tense 'are')
That the Sikhs “regarded themselves as Hindus” is confirmed by Khushwant Singh, who concedes that three centuries of Sikh history after Nanak, including the creation of the Khalsa as a Sikh martial vanguard by Guru Govind Singh, were not enough to make Sikhism into a separate religion: “However, what is worthwhile to bear in mind is that, despite these innovations, this new community, the Khalsa Panth, remained an integral part of the Hindu social and religious system. It is significant that when Tegh Bahadur was summoned to Delhi, he went as a representative of the Hindus. He was executed in the year 1675. His son who succeeded him as guru later described his father’s martyrdom as in the cause of the Hindu faith, ‘to preserve their caste marks and their sacred thread did he perform the supreme sacrifice’. The guru himself looked upon his community as an integral part of the Hindu social system.”

Tegh Bahadur’s martyrdom is usually interpreted as an act of self-sacrifice for the sake of the Kashmiri Pandits threatened with forced conversion. As such, it is a classic Hindutva proof of the Hinduness of Sikhism, though it is also a classic neo-Sikh proof of the “secularism” of Sikhism (“showing concern even for people of a different religion, viz. Hinduism”). However, this whole debate may well rest upon a simple misunderstanding.

In most indo-Aryan languages, the oft-used honorific mode of the singular is expressed by the same pronoun as the plural (e.g. Hindi unkâ, “his” or “their”, as opposed to the non-honorific singular uskâ), and vice-versa; by contrast, the singular form only indicates a singular subject. The phrase commonly translated as “the Lord preserved their tilak and sacred thread” (tilak-janjű râkhâ Prabh tâ-kâ), referring to unnamed outsiders assumed to be the Kashmiri Pandits, literally means that He “preserved his tilak and sacred thread”, meaning Tegh Bahadur’s; it is already unusual poetic liberty to render “their tilak and sacred thread” this way, and even if that were intended, there is still no mention of the Kashmiri Pandits in the story. This is confirmed by one of the following lines in Govind’s poem about his father’s martyrdom: “He suffered martyrdom for the sake of his faith.” in any case, the story of forced massed conversions in Kashmir by the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb is not supported by the detailed record of his reign by Muslim chronicles who narrate many accounts of his bigotry.

Though Govind Singh is considered as the founder of the Khalsa order (1699) who “gave his Sikhs an outward form distinct from the Hindus”, he too did things which Sikh separatists would dismiss as “brahminical”. As Khushwant Singh notes, “Gobind selected five of the most scholarly of his disciples and sent them to Benares to learn Sanskrit and the Hindu religious texts, to be better able to interpret the writings of the gurus, which were full of allusions to Hindu mythology and philosophy.” Arun Shourie quotes Govind Singh as declaring: “Let the path of the pure [khâlsâ panth] prevail all over the world, let the Hindu dharma dawn and all delusion disappear. (…) May I spread dharma and prestige of the Veda in the world and erase from it the sin of cow-slaughter.”

Khushwant Singh notes with a certain disappointment that even when the Sikhs carved out a state for themselves, they did not separate from Hinduism: “The Sikhs triumphed and we had Ranjit Singh. You may feel that here at long last we had a Sikh monarch, and the Khalsa would come into their own. Nothing of the sort happened. (…) Instead of taking Sikhism in its pristine form, he accepted Hinduism in its brahminical form. He paid homage to Brahmins. He made cow-killing a capital offence”

Further, he donated three times more gold to the newly built makeshift Vishvanath temple in Varanasi than to the Hari Mandir in Amritsar. He also threatened the Amirs of Sindh with an invasion if they didn’t stop persecuting the Hindus. Even more embarrassing for those who propagate the progressive non-Hindu image of Sikhism: one of the last and greatest royal self-immolations of widows ever performed in India took place in 1839 when Ranjit Singh was accompanied on his funeral pyre by four of his wives and seven maids and concubines.

By any standard, Ranjit Singh was a Hindu ruler: “He worshipped as much in Hindu temples as he did in gurudwaras. When he was sick and about to die, he gave away cows for charity. What did he do with the diamond Kohi-noor? He did not want to give it to the Darbar Sahib at Amritsar which he built in marble and gold, but to Jagannath Puri as his farewell gift. When he had the Afghans at his mercy and wrested Kashmir from them, he wanted the gates of the temple of Somnath back from them. Why should he be making all these Hindu demands? Whatever the breakaway that had been achieved from Hinduism, this greatest of our monarchs bridged in 40 years.”

A few years after Ranjit Singh’s death, the British annexed his kingdom. Khushwant Singh describes how Sikh (more precisely, Khalsa) identity was fast disappearing when the British occupied Panjab. To Hindu Revivalists, this development was perfectly natural: Sikh identity was not religious but functional, and it disappeared when its circumstantial raison d’ętre disappeared. Sikhism was thrown up by Hindu society as part of the centuries-long “Hindu response to the Islamic onslaught”, and now that the Pax Brittanica made an end to the Hindu-Muslim struggle, it was natural that Sikhism was gradually reabsorbed.

4. Sikh identity and the British
It is the established Hindu Revivalist position that Sikhism as a separate religion is a British artefact. Khushwant Singh confirms this much, that the British came to the rescue of the dwindling Khalsa by setting up Sikh regiments to which only observant Khalsa Sikhs were allowed. This worked as “a kind of hot-house protection” to Sikh identity, and “by World War 1, a third of the British Indian Army were bearded Khalsa Sikhs”. It is the established Hindu Revivalist position that Sikhism as a separate religion is a British artefact. Khushwant Singh confirms this much, that the British came to the rescue of the dwindling Khalsa by setting up Sikh regiments to which only observant Khalsa Sikhs were allowed. This worked as “a kind of hot-house protection” to Sikh identity, and “by World War 1, a third of the British Indian Army were bearded Khalsa Sikhs”. All the same, to Sikh identity the Army recruitment was crucial, and our Sikh historian candidly admits: “So the first statutory guarantee of the continuation of the Khalsa came from a foreign power.”

A look at the census figures may be useful here. In 1881, ca. 41% of the Panjabis classified themselves as Hindus, only 5.5% as Sikhs; by the time of Partition, the percentage of “Hindus” had decreased to 26%, that of “Sikhs” increased to 13%. This had of course nothing to do with conversion, merely with the pressure on the Sahajdharis to become Kesadharis and assume an identity distinct from the Hindus. On the downside, however, the polarization imposed by the Khalsa pushed one of the branches of Sikhism in Sindh, the Amil Nanakpanthis, to rejecting Sikhism as a separate religion and casting their lot wholesale with Hinduism. Among them the family of L.K. Advani, who nonetheless calls himself “still spiritually a Sikh”.

But even at the stage of the British rewards for Sikh distinctness, the separation of the Sikhs from Hindu society had not fully succeeded: “To start with, Hindus did not find this much of a problem. The Hindu who wanted to join the army simply stopped shaving and cutting his hair. (…) Nihal Chand became Nihal Singh and went into the British Army as a Sikh soldier.” According to Hindus, this was natural: Hindus did not see “becoming a Sikh” as conversion. The point was made very clearly by a non-political Hindu leader from Varanasi, who told me: “If the Sikhs don’t want to call themselves Hindus, I will gladly call myself a Sikh.”

According to Khushwant Singh, the loss of these privileges in 1947 undermined Sikh identity by taking its tangible benefits away: “Sikhs lost their minority privileges because there were going to be no minority privileges in a secular state (…) Their number in the Army started to dwindle. Their number in the Civil Service also began to come down. (…) The younger [generation] did not understand why they must grow their hair and beard, when they got no economic benefits for doing so. (…) When a Sikh father is asked: ‘What do I get out of it ?’, he can no longer say: ‘I can get you a job in the army if you have your hair and beard.’”

In a non-Sikh state and society, Sikh identity would probably get dissolved in the long run, so the Khalsa leadership saw salvation in a separate state: “External props to the Khalsa separatism started crumbling. Leaders of the community felt that their flock was facing extinction and they must preserve it by whatever means they can. The only answer Akali leaders could think of-they are not used to thinking very deeply-was to have political power in their homeland.” It was to safeguard their identity by means of physical separation that some Akali factions started a movement of armed separatism.

5. Sikhism as sword-arm of Hinduism (a foolish claim.)
Ram Swarup adds a psychological reason for the recent Sikh attempt to sever the ties with Hindu society and the Indian state: “‘You have been our defenders’, Hindus tell the Sikhs. But in the present psychology, the compliment wins only contempt-and I believe rightly. For self-despisement is the surest way of losing a friend or even a brother. It also gives the Sikhs an exaggerated self-assessment.”

Ram Swarup hints at the question of the historicity of the belief that “Sikhism is the sword-arm of Hinduism”, widespread among Hindus. It is well-known that the Sikhs were the most combative in fighting Muslims during the Partition massacres, and that they were also singled out by Muslims for slaughter. The image of Sikhs as the most fearsome among the Infidels still lingers in the Muslim mind; it is apparently for this reason that Saudi Arabia excludes Sikhs (like Jews) from employment within its borders. Yet, the story for the earlier period is not that clear-cut. Given the centrality of the image of Sikhism as the “sword-arm of Hinduism”, it is well worth our while to verify the record of Sikh struggles against Islam.

In the Guru lineage, we don’t see much physical fighting for Hinduism. Guru Nanak was a poet and a genuine saint, but not a warrior. His successors were poets, not all of them saintly, and made a living with regular occupations such as horse-trading. Guru Arjun’s martyrdom was not due to any anti-Muslim rebellion but to the suspicion by Moghul Emperor Jahangir that he had supported a failed rebellion by Jahangir’s son Khusrau, i.e. a Muslim palace revolution aimed at continuing the Moghul Empire but with someone else sitting on the throne. Arjun refused to pay the fine which Jahangir imposed on him, not as an act of defiance against Moghul sovereignty but because he denied the charges (which amounted to pleading his loyalty to Jahangir); it was then that Jahangir ordered a tougher punishment. At any rate, Arjun was never accused of raising the sword against Jahangir, merely of giving temporary shelter to Khusrau.

Tegh Bahadur’s martyrdom in 1675 was of course in the service of Hinduism, in that it was an act of opposing Aurangzeb’s policy of forcible conversion. An arrest warrant against him had been issued on non-religious and nonpolitical charges, and he was found out after having gone into hiding; Aurangzeb gave him a chance to escape his punishment by converting to Islam. Being a devout Muslim, Aurangzeb calculated that the conversion of this Hindu sect leader would encourage his followers to convert along with him. The Guru was tortured and beheaded when he refused the offer to accept Islam, and one of his companions was sawed in two for having said that Islam should be destroyed.

At any rate, he stood firm as a Hindu, telling Aurangzeb that he loved his Hindu Dharma and that Hindu Dharma would never die,-a statement conveniently overlooked in most neo-Sikh accounts. He was not a Sikh defending Hinduism, but a Hindu of the Nanakpanth defending his own Hindu religion. However, even Tegh Bahadur never was a warrior against the Moghul empire; indeed, the birth of his son Govind in the eastern city of Patna was a souvenir of his own enlistment in the party of a Moghul general on a military expedition to Assam.

Tegh Bahadur’s son and successor, Govind Singh, only fought the Moghul army when he was forced to, and it was hardly to protect Hinduism. His men had been plundering the domains of the semi-independent Hindu Rajas in the hills of northeastern Panjab, who had given him asylum after his father’s execution. Pro-Govind accounts in the Hindutva camp equate Govind’s plundering with the Chauth tax which Shivaji imposed to finance his fight against the Moghuls; they allege that the Rajas were selfishly attached to their wealth while Govind was risking his life for the Hindu cause. The Rajas, after failed attempts to restore law and order, appealed to their Moghul suzerain for help, or at least to the nearest Moghul governor. So, a confrontation ensued, not because Govind Singh had defied the mighty Moghul Empire, but because the Moghul Empire discharged its feudal duties toward its vassals, i.c. to punish what to them was an ungrateful guest turned robber.

Govind was defeated and his two eldest sons killed in battle; many Sikhs left him in anger at his foolhardy tactics. During Govind Singh’s flight, a Brahmin family concealed Govind’s two remaining sons (Hindus protecting Sikhs, not the other way around)[Now many fools will pointou to Gangu rhetoric but I won't discuss it becuse it has no solid evidence], but they were found out and the boys were killed.

The death of Govind’s sons provides yet another demythologizing insight about Govind Singh through its obvious connection with his abolition of the Guru lineage. A believer may, of course, assume that it was because of some divine instruction that Govind replaced the living Guru lineage with the Granth, a mere book (a replacement of the Hindu institution of gurudom with the Book-centred model of Islam). However, a more down-to-earth hypothesis which takes care of all the facts is that after the death of all his sons, Govind Singh simply could not conceive of the Guru lineage as not continuing within his own family.

After his defeat and escape (made possible by the self-sacrifice of a disciple who impersonated the Guru), Govind Singh in his turn became a loyal subject of the Moghul Empire. He felt he had been treated unfairly by the local governor, Wazir Khan, so he did what aggrieved vassals do: he wrote a letter of complaint to his suzerain, not through the hierarchical channels but straight to the Padeshah. In spite of its title and its sometimes defiant wording, this “victory letter” (Zafar Nâma) to Aurangzeb is fundamentally submissive. Among other things, Govind assures Aurangzeb that he is just as much an idol-breaker as the Padeshah himself: “I am the destroyer of turbulent hillmen, since they are idolators and I am the breaker of idols.” Aurangzeb was sufficiently pleased with the correspondence (possibly several letters) he received from the Guru, for he ordered Wazir Khan not to trouble Govind any longer.

After Aurangzeb’s death in 1707, Govind tried to curry favour with the heir-apparent and effective successor, Bahadur Shah, and supported him militarily in the war of succession: his fight was for one of the Moghul factions and against the rival Moghul faction, not for Hinduism and against the Moghul Empire as such. In fact, one of the battles he fought on Bahadur Shah’s side was against rebellious Rajputs. As a reward for his services, the new Padeshah gave Govind a fief in Nanded on the Godavari river in the south, far from his natural constituency in Panjab. To acquaint himself with his new property, he followed Bahadur Shah on an expedition to the south (leaving his wives in Delhi under Moghul protection), but there he himself was stabbed by two Pathan assassins (possibly sent by Wazir Khan, who feared Govind Singh’s influence on Bahadur Shah) in 1708. His death had nothing to do with any fight against the Moghuls or for Hinduism.

So far, it is hard to see where the Sikhs have acted as the sword-arm of Hinduism against Islam. If secularism means staying on reasonable terms with both Hindus and Muslims, we could concede that the Gurus generally did steer a “secular” course. Not that this is shameful: in the circumstances, taking on the Moghul Empire would have been suicidal.
In his last months, Govind Singh had become friends with the Hindu renunciate Banda Bairagi. This Banda went to Panjab and rallied the Sikhs around himself. At long last, it was he as a non-Sikh who took the initiative to wage an all-out offensive against the Moghul Empire. It was a long-drawn-out and no-holds-barred confrontation which ended in general defeat and the execution of Banda and his lieutenants (1716). Once more, the Sikhs became vassals of the Moghuls for several decades until the -Marathas broke the back of the Moghul empire in the mid-18th century. Only then, in the wake of the Maratha expansion, did the Sikhs score some lasting victories against Moghul and Pathan power. They established an empire of sorts including most of the North-West, but as we already saw, its greatest monarch Ranjit Singh was a conscious and committed Hindu by any definition.



We may conclude that Ram Swarup has a point when he questions the Hindu attitude of self-depreciation and gratefulness towards the Sikh “sword-arm”. Sikh history has its moments of heroism, but not particularly more than that of the Marathas or Rajputs. And like the Rajputs and Marathas, Sikhism also has a history of collaboration with the Moghul throne. Those who insist on glorifying Sikh or Rajput history, ought rather to reflect on the merits (for Hinduism) of collaboration with an unbeatable enemy: when Moghul power was at its strongest, collaboration by Hindu princes meant in practice that large parts of India were only under indirect Muslim control, so that Hindu culture could be preserved there. But of course, in the rhetoric of heroism dear to nationalist movements, the compromise aspect of history is not that inspiring, and we should not expect to hear neo-Sikhs glorify “the wise collaborator Govind Singh”.


6. Hindu role in estranging the Sikhs (yes we Hindus did a lot of mischief)


The attitude of cringing Hindu gratitude to the “sword-arm” is not the only nor even the most important reason for the contempt which some Khalsa Sikhs developed toward everything Hindu during the past century. The British policy of privileging the Sikhs is probably the decisive factor, but we should not ignore the role which Hindus themselves have played in the estrangement of the Sikhs with their own type of contempt.



The Arya Samaj, as a genuinely fundamentalist movement, distinguished between “authentic” (Vedic) Hinduism and “degenerate” (defined as post-Vedic) forms of Hinduism. By campaigning for the Shuddhi (“purification”, effectively conversion) of Sikhs, it implicitly declared the Sikhs to be either degenerate Hindus or non-Hindus. Khushwant Singh describes the adverse effect of the Arya Samaj’s campaign: “Fortunately for the Sikhs, Dayanand Saraswati was also very offensive in the language he used. He did not realize that he was treading on soft ground when he described Guru Nanak as a dambi, an impostor (please refer Satya Prakash). (…) The Sikhs rejected Dayanand and the Samaj, and set up Singh Sabhas and the chief Khalsa Diwan to counteract Dayanand’s movement. Kahan Singh of Nabha published a book entitled ‘Ham Hindu nahin hain’It was a categorical statement of rejection of Hinduism. The Arya Samaj can take the credit for driving Sikhs away from Hinduism.”

In the Arya Samaj version, Sikh pro-British “toadyism” versus Arya nationalism was a more decisive factor in their mutual estrangement. After independence, Sikhs started arguing that their own contribution to the Freedom struggle had been the greatest given the high proportion of Sikhs among the martyrs. However, most of these fell during the Jallianwala Bagh shooting in Amritsar (1919), started as a peaceful gathering of people who had no intention of giving up their lives (the responsible officer was removed from his post, for the useless and unprovoked massacre totally deviated from British policy). The proportion of Sikhs who chose to wage their lives for Freedom was quite small; the one community which was heavily “overrepresented” among the freedom fighters executed or otherwise punished by the British was the much-maligned Brahmin caste (note that this is a fact). It is a well-attested historical fact that the Sikh community as such was firmly loyalist (see Khushwant Singh, above, on the Sikhs in the British Army), even after the emotional estrangement from the British which followed the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. By contrast, the Arya Samaj can claim to have stood by the cause of Freedom, though it certainly has a history of compromise as well.

As for Dayananda’s allegation that Guru Nanak was a pretender, Arya Samaj authors Pandit Lekh Ram (then) and Kshitish Vedalankar (recently) have defended it, arguing that Nanak could not read Sanskrit and was therefore not qualified to speak out on the Vedas and the Puranas. Modernists may sympathize with this irreverent and down-to-earth critique of a venerated saint, but it has a price, viz. the hostility of the saint’s followers.

7. The Hindi-Punjabi controversy (Game played by us)
Sikh separatists, and probably Sikhs in general, resented it when Hindus in Panjab registered Hindi as their mother-tongue in the 1951 and 1961 census. The Sikh plan was to carve out a Sikh-majority state under a linguistic cover, viz. as a Panjabi Suba, a Panjabi-speaking province: “in demanding a Punjabi-speaking state, they were in fact demanding a Sikh-majority state. They were giving a linguistic sugar coating to a basically communal demand.” In the 1950s, many provincial boundaries had been redrawn with the object of creating linguistically homogeneous states. Nehru had been opposed to this principle, but his hand was forced in 1952-53 by the fast unto death (ending in actual death, followed by widespread violence on government property) of Potti Sri Ramulu in support of the demand for a Telugu-speaking state. After states like Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra had been created on a linguistic basis, the Sikhs were dismayed that the Government kept on opposing the creation of a Panjabi-speaking state.

The 1961 census, and in particular its item on language, became a crucial event in the campaign for the Panjabi Suba. Since language was used as a code for religion, Hindus joined the game: “Punjabi Hindus were persuaded to declare their language to be Hindi, which it is not, and not Punjabi, which it is.” This way, “they played into the hands of Sikh communalists: ‘How can you trust this community? They are even willing to deny their mother tongue’, they said.”

The Sikhs got their Panjabi Suba anyway, as a reward for their sterling loyalty to India in spite of Pakistani overtures during the 1965 war. But twenty years later, Arya Samaj polemicist Kshitish Vedalankar still defended the claim of the Panjabi Hindus that their mother tongue is Hindi: “What we call Panjabi today is only a wing of Hindi--Pashchimi [= ‘Western’] Hindi.” The difference between language and dialect is indeed not always clear-cut, and the separate status of Panjabi is more a matter of politics than of linguistics (somewhat like the recent decision of the Croats and Bosnian Muslims to develop their own dialects of Serbo-Croat into separate languages).

What might clinch the issue is that the Gurus themselves also used and encouraged non-Panjabi styles of Hindi: “Because of this association of Hindi with the masses, the Gurus found it proper to encourage Hindi poets and to popularise Hindi poetry. They themselves adopted Brajbhasha as the vehicle of their views.” By now, however, the development of Panjabi as a separate language has gone quite far, the Panjabi Suba is an accomplished fact, and this debate has lost its relevance. In Panjab and in Delhi, the BJP is now a great promoter of Panjabi, if only to humour its numerous Sikh constituents.

8. The message of Sikhism
Khushwant Singh describes the fact that most outsiders are not aware of anything constituting Sikh “identity” apart from beards and turbans, as a serious problem: “Most regard them as no more than a sect of bearded Hindus. It is a real problem and in some ways it does sum up the Sikh dilemma from the very beginning. (…) Any new religious community which breaks away from its parent body has to establish a separateness from the parent body.”

To Hindu Revivalists, this is a false problem: identity is merely the accidental outcome of historical processes or indeed of religious practices, but it is not a thing in itself, worth cultivating. Thus, if Jain monks want to wear handkerchiefs on their mouths and sweep the ground in front of their feet in order not to kill any tiny animals, that may be a fine application of their concept of non-violence, but it would be absurd if Jains started doing this for no other reason than to affirm Jain identity. It is alright if youth gangs impose on themselves artificial identities with distinguishing marks and signs and rituals, but that is a passing phase. Identity for the sake of identity is a concern of puberty, not more. “Identitarianism” is but one of the many fashionable ways to misunderstand and misrepresent Hindu revivalism: the Hindu problem is not with identity, it is precisely the anti-Hindu separatists in Sikhism, Jainism etc., who make an issue of identity.

It reflects favourably on Khushwant Singh’s intellectual honesty that, while a staunch advocate of separate Sikh identity, he mentions some facts that seriously undermine the Sikh claim to a separate identity: “Sikhism did not evolve a distinct theology of its own like Jainism or Buddhism. It accepted a form of Vaishnavite Hinduism, giving it a new emphasis. Basically the gurus’ teachings were Vedantic. Therefore there was not the same kind of breach from Hinduism as in the cases of Jainism and Buddhism. Sikhism accepted the Hindu code of conduct, its theory of the origin of the world, the purpose of life, the purpose of religion, samsara, the theory of birth-death-rebirth-these were taken in their entirety from Hinduism.”

That, then, is precisely the point argued by Hindu Revivalists: “Not only does the Adi Granth reproduce hundreds of passages from the older scriptures, but like the rest of the Sant literature it also follows the lead of the Upanishads and the Gita and the Yoga Vasishtha in all doctrinal points. Its theology and cosmology, its God-view and world-view, its conception of deity and man and his salvation, its ethics, philosophy and praxis and Yoga-all derive from that source. It believes in Brahma-vada, in Advaita, in So-ham, in Maya, in Karma, in rebirth, in Mukti and Nirvana, in the Middle Path (in its yogic sense)”. This is a far cry from recent Sikh self-presentation, when apologists describe Sikhism as “prophetic and monotheist”, or as “rationalist!” or as “secular”, but certainly not as “taken in its entirety from Hinduism”.

9 Sikh distinctiveness

Kshitish Vedalankar, the Arya Samajist author of one of the rare post-Independence anti-Sikh tracts (mainly focusing on Sikh collaboration with the British), starts out by emphasizing that Guru Nanak “called himself a Hindu. According to Janamsâkhî, he wore a sacred thread (yajńopavît) and had a lock of hair (chotî) on his head. After him till the fifth Guru, each had his sacred thread ceremony performed, were married according to Vedic rites, used to apply tilak and used to hear tales from Vedas and Puranas.”

But there we already get a hint of an early separation: only until the fifth Guru did the Sikhs follow Vedic rites. As Khushwant Singh points out, the Sikhs have gradually introduced separate rituals: “The third guru, Amar Das (…) introduced new rituals, new ceremonies to be performed at birth, marriage and death.” It seems that Sikh separateness does have a pre-British origin. Or at least, it seems that early on, the Sikhs developed a certain distinctiveness. But then, so many Hindu sects have their distinctive customs, dress codes and other externals. The Sikhs have their own Scripture, their own sacred city, their own chief temple, their own priesthood, but almost by definition, every Hindu panth has some such material things of its own.
Kashi is the city of Shiva, Vrindavan is dedicated to Krishna, Ayodhya to Rama, Kanchipuram to Kamakshi, and they are all Hindu sacred cities.

The panths founded by sants like Kabir, Chaitanya, Ravidas, give a special place to the writings of their founder, but not an exclusive place. The Guru Granth equally contains writings of some non-Sikh bhakti poets including Kabir, and thousands of references to such Hindu concepts and characters as Rama, Krishna, Veda, Omkara, Amrit. Sikh names are full of Hindu elements: Hari (= Vishnu), Rama, Krishna and his epithets (Har-kishan, Har-govina), Arjun, the Vedic god Indra (Yog-indr, Sur-indr). The Hari Mandir, dedicated to Hari/Vishnu, is as sacred to Vaishnavas as any of their non-Sikh temples; its tank was already an old Hindu place of pilgrimage, where Maharana Ikshvaku is said to have performed yajnas. (The 1875 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica says in its entry on Amritsar that it has sacred tank with a temple dedicated to Vishnu in the middle).

And so on: sects may and do distinguish themselves by a lineage of gurus, physical marks, specially dedicated places of pilgrimage, and nobody is disputing the right of the Sikhs to do the same things, but that does not put them outside the Hindu fold.

10 No Hindu, no Muslim
Khushwant Singh’s final and decisive argument for the non-Hindu identity of Sikhism is this: “Guru Nanak did start a new religion. He said so clearly in the year 1500 or thereabouts, when he had his mystical experience. He went to bathe in a stream and was missing for three days. His first statement as he came out was: ‘Na koi Hindu, na koi Mussalman’. You can interpret that statement in many ways. But you cannot deny that what he intended to imply was that he was introducing a new system of ethics and metaphysics.”

Ethics and metaphysics are serious subjects; three days is a short time if you want to free yourself from your acquired notions of ethics and metaphysics, and start a whole new religion. in fact, for all we know, Guru Nanak continued the practices of the Bhakti saints that had come before him, starting with the mental or oral repetition of the Divine Name, Râma nâma. Moreover, isn’t it strange that the statement which founds a whole new separate religion does not even mention this new religion? If Guru Nanak’s discovery, “neither Hindu nor Muslim”, had meant the founding of a new religion, he might have added a positive conclusion: “Neither Hindu nor Muslim, but Sikh!”



At any rate, the insight with which he came back from his three days’ retreat, as quoted by Khushwant Singh, was entirely within the Hindu tradition. “There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim” (for that is the literal translation, and it makes a difference) does not mean “I, Nanak, am neither Hindu nor Muslim”, it means a wholesale rejection of the Hindu and Muslim identities valid for all self-described Hindus and Muslims as well. It means that the Self (Atman, the timeless indweller, the object-subject of his “mystical experience”) is beyond worldly divisions like those between different religions and sects. The Self is neither black nor white, neither big nor small, neither Hindu nor Muslim, neither this nor that; neti neti, in the Upanishadic phrase. This insight is as typically Hindu as you can get.

The Self, the objectless self-contained consciousness, is nirguna, beyond the qualities that make for difference between human beings. As a contemporary Hindu spiritual teacher said: “What is Self-realization? By what does a ‘realized’ person distinguish himself? Very simple, the special thing about him is this: one who is ‘realized’, realizes that he is the same as everybody else.” The Self has no separate identity, neither individual nor communal.

When we get to this conceptual level, we can see that communal identity in Hindu-Sikh tradition is a superficial reality, relatively acceptable and inevitable in the temporal world, but unreal from the angle of the timeless and colourless Self. By contrast, it has an absolute value in Islam, which decides on eternal heaven and eternal hell on the basis of communal identity: as per the Quran, all “unbelievers” (Sikhs as much as Hindus) carry a one-way ticket to hell. At the fundamental level, for all its adoption of external elements following Islamic models, Sikhism is not a middling position between Hinduism and Islam. Sikhism has never repudiated the doctrine of the Self, which is entirely non-Islamic and entirely Hindu.

After reading a bit of Sikh scripture and the arguments put forward by Hindu and Sikh authors about the roots of Sikhism, it is now my considered opinion that the profoundly Hindu character of basic Sikh doctrine is undeniable. So far, Ram Swarup and his school are right. However, Sikhism hasn’t stopped developing with Guru Nanak’s Hindu utterances, and it has just as undeniably adopted some Islamic elements and attitudes at the expense of some of its Hindu identity. Today, it would therefore be too simplistic to just affirm that “Sikhs are Hindus”. For Hindu nationalists, that presents a problem which cannot be resolved with debates on definitions. The only solution which could satisfy them is that Sikhs themselves make a choice to go back to the original inspiration of Guru Nanak and shrug off the superficial but ever-hardening separateness which has developed after Nanak had gone, and particularly after British policy set Sikhs against Hinduism.

11 The Khalistani failure

To quite an extent, the feeling that “Sikhs are Hindus” is mutual. Till today, though on a lesser scale than in the past centuries, Sikh caste groups continue to intermarry with Hindu non-Sikh members of the same castes rather than with Sikh members of other castes. A more specifically religious indication is that Master Tara Singh, the acknowledged leader of the Sikhs since at least the eve of Partition, was a cofounder of the Vishva Hindu Parishad in 1964.

The strongest evidence for Hindu-Sikh unity is certainly the fact that no matter how hard the Khalistani separatists of the 1980s tried, they could not get Hindu-Sikh riots going. Though Hindus became wary of Sikhs, they never responded to the Khalistanis’ selective massacres of Hindus with attacks on Sikhs, nor did ordinary Sikhs ever start the kind of attacks on Hindus commonly witnessed as the opening scene of Hindu-Muslim riots. The Khalistani episode was a confrontation between Sikh separatists and the police and army of the secular Indian state, not one between Sikhs and Hindus. The surprising fact is that “there were no communal riots in Punjab even in the worst days of terrorism”.

The massacre of Sikhs by activists of the secularist Congress Party in Delhi after Indira Gandhi’s murder by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 was not a Hindu-Sikh riot, in spite of secularist efforts to “rationalize” it as one. Even Khushwant Singh admitted that RSS and BJP activists had saved many Sikhs while Congress secularists were killing them: “It was the Congress leaders who instigated mobs in 1984 and got more than 3000 people killed. I must give due credit to RSS and the BJP for showing courage and protecting helpless Sikhs during those difficult days. No less a person than Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself intervened at a couple of places to help poor taxi drivers.”

For this very reason, Khushwant Singh himself advised Delhi Sikhs to vote for BJP candidate L.K. Advani in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections. And so they did. In the 1991 and 1996 Lok Sabha elections and in the 1993 Vidhan Sabha elections in Delhi, the Sikh vote largely went to the BJP. In 1996, the Akali Dal faction in the newly elected Lok Sabha was one of a few small parties willing to support the 13-day BJP Government led by A.B. Vajpayee. An alliance of the BJP and the moderate Sikh party Akali Dal (Badal) swept the Panjab Vidhan Sabha elections of 1997, and made new progress in the Lok Sabha elections of 1998. Only in the last few years, when the memory of the massacres started to recede, did Sikhs in Delhi relax their collective pro-BJP and anti-Congress position.

The BJP, for its part, is full of gestures towards its Sikh constituency, e.g. one of the first things the BJP did after coming to power in Delhi (union territory), was to declare Panjabi an official language, so that many signboards in Delhi are now quadrilingual: English-Hindi-Urdu-Panjabi. With regret, a Sikh supporter of the United Front notes how the BJP is attracting the Sikh vote: “The BJP, on its part, has accommodated Sikhs in several states and even at the central level. Gurjant Singh Brar in Rajasthan, Jaspal Singh in Gujarat and Harcharan Singh Balli are Cabinet rank Ministers in these BJP-ruled states. The short-lived Vajpayee Government had a Sikh Minister, Sartaj Singh from Hoshangabad (Madhya Pradesh). (…) By taking strong action against the guilty persons of 1984 riots, the BJP has won over the sympathy of the Sikhs.”

The VHP and other Hindu organizations have adopted a Sikh innovation (perhaps a truly original contribution of Sikhism), viz. Kar Seva, “hand service”, meaning the collective participation of ordinary Hindus in the building of temples. Thus, the unskilled labour in the construction of the Swaminarayan temple in Neasden (London, 1995) was performed by Hindu doctors, accountants, shopkeepers and other amateurs. The VHP has the same plans for its projected Rama-Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya. Hindu-Sikh unity celebrations are organized both in India and abroad, where small numbers in a foreign society force Hindus and Sikhs to remember their common roots, e.g. in New Jersey:

“The gala event started with chanting of mantras followed by Vande Mataram. The speakers emphasized the age-old relationship and similarities that bind Hindus and Sikhs together. They mentioned the fact that Lord Rama’s name appears thousands of times in the Guru Granth Sahib and that the original name of Golden Temple is Hari Mandir Sahib. Sardar Jagjit Singh Lamba said that Guru Nanak Dev and Guru Gobind Singh were the descendants of Lav [c.q.] Kush, both sons of Lord Rama.”

After the defeat of Khalistani militancy, there has indeed been a remarkable rapprochement between Hindus and Sikhs. Whether this will lead to a full reabsorption of the Sikh community by Hinduism remains to be seen.

12 Conclusion

In theory, the case for the basic Hindu identity of Sikhism is overwhelming. Unlike Jainism and Buddhism, Sikhism has gone through all the developments of Hinduism until the Moghul period. It has no separate theology or philosophy, no separate ethics or social structure. It has borrowed elements from Islam, but not the decisive ones: belief in a notion of a true God versus false gods, hence in iconoclasm, and belief in a monopolistic prophethood. There is nothing in Sikhism at which a Hindu should feel offended.

In practice, however, Sikh separatism has scored important victories. Most Sikhs would object to their inclusion in the Hindu category. In this separatist endeavour, they are encouraged by the non-Hindus and the secularists, whose attitude to religious issues is always one of crass superficialism. Looking at the matter superficially, the mere existence of the labels “Hindu” and “Sikh” is enough to prove the existence of two distinct entities going by these names. Any subtler understanding which sees the profound rootedness of Sikhism in Hinduism is routinely blackened as a Hindu conspiracy of the “boa constrictor” type.

And yet, such deeper understanding is the only way forwards. It is ignoble and below the dignity of human intelligence to remain stuck in the prevailing situation where a religion is defined as separate on no better grounds than externalities like turbans and beards.

The case for Sikh separateness is based on nothing more than, firstly, a handful of ambiguous sentences in the Sikh canon, as against thousands which unambiguously put Sikhism inside the Hindu fold; and secondly, puerile loud-mouthing and violence. Of all the borderline cases considered in this book, Sikhism is next to Ramakrishnaism by far the clearest: apart from separatism, its contents are entirely part of Hinduism even if the latter is narrowly defined.

kv_rangan
07 January 2011, 10:43 AM
So.... none are here to refute my point. Good. LOL.... It had been posted in 2 Jan 2010, but not even a single reply. Gr8.

kv_rangan
07 January 2011, 10:43 AM
And my Hindu Brothers... Please understand that the Sikhs hate us. Sikhs hate Hindoos.

Sahasranama
07 January 2011, 11:32 AM
And my Hindu Brothers... Please understand that the Sikhs hate us. Sikhs hate Hindoos.

There are two crowds of sikhs, one who hates Hindus and one who defend Hinduism. We have encountered both types on this forum. From the Sikhs I have met in real life, no one hated Hindus, a lot of them celebrated Hindu holidays and listened to Hindu bhajans etc.

Believer
07 January 2011, 03:26 PM
Please understand that the Sikhs hate us.

Who is included in this "us"?

Is this huge copy and paste an attempt to start a war in the forum?
What is your motive?

If they do indeed hate "us" what do you want us to do - Put you on a pedestal and worship you for this revelation?

Get a life!

amra
07 January 2011, 03:55 PM
The Sikh teaching is Veda.
The Sikh Gurus taught the Veda
So did the semitic faiths before they were distorted beyond recognition.

But Hinduism does not have anything to do with the Veda
Hinduism is Naastik

satay
08 January 2011, 12:02 PM
namaste Amra,


But Hinduism does not have anything to do with the Veda
Hinduism is Naastik

Please explain. Hinduism has nothing to do with the veda? Hinduism is naastik?

Adhvagat
08 January 2011, 12:11 PM
Lots of crazy posts eh.

amra
09 January 2011, 07:14 AM
"Please explain. Hinduism has nothing to do with the veda? Hinduism is naastik?"

What is understood as Hinduism in the minds of contemporary people has nothing to do with Veda. It is a vague mixture of concepts extracted from the true traditions of the indian subcontinent and packaged together. Which is why it now attracts mentally unstable westerners who are out shopping for 'spirituality' and find a nicely packaged consumer product labelled 'Hinduism'.

Now the Veda is real knowledge real power to change things and cause effects in real life. It is a sacred science. The essence of Veda is in every valid tradition even though the forms change according to the mental climate or how the majority of people think. If people do not speak Sanskrit then the Veda cannot be transmitted in Sanskrit because in a persons mind he does not have the knowledge of sanskrit to be able to understand. So the vehicle of transmission, for the Veda, has to change according to what mundane knowledge people possess. Modern Hinduism is not able to transmit Veda. Because its concepts have become devoid of meaning and of a real deep understanding. This is not to devalue the concepts of the Ancient Indians but todays humanity are just after titillation and do not understand the concepts and do not make efforts to understand.

Sahasranama
09 January 2011, 07:27 AM
I wonder where did you study the vedas to come to this conclusion?

sm78
12 January 2011, 08:54 AM
The Sikh teaching is Veda.
The Sikh Gurus taught the Veda
So did the semitic faiths before they were distorted beyond recognition.

But Hinduism does not have anything to do with the Veda
Hinduism is Naastik

Lol...It will be great if we can get christians and moslems to say this in their bid for conversion...somebody please pass this idea to the evangelists!

Divine Kala
16 January 2011, 03:08 AM
And my Hindu Brothers... Please understand that the Sikhs hate us. Sikhs hate Hindoos.

Then please explain why Sikhs attend my local mandir and participate in the aarti every Sunday?

TTCUSM
17 January 2011, 03:26 PM
Then please explain why Sikhs attend my local mandir and participate in the aarti every Sunday?

Obviously, he doesn't mean all Sikhs hate us.

However, one must keep in mind that Sikhism originally began as a rejection of Hindu practices. Therefore, one should not be too surprised if he encounters anti-Hindu sentiments among Sikhs.

During the Raj, the British sponsored the Tat Khalsa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tat_Khalsa) movement, which tried to emphasize the distance between Sikh and Hindu traditions.

During the 1980s, there was the Khalistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalistan) movement, which tried to break Punjab off from the rest of India and declare it as a "Sikh Republic".

kv_rangan
19 January 2011, 03:41 AM
Then please explain why Sikhs attend my local mandir and participate in the aarti every Sunday?

Okay... Then why all Sikh websites are in hate words towards Hindus and Hinduism. Do you know, even I attend Gurdwara every weekend in Chennai. If you ppl do not like idolatry then you are free to refrain from it. But why many Sikh websites tell many bad things about Ram, Krishan,etc.? This drives me to the conclusion that Sikhs hate Hindus.


And now... I can see many RSS people and VHP, BJP and Arya Samajis defending Sikhs here. You (RSS, VHP, BJP, etc.) people are politicians. I have no love for the Sangh parivar. So my loyalty is tied to Hinduism and Hindus. To some extent I respect the Sikh Gurus.

kv_rangan
19 January 2011, 06:34 AM
Well... at least they have a good rapport with Hindus. But, in many Sikh websites I can see many people hurling blasphemous words against Ram and Krishna. Why? They spit hatred at Hindus. why? Some even don't know the accomplishments of Adi Shankar and Shri Ramanuj and blaspheme both by statig the former is the guru of the latter. Actually Shankar and Ramanuj preached two contradictory concepts.
Even I visit the Gurudwaara in Chennai on every weekend.

They also have started to abuse Vajpayee. They don't even know what Kushwant Singh said about Vajpayee (Though I do not belong to the BJP and I never cast my vote):

It was the Congress (I) leaders who instigated mobs in 1984 and got more than 3000 people killed. I must give due credit the BJP for showing courage and protecting helpless Sikhs during those difficult days. No less a person than Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself intervened at a couple of places to help poor taxi drivers.

All these made me to come to a conclusion that many Sikhs hate Hindus. That's all. If I'm wrong then please correct me.

But is there anyone here to refute my points made previously... a long lengthy lecture...?

kv_rangan
19 January 2011, 06:36 AM
"Please explain. Hinduism has nothing to do with the veda? Hinduism is naastik?"

What is understood as Hinduism in the minds of contemporary people has nothing to do with Veda. It is a vague mixture of concepts extracted from the true traditions of the indian subcontinent and packaged together. Which is why it now attracts mentally unstable westerners who are out shopping for 'spirituality' and find a nicely packaged consumer product labelled 'Hinduism'.

Now the Veda is real knowledge real power to change things and cause effects in real life. It is a sacred science. The essence of Veda is in every valid tradition even though the forms change according to the mental climate or how the majority of people think. If people do not speak Sanskrit then the Veda cannot be transmitted in Sanskrit because in a persons mind he does not have the knowledge of sanskrit to be able to understand. So the vehicle of transmission, for the Veda, has to change according to what mundane knowledge people possess. Modern Hinduism is not able to transmit Veda. Because its concepts have become devoid of meaning and of a real deep understanding. This is not to devalue the concepts of the Ancient Indians but todays humanity are just after titillation and do not understand the concepts and do not make efforts to understand.


Thus proclaims an Arya Samaji...... man I'm sick of these Arya Samajis, Sangh, ISKCON, etc....

kv_rangan
22 January 2011, 09:01 AM
Divine Kala wrote
Then please explain why Sikhs attend my local mandir and participate in the aarti every Sunday?

Ok... then why many sardars are angry against Hindus. in many websites I see them literally slander Rama, Krishna, Sankaracharya and Ramanuja. Why the head of Rashtr Sikh Sangat Rulda Singh killed? is it for the Hindu-Sikh unit that he's preaching?

Why?

dogra
27 January 2011, 02:37 PM
OH dear, listen fella, not all people hate, websites can state this and that, do not fall prey to communalism spread the truth of Sanatan Dharma, show the true humanity within it.

Try this site:
http://agniveer.com/821/vedas-and-shudra/

kv_rangan
08 April 2011, 11:49 AM
OH dear, listen fella, not all people hate, websites can state this and that, do not fall prey to communalism spread the truth of Sanatan Dharma, show the true humanity within it.

Try this site:
http://agniveer.com/821/vedas-and-shudra/


Yeah... but my Hindu Punjabi friend told many lakhs of Hindus were massacred by the sikhs (sick) during 1973-1993... that's the reason for my frustration.

PARAM
09 April 2011, 12:07 PM
I wonder why this stupid thread is still allowed here

Author is a Muslim in Sikh disguise, and supporters of this behave are also Muslims in Hindu, Sikh disguise

Sikkhism is part of Hinduism, as per Guru Gobind Singh himself.

Adhvagat
09 April 2011, 05:47 PM
"Please explain. Hinduism has nothing to do with the veda? Hinduism is naastik?"

What is understood as Hinduism in the minds of contemporary people has nothing to do with Veda. It is a vague mixture of concepts extracted from the true traditions of the indian subcontinent and packaged together. Which is why it now attracts mentally unstable westerners who are out shopping for 'spirituality' and find a nicely packaged consumer product labelled 'Hinduism'.

Now the Veda is real knowledge real power to change things and cause effects in real life. It is a sacred science. The essence of Veda is in every valid tradition even though the forms change according to the mental climate or how the majority of people think. If people do not speak Sanskrit then the Veda cannot be transmitted in Sanskrit because in a persons mind he does not have the knowledge of sanskrit to be able to understand. So the vehicle of transmission, for the Veda, has to change according to what mundane knowledge people possess. Modern Hinduism is not able to transmit Veda. Because its concepts have become devoid of meaning and of a real deep understanding. This is not to devalue the concepts of the Ancient Indians but todays humanity are just after titillation and do not understand the concepts and do not make efforts to understand.


Amra you bring a valid point, that was presented in a little unclear and controversial fashion.

I think what attracts unstable westerners are both frustration with their own religions and sell-out fake gurus who create easy to follow lines with a fantastic spiritual topping and mish-mash Universalism to avoid philosophical confrontation. However I'm not sure how you can consider that true Hinduism.

But your point of sanskrit and its importance in the propagation of vedic knowledge is indeed a crucial matter.

Om Tat Sat

Believer
10 April 2011, 04:29 AM
I think what attracts unstable westerners are both frustration with their own religions and sell-out fake gurus who create easy to follow lines with a fantastic spiritual topping and mish-mash Universalism to avoid philosophical confrontation. However I'm not sure how you can consider that true Hinduism.

Great description of the Western conditions!

Thakurdass
26 March 2012, 02:28 PM
Divine Kala wrote
Then please explain why Sikhs attend my local mandir and participate in the aarti every Sunday?

Ok... then why many sardars are angry against Hindus. in many websites I see them literally slander Rama, Krishna, Sankaracharya and Ramanuja. Why the head of Rashtr Sikh Sangat Rulda Singh killed? is it for the Hindu-Sikh unit that he's preaching?

Why?


Well... at least they have a good rapport with Hindus. But, in many Sikh websites I can see many people hurling blasphemous words against Ram and Krishna. Why? They spit hatred at Hindus. why? Some even don't know the accomplishments of Adi Shankar and Shri Ramanuj and blaspheme both by statig the former is the guru of the latter. Actually Shankar and Ramanuj preached two contradictory concepts.
Even I visit the Gurudwaara in Chennai on every weekend.

They also have started to abuse Vajpayee. They don't even know what Kushwant Singh said about Vajpayee (Though I do not belong to the BJP and I never cast my vote):

It was the Congress (I) leaders who instigated mobs in 1984 and got more than 3000 people killed. I must give due credit the BJP for showing courage and protecting helpless Sikhs during those difficult days. No less a person than Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself intervened at a couple of places to help poor taxi drivers.

All these made me to come to a conclusion that many Sikhs hate Hindus. That's all. If I'm wrong then please correct me.

But is there anyone here to refute my points made previously... a long lengthy lecture...?

KV RANGAN,

When things are taken for granted and serious issues are ignored, then such things are bound to happen, when hindus themselves don't have unity what else you can expect from the other sects.

Gulshan veerana karne ke liye sirf eik hi ullu kaafi hai, yahan to har shaakh pe ullu baitha hai anjaam e gulistan kya hoga.

bhul chuk maaf,
om tat sat,
Madho dass