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A unique event of great world historical significance occurred at Sri
Anandpur Sahib in India in the year 1699 when the tenth and last Prophet
of Sikhism, Guru Gobind Singh created the order of the Khalsa through
the sacrament of baptismal 'amrit'. The Guru thereby institutionalized
the universal, humanistic teachings of Guru Nanak who in the medieval
age had envisioned a new civilization characterized by a new value
pattern based on the primacy of t he human spirit.
Here was a unique message : the humanity of God and the divinity of man
- a concept from which emanate, in a sense, the ideals enshrined in the
Preamble to the United Nations Charter, which, interalia, reaffirms
"faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the
human person in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large
and small."
We are approaching in 1999 the 300th anniversary of that divine moment
in the flux of time that changed the very course of history,
particularly in the Indian subcontinent.
This would be a historic occasion for the Sikh community all over the
world not only for introspection and retrospection but also for
foreseeing and fore thinking.
More than that, this would be an occasion for the people of the world to
renew their commitment, on the threshold of the coming century, to the
unfettered and uninhibited self-expression of the human spirit
realizable in a new pluralistic world order.
This historic event - a unique cosmic play, the 300th anniversary which
falls in 1999 - unfolded itself at Sri Anandpur Sahib, the city of
bliss. Located in hilly surroundings Anandpur was founded by the ninth
Prophet of Sikhism, Guru Teg Bahadur in 1644, in this historic town, is
situated one of the five Sikh Takhts (the symbolic seats of temporal and
spiritual authority of Sikhism).
For unfolding the Bachittar Natak (cosmic event) at the mound (where now
stand s Takht Sri Keshgarh) at Sri Anandpur Sahib, Guru Gobind chose the
first day of solar month of Baisakh ( the Baisakhi day) that fell on
March 30 in 1699 AD-now celebrated on April 13. The beginning of the
month of Baisakh symbolizes renewal and regeneration, ripening and
fruition. Earlier, it was on this day that Gautam realized enlightenment
and became the Buddha, heralding a new era in Indian civilization
qualitatively different from the prevalent Hindu civilization and
culture. Guru Gobind Singh purposely chose this day for ushering in a
new dawn, a new chapter in world history, a new phase of world
civilization, envisioned by the first Prophet of Sikhism, Guru Nanak.
The Guru had asked the faith-followers from all over India to assemble
at Sri Anandpur Sahib on the chosen day. The huge congregation became
mysteriously innervated when the Guru with a divine glow in his eyes and
a naked sword in his hand, gave a thundering call for a devout Sikh to
come forward to offer his head then and there for the sake of dharma.
Guru Gobind Singh was putting to test his followers readiness for
sacrifice of life - a sacrifice of the mundane life sibilated into the
Life Divine. Guru Nanak himself had laid down the test :
(If you seek to play (the game) of Love, then, enter upon the Path with
your head upon your palm)
At the third call of the Guru, according to the tradition, Daya Ram ( a
Khatri by caste) from Lahore (now in Pakistan) arose to offer his head
to the Guru who took him into an adjoining enclosure. At the subsequent
calls of the Guru, came forward Dharam Dass (a Jat) from Delhi in
northern India, Mohkam Chand (a washer man) from Dwarika in Gujrat;
Himmat Rai (a cook from Jheevar Caste) belonging to Jagan Nath Puri in
Orissa in eastern India, and Sahib Chand (a low caste barber) from Bidar
in southern India; they were also taken into the enclosure. The five
self-sacrificing Sikhs had undergone a sacramental 'passage', a
death-like experience for their celestial vision of and interface with
the Spirit-Destroyer and Creator at the same time.
Salutation to the Destroyer of all, Salutation to the Creator of all
Guru Gobind Singh, Jap Sahib
Clad in new yellow garments with blue turbans, radiating dynamism and
determination, they were brought back before the congregation that burst
into resounding words of Sat Sri Akal (immortal and ever-present is the
time-transcendent Spirit). The Guru, then, amidst recitation of the
Divine Word, embodied in the sacred hymns, stirred, with a double-edged
sword, the water, in a steel vessel, sweetened by sugar plums, and thus
prepared the Baptismal nectar (amrit) - the elixir of courage and
compassion - that was administered to the five Sikhs who came to be
known as the Beloved Five (Punj Pyare). They, with appellation of
'Singh' added to their names, became the first five initiates of the
order of the Khalsa created by the Guru through the sacramental nectar.
Guru Gobind Rai became Guru Gobind Singh when he got baptized by the
Beloved Five. The act of the Guru seeking baptism from his baptized
followers, apart from revealing the democratic ethos of Sikhism shows
that God, the Guru and the follower become one in spirit; the moment of
baptismal transformation becomes the moment of trans-animation. This was
a sacrament of resurrection, of spiritual ascent of man. The cosmic play
at Sri Anandpur Sahib also pointed to the process of descent of the God
(qua immanent Spirit) in time. The spiritual ascent of man and the
historical descent of the spirit, in a sense, mark, under the generic
category of the Khalsa, the evolution of sovereign man in direct
communion and unison with the Divine Sovereign (Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa).
In the world's speculative thought, Sikh philosophy, in the medieval
age, introduced a new revolutionary idea of far-reaching implication and
futuristic significance. God in Sikhism is not merely indeterminate
Being, but also Creator who created material world as well as time.
Metaphysically this implied acceptance of the Vedantic eternity of time,
which meant the continuation of a thing in its original self-same state
of being (sat) eternally, without change, development or evolution,
further, God is also envisioned in Sikh metaphysics as the creative,
dynamic Spirit (Karta Purakh), becoming determinate (Sat nam) in time,
in history. The spirit, through the Guru Medium, descends in history to
become its operative principle, its dynamic teleology. The spiritual
aspect of the Spirit (the spiritual sovereignty) becomes determinate in
the Divine Word revealed to the Gurus; the Adi Granth, thus, becomes
Guru Granth (the Sikh Scripture). The temporal aspect of the Spirit (the
temporal sovereignty of the Divine) becomes manifest and diffused in the
generic category of the Khalsa. Guru Nanak's Panth becomes the Guru
Panth, the Khalsa Panth :
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This verily is the phenomenal form of the timeless Who manifests
Himself in the corporate body of the Khalsa) - Prehlad Rai, author
of a Sikh Rehatnama
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The Khalsa is my determinate form I am immanent in the Khalsa- Guru
Gobind Singh
Much later, Hegel described the modern State (identified with the
Prussian Military State) as the highest expressional form of the spirit.
The democratic import of the Sikh concept stands in sharp contrast to
the tendency towards autocracy and totalitarianism inherent in the
Hegelian notion.
The traditional modes of revelation of God known to religion and
metaphysics are immanence or reflection in space (nature); indwelling in
soul and manifestation in the World. With Sikh philosophy appears for
the first time in religious and speculative thought of the world, a new
revelatory mode : the concept of descent of God in time, that is, the
spirit-in-history. The cosmic event (Bachittar Natak) at Sri Anandpur
Sahib in 1699 A.D. marks the sacrament of the Divine descent qua the
dynamic Spirit immanent and operative in history - the Khalsa, in its
generic sense, being the vehicle of the Spirit.
The baptismal sacrament at Sri Anandpur Sahib was also a cosmic act of
regeneration, an experience of sublimation through subilition. What was
annihilated by the double-edged sword-symbolising the destructive and
the creative aspect of God Almightly-was the past Karma (deeds done
under self-delusion_ and its effects and imprints on the psyche that,
seeping down into the sub-conscious and unconscious layers of mind,
solidify into stereotypes (Sanskars) for the present and future deeds.
What was created, though subilation of the past Karma was a liberated
state of mind, no more under siege of the spirit-less customs and
conventions, of empty ceremonies and rituals, of degenerating dogma and
obsolescent orthodoxy. The partaking of the baptismal nectar awakened
the dormant, slumbering spirit of man who rediscovered his divinity, his
sovereignty, his humanity. Realization of the primacy of innate
humanity-oneness of all humanity \ proclaimed by Guru Gobind Singh at
the creation of the Khalsa, meant obliteration of all caste-based
differentiations; all hierarchic disparities; all gender-related
discriminations, all creed-centered differences.
On another (empirical) level, the baptismal sacrament institutionalized
the evolution, the endogenous development, of the faith-followers into a
political community with a corporate identity, besides the individual
identity predicated by the five baptismal symbols. Through this
institutionalized corporate identity, the Guru wanted to create a mighty
force in world history - as a temporal vehicle of the Spirit - for
introducing a new societal order, free from evil, injustice and
inequity; free from political discriminations and economic disparities;
free from creedal exclusiveness. What was aimed at through the founding
of the Khalsa, through the motor force of a new dispensation with a
distinctive corporate identity, was the creation of a new world order
characterized by pluralism-religious, cultural, economic and political.
Though the five baptismal symbols define the individual identity of a
baptized Sikh yet their connotations are universal in nature. The five
baptismal symbols are known as the five Kakkars (the five K's) uncut
hair; comb; steel bracelet; short drawers and sword. These five Kakkars,
marking the visible individual identity; are symbols and not rituals or
totems; their ritualistic wearing, without realizing and imbibing the
underlying spirit is homologous to Brahminical tradition of putting on
Tilak (sacred mark on the forehead) and Janeu (sacred thread) rejected
by Sikhism. The uncut hair symbolize the integrality of being,
emphasized by the post-modern holistic view, as against the old
dualistic view. The comb stresses the value of cleanliness and purity in
personal and social life. The steel bracelet stands for the experiential
presence of the Divine whose beginning-less and endless infinity is
represented by the circular shape of the symbol. The wearing of short
drawers connotes chastity as well as the Sikh rejection of the ascetic
tradition that equated nudity with the natural condition of man; this
symbol also stands in sharp contrast to the Brahminical practice of
wearing unstitched lower garment (Dhoti). The sword is not only a combat
weapon for offensive or defensive action; it is, rather, a
symbol/liberated being, of sovereignty of man homologous to the right of
a sovereign people to keep the arms. Being symbols, what is important is
not their significance their essence, animating the attitude, the deed,
the very life of the faith-followers. These are the symbols reminding
their wearer that he is to be Sachiar (truthful living) in his
obligation towards God; a Jujhar (fearless fighter for a righteous
cause) in his obligation towards society and a rehat-dhar (imbiber of
enlightened code of conduct) in his obligation towards the community.
These three qualities together constitute the indivisible wholeness of
the life of the Khalsa and its members; when the emphasis on the third
obligation becomes accentuated-as witnessed these days - at the cost of
the two other ones, the five symbols become rituals emptied of their
inner sense and essence.
The five baptismal symbols have deep significance on ethical, social and
political levels; they imply a new praxis for individual and social
life. Sikhism visualized a revolutionary re-structuring of society, as a
step towards a new civilization from the earlier Indus and the Hindu
civilization in India, in particular. The Brahminical system had
absolved the concept of fixity in social organization, wherein the place
of each caste with predetermined role-structure, as well as of the
individual in the caste, was considered to be fixed a priori in
hierarchical order given by the law of Karma. This system by
transforming (in the language of Marx) " a self- developing social
state into a never changing natural destiny", ensured stability and
passive equilibrium, but at the cost of internal dynamism and
evolutionary clan. Seen in this context the role of a Hindu Avtar is
that a periodical restoration of the balance, whenever the passive
equilibrium of society gets disturbed. (This involves the
cyclical-devolutionary view of time-a species of spatial time-in which
history is seen not as an ongoing directional process, but as a series
of the flow and the ebb, occurring in cyclical periodicity). The Sikh
Guru is not an Avtar, not only on the ground that God is not conceived
of as incarnating Himself in human form, but also for the reason that he
is the initiator of a new way of life in the dimension of directional
time. (Path=Panth), involving innovative structural changes in society.
Brahmin society permitted only 'positional mobility' of the lower caste
in the hierarchical structure through a cultural process named 'sanskritization'
by M.N. Srinivas; a lower group having circumstantially gained power or
wealth would try to emulate the customs, manners, rituals and even
caste-denominations of the higher caste for being accepted at a higher
rung in the hierarchical ladder. As observed by M.N. Srinivas, this
process of sanskritization meant only "positional change for the
lower group without any structural change in the system". In fact
sanskritization in a way reinforced the principle of fixed hierarchy in
so far as it meant vertical mobility within the caste system. It was,
further, retrogressive in that it diverted the lower stratum from
self-acquisition of status and respectability in its own right, without
loosing the self-identity in the borrowed feather of the higher class.
Sikhism played a revolutionary role on the sociological level in
re-structuring society on equalitarian basis by rejecting the concept of
hierarchical fixity as the tradition-honored principle of social
organization which had received its axiological legitimating from the
caste-system, which in turn had the law of Karma as its metaphysical
basis.
The sociological significance of the baptismal ceremony of Amrit lies in
its being a revolutionary alternative to sanskritization. The baptismal
Amrit provided a new normative principle, process and channel to the
lower classes for vertical mobility in their own right, without any
sense of guilt about their respective selidentities, which, as such,
were no more required to be sibilated into simulated behavior-patterns
of the higher caste groups.
(The lowest of the low castes, The lowliest of the lowly, I seek
their kinship -Why emulate the (so-called) higher ones. Thy
elevating Grace is Where the down-trodden are looked after).
The lower castes and classes were, as such, provided an opportunity of
vertical mobility up to the highest level. The new normative principle
of social organization introduced by the baptismal amrit made people
realize their essential humanistic identity with a sense of horizontal
solidarity as co-equal members in the Order of the Khalsa which does not
admit of fixed, stratified role-performance, nor the caste-based
differentiation of connubial and ritual functions. Consequently this
revolutionary normative principle provides for a new kind of vertical
mobility that ipso facto involves an ongoing process of re-structuring
of open society on equalitarian basis-a process that stands in sharp
contrast to sanskritization that permitted selective vertical movement,
while ensuring the foundation of the hierarchy, closed system of
caste-based society and the concomitant caste-system.
The teleological goal of the Khalsa, for which it was created under the
Divine Will qua a community if the sachiar, the jujhar, the rehat-dhar,
was not simply, individual salvation in the world hereafter; or even
individual redemption in the world here and now. The universal societal
concerns of Sikhism-as distinct from the existential concerns of the
Sikhs at any given point of time and place constitute the teleological
goal of the Khalsa pre-saged by Guru Arjun, the fifth Prophet, in the
following words :
Here was a message for ushering in a new value-pattern, a new
dispensation, based on the fundamental principles of equality, justice
and compassion, liberty and fraternity. This was a divine
manifesto for a new civilization on the pillars of humanism, liberalism,
universalism and pluralism. Ontological dualism of mind and matter, and
epistemic dichotomy of the subject and the object-that have
characterized the Western civilization of the past few centuries are
both sibilated into the unifying life of the
"Spirit-in-history" - a concept that provides a new normative
basis for the emergence of the post-modern civilization, the first
intimations of which, appearing in the Sikh thought over 500 years ago,
became phenomenally manifest in and through the creation of the Khalsa
about 300 years ago at Sri Anandpur Sahib.
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