Sikhism Sikhs : a non-sectarian monotheistic religion founded by Guru Nanak. The Sikhs accept the Ādi Grantha as their one canonical scripture & their “living” Guru. A basically peace-loving people, they had been from the beginning attacked & oppressed by Muhammedans whether jihadi invaders or established imperialists of the region, until the ninth & last guru of the Sikhs, Guru Govind Singh, transformed the community into a well-armed warrior class determined to resist any aggression or atrocity. Guru Govind Singh was murdered by an Afghan fanatic towards the end of 1708. The Sikhs struggle for independence continued the battles with the Moguls under the temporal leadership of Banda till he was captured & horrendously executed in 1715/1716 by the 9th Mogul emperor Farruksiyar. (This emperor was the grandson of Emperor Shah Alam who died in 1712. Since his father, the rightful heir, had been killed by one of his brother in the war of succession & occupied the throne, Farruksiyar had strangled that uncle.) Though along with Banda hundreds of Sikh soldiers were captured, tortured & killed, the Khālsā carried on its struggle for independence from the Mogul with renewed determination. Not only could the relentless persecution of the Mughuls kill the military spirit of the Khālsā, the growing weakness of the Moghul Empire gave them the opportunity to reorganise, enhance their military power & political influence. They baffled all attempts of Afghan invader Abdali & when he left Lahore in 1762 they pursued & harassed his army & occupied Lahore in 1764 & by 1767 subsequently wrested all his Indian conquests from his weak successor. By 1773 Sikh sway extended from Saharanpur in the east to Attock in the west, from Multan in the south to Kangra & Jammu in the north. But with the disappearance of a common enemy jealousies, discords, surfaced among their twelve misls or confederacies while the British Octopus was rapidly expanding its empire all over India. It was Mahārāja Ranjit Singh who united the twelve into a single unit – the work for which he was destined. [Based on Advanced history of India, R.C. Majumdar et al, 1973-1974:494, 728-29] Sri Aurobindo: It was not from the people of India that India was won by Moghul or Briton, but from a small privileged class. On the other hand, the strength & success of the Marathas & Sikhs in the 18th century was due to the policy of Shivaji & Guru Govinda which called the whole nation into the fighting line. They failed only because the Marathas could not preserve the cohesion which Shivaji gave to their national strength or the Sikhs the discipline which Guru Govinda gave to the Khālsā. [SABCL 1:308]
... Ram has said that the Sikhs will resist partition at any cost. They will not live under Muslem domination, be it under a Khoja Baniya (Jinnah) or a Hindu Baniya (Gandhi). (Laughter) Jinnah is now piping down and saying; "Ah, I didn't mean this or that. They have misunderstood me. I didn't want the transference of Muslem minorities," etc., and he is all praise for the Sikhs. PURANI: He knows he... he will get it hot from the Sikhs. If Jinnah maintains his theories he will create difficulty in the Punjab. Sikander Hyat Khan will lose all his support. SRI AUROBINDO: The Sikhs have very strange names: "Tiger Lion", "Water Lion", "Fire Lion". ...
... mean that the Sikhs, the Frontier Province and Assam are to be thrown to the wolves, offered as an appeasing sacrifice to Jinnah. It would mean the establishment of a divided Pakistan of which the two portions, Eastern and Western, would ultimately and indeed very soon unite and secede from any All-India Union that might be established; for that is the policy of the League. Will the Sikhs consent to be... Mussulman domination? They have declared emphatically that they will not, they will follow the Congress only so long as the Congress keeps to its promise not to support any constitution disapproved by the Sikhs. As for Assam, will the Assamese consent to commit suicide? For that is what the grouping means if it is a majority vote that decides in the group. The Hindus of Bengal and Assam joining together in ...
... system was a complete success, it undermined the independence of Indian rulers and gave the British total power in India. The Sikhs of Punjab, after the death of Ranjit Singh, attacked British positions, starting a costly war. The Sikhs were one of many groups or individual states that resisted British exploitation, brutality and territorial seizures at sporadic intervals. ... policy of divide and rule. Diplomacy and deceit were used to gain control of revenue collection in the province of Bengal. This gave them effective control of the administration. The Marathas, the Sikhs and the rulers of Mysore could never unite to confront the foreign enemy and fell one by one. By the onset of the 19th century there was no local power that could cope with their onslaught. ... forces of Persian king Nadir Shah plundered Delhi in 1739. Later in 1756, Ahmad Shah, the Emir of Afghanistan, who had previously seized the Punjab, again captured Delhi. A united force of Marathas and Sikhs could not defeat the invaders, and the possibility of a reunification of Indian peoples into a strong national state began to dim. In the South of India, an independent state ...
... part of India remained under Hindu rule throughout the thirteenth century. The Rajputs, the Marathas, the Sikhs 1 and other Hindu kings continued to offer stiff resistance to the "Muslim invaders — the greedy barbarians who were attracted by the proverbial 1. In fact, Sikhism, founded by Guru Nanak in the fifteenth century, was at first a peaceful sect derived from among the Hindus. But... son, Prince Khusro. Arjan's son, the sixth Guru, Hargovind (1606-45), gave a military turn to Sikhism. Again, the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, who preferred death to conversion, was beheaded by Aurangzeb. So it was left to Tegh Bahadur's son, the tenth and last Guru, Govind Singh (1675 1708), to make the Sikh sect into a militant body, the Khalsa (or Pure), determined to resist Muslim atrocities and ...
... see how their Pakistan scheme can be successful if the Frontier, Baluchistan and Sind don't want it. In that case only Punjab and Bengal remain. In Punjab the Sikhs and Hindus won't stand being Muslimised, I suppose. NIRODBARAN: The Sikhs won't. SRI AUROBINDO: The Hindus will, you mean? And in Bengal, I don't know what they will do. Perhaps they will wail like Sotuda. ...
... the consciousness of the writer, and on the strength and quality of the consciousness of the writer depends the worth and force of the writing. That is the meaning of the grantha-p ū j ā of the Sikhs. Even without reading a scripture, by an intense concentration and aspiration you can establish an inner contact with the consciousness of the writer, with the consciousness concentrated in the book ...
... British Government and at the same time preaching India's non-participation? SATYENDRA: I would like to know what Kripalani says about this statement of Gandhi. He has a keen intellect. PURANI: The Sikhs also don't understand; they say, "These are intellectual quibbles." Neither can they conceive of how the defence of India can be done non-violently. SRI AUROBINDO: That is something I can't swallow ...
... a planned and systematic attack by Muslims on the Sikhs in East Punjab. This attack was of a diabolical character and lasted for months starting from Page 55 December 1946. The Muslim population of the Punjab, in order to cow down the Sikhs, resorted to a total campaign of murder, arson, loot and abduction of women. The Sikhs had to go through this experience for months and millions... worked in perfect unison, and brought widespread death, destruction and uprooting to Hindus and Sikhs in a dozen districts, killing many thousands and uprooting about a million, before the month was out. So, from Mar. 5, 1947 onwards, the constitutional game was up, and for the Hindus and Sikhs it became a sheer struggle for life against a fierce and well-planned Muslim onslaught - well-planned... accepted by Mountbatten and by Nehru on May 11, 1947. On June 2, 1947, the Menon-Mountbatten plan was accepted by Nehru, Kripalani and Patel on behalf of the Congress, by Baldeo Singh on behalf of the Sikhs, and by Jinnah on behalf of the Muslim League. The Status of the Princely States The British had divided what makes up the present Bangladesh, India and Pakistan into several segments ...
... class. On the other hand the strength and success of the Marathas and Sikhs in the eighteenth century was due to the policy of Shivaji and Guru Govind which called the whole nation into the fighting line. They failed only because the Marathas could not preserve the cohesion which Shivaji gave to their national strength or the Sikhs the discipline which Guru Govind gave to the Khalsa. Is it credible that ...
... Asceticism and the Middle Path (c) Spirit of tolerance, assimilation and synthesis (d) True understanding of religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism. (e) Synthesis of spiritual experience. 2. Indian Literature: (a) Sanskrit and Tamil (b) Birth of modem Indian languages (c) Great literary masters: a detailed... account of India V (i) The coming of Islam, Tenets of Islam (ii) Succession of Sultans, Razia Begum VI (i) Babar's account of India (ii) Beginnings of Sikhism: Guru Nanak (iii) Akbar (iv) Abul Fazal, Faizi and Tansen (v) Jahangir, Shahjahan and Aurangzeb (vi) Great Saints: Narsi Mehta, Tulsidas, Meerabai, Surdas, Chaitanya, Tukaram ...
... PURANI: After this, Sikander will hesitate to lift the ban—especially after Sir Chimanlal's accusation that he was also a party to the Pakistan scheme. SRI AUROBINDO: But, in the scheme, if the Sikhs and Hindus were separated, they would have poor success. They may try to bring in Afghanistan. But Afghanistan is not wealthy and its people have a certain contempt for Indian Muslims. And in Bengal ...
... they claim anything separate? PURANI: He also says that the British took India from Muslim hands. So they were the more recent rulers. Somebody from Madras has replied that India was taken from the Sikhs, Rajputs and Mahrattas. The Muslims were already decadent at that period. SRI AUROBINDO: That is true, though there was still some Muslim rule. PURANI: The Madras man also says that the argument ...
... If Foche had been placed in command sooner, the war would have ended much earlier. The Balkan peoples and the Turks are also good fighters. The Austrians are not. DR. BECHARLAL: What about the Sikhs and the Gurkhas? SRI AUROBINDO: They are unsurpassed. But a war does not depend only on soldiers: it depends more on generals. PURANI: Schomberg says that the Chinese are no good as soldiers and ...
... military genius like Foch. If Foch had been the Commander-in-chief before, the war would have ended much earlier. The Balkans and the Turks are also good fighters. Disciple : What about the Sikhs and the Gurkhas? Sri Aurobindo : They are unsurpassed but the war depends not on fighters but on generals. Disciple : The British consul here says that the Chinese are no good as soldiers ...
... Times into the concrete fact of 42 million yards less of English cotton goods. And the demonstration of the sixteenth of October joined in by the Hindu and the Mahomedan, the Buddhist, the Jain and the Sikh, the police and the people, through the mystic compulsion of an instinctive fraternity, was the enchanting prevision of the India to be. Such a vision is vouchsafed only to the man or the nation ...
... the Sikh religion, its long line of Gurus and the novel direction and form given to it by Guru Govind Singh in the democratic institution of the Khalsa. The Buddhist Sangha and its councils, the creation of a sort of divided pontifical authority by Shankaracharya, an authority transmitted from generation to generation for more than a thousand years and even now not altogether effete, the Sikh Khalsa... however stubbornly the conservative religious mind may oppose all pronounced or drastic change, still the core of Hinduism is a spiritual, not a social discipline. Actually we find religions like Sikhism counted in the Vedic family although they broke down the old social tradition and invented a novel form, while the Jains and Buddhists were traditionally considered to be outside the religious fold... elite anywhere else. Where else could the lofty, austere and difficult teaching of a Buddha have seized so rapidly on the popular mind? Where else could the songs of a Tukaram, a Ramprasad, a Kabir, the Sikh gurus and the chants of the Tamil saints with their fervid devotion but also their profound spiritual thinking have found so speedy an echo and formed a popular religious literature? This strong permeation ...
... very heavy price for Kashmir! True to a disgraceful understanding with the British Government, of which both parties ought to have been ashamed, Golab Singh—to quote Sir Thomas Holdich,—"deserted his Sikh masters and paid for Kashmir with money looted from the Lahore treasury". So it was only "give and take". But these pathetic and miraculous happenings appear more intelligible—and less pathetic—when ...
... ex-chief minister, also said to the Mahrattas, "You don't know what Swaraj is, you never had it." SRI AUROBINDO: They had it during Shivaji's time; at that time they were all united. Among the Sikhs too there was unity, though later on it broke down. The Rajputs, of course, didn't know what unity was. Europe is now inheriting. The ancient peoples also didn't know how to achieve the malady unity ...
... NIRODBARAN: But the Muslims will still put forward their Pakistan scheme which can't be accepted. SRI AUROBINDO: There each party, as I said, will give its own scheme,. If the Punjab Muslims, Sikhs, N.W.F. Baluchistan and other Muslims, such as the Arhars and Momins, stand against Pakistan, then the League will have to drop it. Now the League leaders say that they are the sole representatives ...
... all along. In Baramulla they killed Colonel D O T Dykes. Dykes and I were of the same seniority. We did our first year's attachment with the Royal Scots in Lahore, way back in 1934-5. Tom went to the Sikh regiment. I went to the Frontier Force regiment. We'd lost contact with each other. He'd become a lieutenant colonel. I'd become a full colonel. Tom and his wife were holidaying in Baramulla... before he could say anything Sardar Patel turned to me and said, 'You have got your orders'. I walked out, and we started flying in troops at about 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock. I think it was the Sikh regiment under Ranjit Rai that was the first lot to be flown in. And then we continued flying troops in. That is all I know about what happened. Then all the fighting took place. I became a brigadier... ISI's role to the protection of Pakistan's interests, which included the creation of a covert action division within the ISI to assist Islamic militants in Northeast India, as well as to assist the Sikh Home Rule Movement in the 1960s.6 Under General Khan, the ISI was given the mission of conducting ''the collection of foreign and domestic intelligence, coordination of intelligence functions of the ...
... in India, but this theory is not held in common by all religions. Even where the theory of rebirth is acknowledged, the nature of the soul is not shared in common. Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism share the belief in rebirth; but in the multi-sided Hinduism itself there is no common belief in regard to the nature and the reality of the soul. The law of karma as understood in various religions ...
... by numbers and not by their names! There was yet another commune in America which didn't allow any marriage. SATYENDRA: Do you know of any such commune in India? SRI AUROBINDO: India? The Sikhs are the only community here organised on a religious basis. Thakur Dayanand established or tried to establish an order of married Sannyasins. I don't know if sexual union was advocated too. N ...
... of history, could ever have cherished them. But when Mr. Naoroji began his career nothing more real and solid was possible. The falling in pieces of the Maratha Confederacy and the overthrow of the Sikh power had left the Punjab and the Deccan stupefied and apathetic; the rest of India was politically exhausted and inert. In such circumstances it was inevitable that the task of reviving the life of ...
... attempt of Akbar (1542-1605) to create a new religion called Din-i-Ilahi, and the latter was exemplified by the life and work of Guru Nanak (1469-1538). The work of Guru Nanak gave rise to the subsequent Sikh Khalsa movement which was astonishingly original and novel. During this period, there was a tremendous churning of the spirit of India, and a great attempt was made to explore all aspects of human ...
... names. There was another community in America which did not allow marriage among its members. Disciple : Do you know if any communities are there in India? Sri Aurobindo : The Sikhs are the only community organized on a religion. Thakur Dayananda established or tried to establish an order of married Sannyasins. Disciple : I heard that Anukul Thakur also adopted it for ...
... battle with a trained foe since Trafalgar? They will be broken to pieces by the science and skill of the Mongolian. And the key of Asia will pass into Mongolian hands and the strength of India, the Sikh and the Rajput and the Mahratta, the force of Mahomedan valour and the rising energy Page 990 of new nations in Bengal and Madras will all be at the service and under the guidance of the ...
... Soviets in Afghanistan and later shifted their focus to the Indian forces in Kashmir after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Zia sanctioned the covert provision of arms and training to Sikh separatists who were fighting for an independent state of Khalistan in Indian Punjab. It is said that India responded to Pakistan's covert programs in Kashmir and Punjab by sending agent... Kashmir and within Kashmir and Ladakh by stealth, without recourse to force. The road over Zojila up to Kargil and the road over Khardungla should receive our special attention. In collaboration with Sikh extremists, create chaos and terror in Jammu to divert attention from the valley at a critical juncture and discredit the regime even in the Hindu mind. Establish virtual control in those parts ...
... colours stand for the unity of the main divisions into which the communities of the country fall - the Hindus who .revere the sannyasi's saffron robe, the Muslims whose prophet favoured green, the Sikhs and Jains and Christians and Parsis who should get blended into a homogeneity like white which blends so many colours. Or else we may take green to be firmness and faith like the spontaneous clinging ...
... still able to survive by the same force, abated but not slayable, retreating and maintaining for a time her ancient political system in the south, throwing up under the pressure of Islam Rajput and Sikh and Mahratta to defend her ancient self and its idea, persisting passively where she could not resist actively, condemning to decay each empire that could not answer her riddle or make terms with her... Islam in the hills of Rajputana, and in its worst days still built and maintained against the whole power of the ablest of the Moguls the kingdom of Shivaji, formed the Mahratta confederacy and the Sikh Khalsa, undermined the great Mogul structure and again made a last attempt at empire. On the brink of the final and almost fatal collapse in the midst of unspeakable darkness, disunion and confusion... endeavour to found an empire could not succeed because it was inspired by a regional patriotism that failed to enlarge itself beyond its own limits and awaken to the living ideal of a united India. The Sikh Khalsa on the other hand was an astonishingly original and novel creation and its face was turned not to the past but the future. Apart and singular in its theocratic head and democratic soul and structure ...
... 13,15, 139 . 152 -153 se e also India. strength Shankaracharya, 29 . 87 , 92. 94-95, 97,112,204 Shastra, 69. 86-87, 89. 146 Shiva, 29. 98(fn). 123 Shivaji,46 Shudras, 29,119,120-121 Sikh Gurus, 146 Sikhs, 63 Snide, Nana Saheb, 218 Socialism/Socialists, 103, 135, 174,215. 220 soul-force, 124, 191 spiritism. 200 spirituality, 50. 51 , 92, 135, 138 , 171,200 age of, 135 -136 basis of life ...
... as being sectarian. But, on the other hand, we should be de-nationalising it if we refused to admit whatever ideas or terms in it distinguished it from the Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Sikh, Jain or even Buddhist culture. It has, for all its catholicity, characteristics of its own, and these characteristics it must retain in one manner or another if it is to be in any valid sense... and pray with a consciousness in direct tune with the typical Indian spirituality; but if anyone takes objection to them because of their non-Islamic, non-Christian, non-Jewish, non-Zoroastrian, non-Sikh, non-Jain and even non-Buddhist suggestion, then he fails to understand what ultimate India is and he is trying to rob her of all genuine cultural Page 21 value and to suppress a ...
... of its own while Sikhism is the latest; etc. And five minutes are over. And the Mother retires. The novice sadhaka' s 'meditation' too ends in a mood of highly pleased elf-complacency. But how can you call it meditation? It is nothing but a kaleidoscopic procession of haphazard thoughts and images. See the fun: the novice sadhaka begins with the Mother and ends with Sikhism! And he is blissfully ...
... (tribesmen). The invasion began on Oct. 21 1947. The Pathans killed, raped women and looted bazaars wherever they went. The convent of the Franciscan Missionaries, thousands of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim women and the bazaars of Muzaffarabad, Uri and Baramulla bore testimony to the Pathans' animal instincts and thirst for pillage. Despite the best efforts of the Pakistan Army officers and... hardly fit to land fully laden transport planes. But that was the only option available and it had to be taken. The rescue mission was code-named, Operation Jak. The first regiment to move in was 1 Sikh, stationed at Gurgaon at the time and commanded by Lt. Col. D.R. Rai. The troops were transported in four Dakota planes that took off from Delhi on October 27th and reached Srinagar early morning the... legally belonged to India. Another act of appeasement by Gandhi was Gandhi's "fast unto death" to force the Indian Government to pay 55 crore rupees to Pakistan, and to force the Hindu and Sikh refugees in Delhi to vacate the abandoned mosques and Muslim homes where they had found shelter (this was midwinter 1947-48, when the temperature close to freezing). But it could easily be seen that ...
... multiplied themselves without any true economic need of the country, that all this rigidified into its present form. From historical times we have had religious reformers. Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc. do not care for castes. It was only under the impact of Western ideas that India began to have social reformers. From the time of Raja Rammohan Roy the Hindu society has had numerous social reformers ...
... the Raja was in every way the head of society and of the nation; and the peoples which having achieved national self-consciousness came nearest to achieving also organised political unity were the Sikhs for whom Guru Govind Singh deliberately devised a common secular and spiritual centre in the Khalsa, and the Mahrattas who not only established a secular head, representative of the conscious nation ...
... cared for and this special care is extended to it even in provinces where it is in a large majority. No provision at all has been made for the safeguarding of Hindu minorities, for the Parsis, the Sikhs, the Christians and other sections which may reasonably declare that they too are Indians and citizens of the Empire no less than the Mahomedans. The workings of Page 287 this belief in ...
... however stubbornly the conservative page - 63 religious mind may oppose all pronounced or drastic change, still the core of Indian religion is a spiritual, not social discipline. Religions like Sikhism counted in the Vedic family although they broke down the old social tradition and invented a novel form. It is true that in all the four elements that constitute Indian religion, there are major and ...
... logicise my "wooden head". But that would be a very short-sighted human view of the Divine's multi-dimensional work. I am reminded, however, of a narrative poem by Tagore about Guru Govind Singh. The Sikh Guru adopted a Pathan boy whose father he had killed in a flare of temper. He brought him up well-versed in all Shastras and proficient in the art of warfare. Every morning and evening the old valorous ...
... valiant and ceaseless struggle for independence by the Hindus to deliver India from Muslim rule. It was the Rajputs who first led this struggle in North India followed by the Jats, Marathas and Sikhs. In the South, this struggle was embodied in the Vijayanagar Empire. This struggle for independence came to its peak when the Marathas under Shivaji almost brought to an end the Muslim domination of ...
... were secured by the succession of Gurus or spiritual teachers. In due course of history, there developed institutions of sanghas, of a sort of divided pontifical authority by Shankaracharya, of the Sikh Khalsa, and the adoption of the congregational form of samaj by the modem reforming sects. But it is noteworthy that even in these attempts, the freedom and plasticity and living sincerity of the ...
... united family of humanity. We need to ensure that students of today and tomorrow understand and work for those ideals for which leaders and youths, whether Hindus or Mohammedans, whether Christians or Sikhs, whether Jews or Parsis, irrespective of religion, language and race sacrificed their lives so that we may live in freedom and protect our freedom with courage and heroism. Sri Aurobindo had conceived ...
... ve class in power to serve as a means of maintaining British domination or at least as an intolerable brake on progress—also divides India into five or six Indias, Hindu, Moslem, Pariah, Christian, Sikh etc. Page 20 (e) A big fiasco 4 of the Non-Cooperation movement which is throwing politics back on one side to reformism, on the other to a blatant and insincere Socialism. That, ...
... Karma" is one of the basic constituent elements of all the religions and philosophical systems that have sprung up in India. Whether we consider Buddhism or Jainism, post-Buddha Puranic Hinduism or Sikhism, or the orthodox philosophies like Vedanta, Mimansa, Patanjal, etc., we shall find Karmavada occupying everywhere a central position in these doctrines and viewpoints. The Buddhist philosophy has gone ...
... individual the freedom of an early Sannyasa, a renunciation of the social for the free spiritual life, and there was for the group the liberty to form a sub-society governed by new conceptions like the Sikh or the Vaishnava. But neither of these violent departures from the norm could be tolerated by a strictly economic and rigorously scientific and unitarian society. Obviously, too, there would grow up ...
... There was also during this period a remarkable attempt to combine Vedanta and Islam or of establishing lasting communal harmony. In particular, the work of Guru Nanak (1469-1538) and of the subsequent Sikh Khalsa movement was astonishingly original and novel. The speciality of this third stage was an intense outburst and fresh creativity, not a revivalism, but based upon a deep assimilation of the past ...
... exquisite industries, the great triumphs of science, scholarship, jurisprudence, logic, metaphysics, the unique social structure? What supported the heroism and self-abandonment of the Kashattriya, the Sikh and the Rajput, the unconquerable national vitality and endurance? What was it that stood behind that civilisation second to none, Page 681 in the massiveness of its outlines or the ...
... following "not a man, woman or child" was safe and every man's hand was raised against his brother and his neighbour. Also, it meant a colossal two-way traffic of uprooted humanity on the run Hindu and Sikh to India, and Muslim to Pakistan - daring the unspeakable abominations on the way. This was to raise the stupendous problem of rehabilitation and resettlement of the millions of refugees who had fled ...
... exquisite industries, the great triumphs of science, scholarship, jurisprudence, logic, metaphysics, the unique social structure? What supported the heroism and self-abandonment of the Kshatriya, the Sikh and the Rajput, the unconquerable national vitality and endurance? What was it that stood behind that civilisation second to none in the massiveness of its outlines or the perfection of its details ...
... of all countries. On the other hand, for the millions and millions of Mother India's children now suddenly sundered by the mechanics of the Partition, for the numberless Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists who still felt that they lived only as the cells and arteries and tissues and blood-corpuscles of India the one beloved Mother of one and all, for these anguished children ...
... in India, but this theory is not held in common by all religions. Even where the theory of rebirth is acknowledged, the nature of the soul is not shared in common. Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism share the belief in rebirth; but in the multi-sided Hinduism itself there is no common belief in regard to the nature and the reality of the soul. The law of karma as understood in various religions... social life, however stubbornly the conservative religious mind may oppose all pronounced or drastic change, still the core of Indian religion is a spiritual, not social discipline. Religions like Sikhism counted in the Vedic family although they broke down the old social tradition and invented a novel form. It is true that in all the four elements that constitute Indian religion, there are major and ...
... ve class in power to serve as a means of maintaining British domination or at least as an intolerable brake on progress; also divides India into five or six Indias, Hindu, Moslem, Paria, Christian, Sikh etc; A big fiasco of the Non-co-operation movement, which is throwing politics back on one side to reformism, on the other to a blatant and insincere Socialism. That, I think is the ...
... struggle for survival in the south, the wonderful record of Rajput heroism and the great upheaval of national life in Maharashtra penetrating to the lowest strata of society, the remarkable episode of the Sikh Khalsa. An adequate picture of that outward life still remains to be given; once given it would be the end of many fictions. All this Page 246 mass of action was not accomplished by men ...
... people of India. It was in this plain that the great kingdoms of India, found their home. Also it was in Page 159 this place that the essence of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism were established in India. In short, the Ganga river has been the lifeline of India, economically, spiritually and culturally. The mighty Ganga (also Ganges) emerges from beneath the Gangotri ...
... 1900): A Gujarati disciple. Fired with idealism, he left his medical studies midway, joined the freedom movement and stayed at Gandhiji's Sabarmati Ashram. Then he joined Vinoba Bhave. Left him for a Sikh guru who directed him to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In the Ashram he tended gardens and grew fruits and veg- etables. Later with the help of his wife Kamalalakshmi, he made rose water, power syrup ...
... could be studied with the methods of comparative studies. Particularly we may emphasise the study of Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Sikhism. Along with these religions, there should be a detailed study of the lives of great personalities associated with these religions, or various systems of yoga such as Rama, Krishna, Buddha Mahavira ...
... the early Sanskrit poetry, vivified by a great power of living phrase and image, and farther north the high Vedantic spirituality renews itself in the Hindi poetry of Surdas and inspires Nanak and the Sikh gurus. The spiritual culture prepared and perfected by two millenniums of the ancient civilisation has flooded the mind of all these peoples and given birth to great new literatures and Page 380 ...
... small privileged class. On the other hand, the strength and success of the Marathas and Sikhs in the eighteenth century was due to the policy of Shivaji and Guru Govinda which called the whole nation into the fighting line. 27 When that cohesion or that discipline failed, the Mahratta and the Sikh power also dissipated itself. Then alien rule could thrive only so long as it was not ...
... still able to survive by the same force, abated but not slayable, retreating and maintaining for a time her ancient political system in the south, throwing up under the pressure of Islam Rajput and Sikh and Mahratta to defend her ancient self and its idea, persisting passively where she could not resist actively, condemning to decay each empire that could not answer her riddle or make terms with her ...
... "Canadian canes" daily from Page 124 the Ashram gate to my chair under the clock opposite the Samadhi. If I turn to left or right in bed I am in pain and the arms go numb. A Sikh neurologist was brought by a local physician to examine me. He took out a pin from his turban and poked me here and there and asked me if I could tell him where he had poked. I said "Certainly - since ...
... Akbar to create a new religion called Din-I-Ilahi, and the latter was exemplified by the life and work of Guru Nanak. The work of Guru Nanak later gave rise to the astonishingly original and novel Sikh Khalsa movement. During this period, there was a tremendous churning of the spirit of India, and a great attempt was made to explore all aspects of human being and to develop them in such a way that ...
... is not true as an axiom of political science which Mr. Hemchandra seems to proclaim. The Maratha Empire which was brought into existence by Shivaji owed its origin to religious inspiration. So was Sikhism responsible for the power of the Khalsa in the Punjab. All students of world history will certainly remember how the Islamic political power that spread over Asia, Africa and Europe owed its inspiration... considerations"? Do not psychological factors count? And among the psychological factors do not spiritual and religious factors act the most potently? Was not the rise of the Maratha empire and of the Sikhs in the Punjab primarily due to factors which might be called religious? Is no change of psychology necessary before an enslaved people can attain freedom? 40. It is wrong on the part of Girija ...
... Rajasthani Paintings 11. Mathura Art 12. Figurative Paintings 13. Landscape Paintings 14. Ceramics 15. Sculpture 16. Glass Painting 17. Basholi, Guler-Kangra and Sikh Lepakshi Painting 18. Batik Painting 19. Indian Murals Paintings 20. Indian Folk Paintings 21. Silk Paintings 22. South Indian form of Painting (Thanjavur) 23. Atavahana ...
... exemplified in the attempt of Akbar to create a new religion called Din-eIllahi, and the latter was exemplified by the life and work of Guru Nanak. The work of Gum Nanak gave rise to the subsequent Sikh Khalsa movement which was astonishingly original and novel. During this period, there was a tremendous churning of the spirit of India, and a great attempt was made to explore all aspects of human being ...
... number of sadhus and gurus as motivators too. Spiritual backing of armed conflict was always present in the Indian tradition. Shivaji had as his inspiration the great Yogi Ramdas. The Sikh militias were raised in the bosom of spiritual power. No wonder that Hem Chandra Kanungo, whom Sri Aurobindo initiated into revolutionary activities and was sent for training to Europe, was told by ...
... prince and the peasant alike - giving to each that power of sacrifice.... And the demonstrations of the sixteenth of October joined in by the Hindu and the Mahomedan, the Buddhist, the Jain and the Sikh, the police and the people, through the mystic compulsion of an instinctive fraternity, was the enchanting prevision of the India to be. Such a vision is vouchsafed only to the man or the nation that ...
... care is extended to it even in provinces where it is in a large majority. No provision at all has been made for the safe- Page 62 guarding of Hindu minorities, for the Parsis, the Sikhs, the Christians and other sections which may reasonably declare that they too are Indians and citizens of the Empire no less than the Mahomedans____ Our own attitude is clear. We will have ...
... brief mention of Tiruvalluvar, Avvai, the Vaishnava and Saiva saint-singers, the great epics of Kamban and Tulsidas, and the proliferation of the Bhakti poetry including that of Nanak and the other Sikh Gurus. Of the poetry of the Radha-Krishna cult, Sri Aurobindo writes: The desire of the soul for God is there thrown into symbolic figure in the lyrical love cycle of Radha and Krishna, the ...
... bad mess because Page 261 of the Punjab problem. Terrorism on an unprecedented scale is going on there with a view to frightening the Government into granting Khalistan, a seperate Sikh state. After the colossal folly of letting Pakistan take shape India has learnt her lesson and, come what may, there will never be a Khalistan. Economic conditions too are not very cheering. Public ...
... exquisite industries, the great triumphs of science, scholarship, jurisprudence, logic, metaphysics, the unique social structure? What supported the heroism and self-abandonment of the Kshatriya, the Sikh and the Rajput, the unconquerable national vitality and endurance? What was it that stood behind that civilisation second to none, in the massiveness of its outlines or the perfection of its details ...
... Upanishads and the sayings of the Buddhists were re-echoed on the lips of Christ. Pataliputra has played an important role in the history of ancient India. And Guru Govind Singh, the tenth guru of the Sikhs, was born there in 1669. Fittingly enough then, - Dr Rajendra Prasad (1884-1963), the first President of independent India, hailed from there. He was an eminent advocate, a scholar of no ...
... was also during this period a remarkable attempt to combine Vedanta and Islam or of establishing lasting communal harmony. In particular, the work of Guru Nanak (1469-1538) and of the subsequent Sikh Khalsa movement was astonishingly original and novel. The speciality of this third stage was an intense outburst and fresh creativity, not a revivalism, but based upon a deep assimilation of the ...
... elite anywhere else. Where else could the lofty, austere and difficult teaching of a Buddha have seized so rapidly on the popular mind? Where else could the songs of a Tukaram, a Ramprasad, a Kabir, the Sikh Gurus and the chants of the Tamil saints with their fervid devotion but also their profound spiritual thinking have found so speedy an echo and formed a popular religious literature? This strong permeation ...
... won’t write more today as I have to write my serial for the Press for which I have offered the royalty to Mother a month or two ago. Consulting with Rajani I have written to Arup Singh my Sikh friend to contribute for the purse on your 72 nd birthday. I hope something will come out of it. Rahim has promised Rs. 100 and R. contributes Rs. 100. So.... I am not surprised that you ...
... who give to God, shall have; but what reward He will determine. Remember the importance of keeping up this centre, for all my future work depends on what I work out here. I shall write about the Sikh pamphlet, which is an excellent thing with one or two blemishes; but I could not understand who wrote the accompanying letter or what gentleman he refers to. The letter you sent me last time from ...
... Indira, for political ends) .. In June, 1980, her favourite son, Sanjay, who had become her right-hand man, dies in a plane accident. In November, 1984, Indira is assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards (more than 2,000 Sikhs are slaughtered in India in the following days); her elder son, Rajiv, who succeeds her, is in turn assassinated in May, 1991.... ...
... values like love, cooperation, character development, sacrifice and nonviolence. It has also developed reading material for children of classes VI-VII based on the stories and parables drawn from Sikhism (in Press). These stories and parables are powerful pedagogical tools for inter-religious dialogue. NCERT has produced recorded cassettes of fifteen community songs in twelve different languages to ...
... religious leaders as the source of inspiration and direction. What could Shivaji have achieved without his Guru, the Yogi Ramdas? There was spiritual power behind the creation and organisation of the Sikh militia. In this connection, the following historical account makes interesting reading: In 1772, in Rangpur, a district in Bengal, there was a revolt of Sannyasis (ascetics) against the British rule ...
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