|
 Sri
Guru Nanak Dev ji was born in 1469 in Talwandi, a village in
the Sheikhupura district, 65 kms. west of Lahore. His father
was a village official in the local revenue administration. As
a boy, Sri Guru Nanak learnt, besides the regional languages,
Persian and Arabic. He was married in 1487 and was blessed
with two sons, one in 1491 and the second in 1496. In 1485 he
took up, at the instance of his brother-in-law, the
appointment of an official in charge of the stores of Daulat
Khan Lodhi, the Muslim ruler of the area at Sultanpur. It is
there that he came into contact with Mardana, a Muslim
minstrel (Mirasi) who was senior in age.
B y
all accounts, 1496 was the year of his enlightenment when he
started on his mission. His first statement after his
prophetic communion with God was "There is no Hindu, nor any
Mussalman." This is an announcement of supreme significance it
declared not only the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of
God, but also his clear and primary interest not in any
metaphysical doctrine but only in man and his fate. It means
love your neighbour as yourself.
In addition, it emphasised, simultaneously the inalienable
spirituo-moral combination of his message. Accompanied by
Mardana, he began his missionary tours. Apart from conveying
his message and rendering help to the weak, he forcefully
preached, both by precept and practice, against caste
distinctions ritualism, idol worship and the pseudo-religious
beliefs that had no spiritual content. He chose to mix with
all. He dined and lived with men of the lowest castes and
classes Considering the then prevailing cultural practices and
traditions, this was something socially and religiously
unheard of in those days of rigid Hindu caste system
sanctioned by the scriptures and the religiously approved
notions of untouchability and pollution. It is a matter of
great significance that at the very beginning of his mission,
the Guru's first companion was a low caste Muslim. The
offerings he received during his tours, were distributed among
the poor. Any surplus collected was given to his hosts to
maintain a common kitchen, where all could sit and eat
together without any distinction of caste and status. This
institution of common kitchen or langar became a major
instrument of helping the poor, and a nucleus for religious
gatherings of his society and of establishing the basic
equality of all castes, classes and sexes.
W hen
Guru Nanak Dev ji were 12 years old his father gave him twenty
rupees and asked him to do a business, apparently to teach him
business. Guru Nanak dev ji bought food for all the money and
distributed among saints, and poor. When his father asked him
what happened to business? He replied that he had done a "True
business" at the place where Guru Nanak dev had fed the poor,
this gurdwara was made and named Sacha Sauda.
D espite
the hazards of travel in those times, he performed five long
tours all over the country and even outside it. He visited
most of the known religious places and centres of worship. At
one time he preferred to dine at the place of a low caste
artisan, Bhai Lallo, instead of accepting the invitation of a
high caste rich landlord, Malik Bhago, because the latter
lived by exploitation of the poor and the former earned his
bread by the sweat of his brow. This incident has been
depicted by a symbolic representation of the reason for his
preference. Sri Guru Nanak pressed in one hand the coarse loaf
of bread from Lallo's hut and in the other the food from
Bhago's house. Milk gushed forth from the loaf of Lallo's and
blood from the delicacies of Bhago. This prescription for
honest work and living and the condemnation of exploitation,
coupled with the Guru's dictum that "riches cannot be gathered
without sin and evil means," have, from the very beginning,
continued to be the basic moral tenet with the Sikh mystics
and the Sikh society.
D uring
his tours, he visited numerous places of Hindu and Muslim
worship. He explained and exposed through his preachings the
incongruities and fruitlessness of ritualistic and ascetic
practices. At Hardwar, when he found people throwing Ganges
water towards the sun in the east as oblations to their
ancestors in heaven, he started, as a measure of correction,
throwing the water towards the West, in the direction of his
fields in the Punjab. When ridiculed about his folly, he
replied, "If Ganges water will reach your ancestors in heaven,
why should the water I throw up not reach my fields in the
Punjab, which are far less distant ?"
H e
spent twenty five years of his life preaching from place to
place. Many of his hymns were composed during this period.
They represent answers to the major religious and social
problems of the day and cogent responses to the situations and
incidents that he came across. Some of the hymns convey
dialogues with Yogis in the Punjab and elsewhere. He denounced
their methods of living and their religious views. During
these tours he studied other religious systems like Hinduism,
Jainism, Buddhism and Islam. At the same time, he preached the
doctrines of his new religion and mission at the places and
centres he visited. Since his mystic system almost completely
reversed the trends, principles and practices of the then
prevailing religions, he criticised and rejected virtually all
the old beliefs, rituals and harmful practices existing in the
country. This explains the necessity of his long and arduous
tours and the variety and profusion of his hymns on all the
religious, social, political and theological issues, practices
and institutions of his period.
F inally,
on the completion of his tours, he settled as a peasant farmer
at Kartarpur, a village in the Punjab. Bhai Gurdas, the scribe
of Guru Granth Sahib, was a devout and close associate of the
third and the three subsequent Gurus. He was born 12 years
after Guru Nanak's death and joined the Sikh mission in his
very boyhood. He became the chief missionary agent of the
Gurus. Because of his intimate knowledge of the Sikh society
and his being a near contemporary of Sri Guru Nanak, his
writings are historically authentic and reliable. He writes
that at Kartarpur Guru Nanak donned the robes of a peasant and
continued his ministry. He organised Sikh societies at places
he visited with their meeting places called Dharamsalas. A
similar society was created at Kartarpur. In the morning,
Japji was sung in the congregation. In the evening Sodar and
Arti were recited. The Guru cultivated his lands and also
continued with his mission and preachings. His followers
throughout the country were known as Nanak-panthies or Sikhs.
The places where Sikh congregation and religious gatherings of
his followers were held were called Dharamsalas. These were
also the places for feeding the poor. Eventually, every Sikh
home became a Dharamsala.
O ne
thing is very evident. Guru Nanak had a distinct sense of his
prophethood and that his mission was God-ordained. During his
preachings, he himself announced. "O Lallo, as the words of
the Lord come to me, so do I express them." Successors of Guru
Nanak have also made similar statements indicating that they
were the messengers of God. So often Guru Nanak refers to God
as his Enlightener and Teacher. His statements clearly show
his belief that God had commanded him to preach an entirely
new religion, the central idea of which was the brotherhood of
man and the fatherhood of God, shorn of all ritualism and
priestcraft. During a dialogue with the Yogis, he stated that
his mission was to help everyone. He came to be called a Guru
in his lifetime. In Punjabi, the word Guru means both God and
an enlightener or a prophet. During his life, his disciples
were formed and came to be recognised as a separate community.
He was accepted as a new religious prophet. His followers
adopted a separate way of greeting each other with the words
Sat Kartar (God is true). Twentyfive years of his extensive
preparatory tours and preachings across the length and breadth
of the country clearly show his deep conviction that the
people needed a new prophetic message which God had commanded
him to deliver. He chose his successor and in his own life
time established him as the future Guru or enlightener of the
new community. This step is of the greatest significance,
showing Guru Nanak s determination and declaration that the
mission which he had started and the community he had created
were distinct and should be continued, promoted and developed.
By the formal ceremony of appointing his successor and by
giving him a new name, Angad (his part or limb), he laid down
the clear principle of impersonality, unity and indivisibility
of Guruship. At that time he addressed Angad by saying,
Between thou and me there is now no difference. In Guru Granth
Sahib there is clear acceptance and proclamation of this
identity of personality in the hymns of Satta-Balwand. This
unity of spiritual personality of all the Gurus has a
theological and mystic implication. It is also endorsed by the
fact that each of the subsequent Gurus calls himself Nanak in
his hymns. Never do they call themselves by their own names as
was done by other Bhagats and Illyslics. That Guru Nanak
attached the highest importance to his mission is also evident
from his selection of the successor by a system of test, and
only when he was found perfect, was Guru Angad appointed as
his successor. He was comparatively a new comer to the fold,
and yet he was chosen in preference to the Guru's own son, Sri
Chand, who also had the reputation of being a pious person,
and Baba Budha, a devout Sikh of long standing, who during his
own lifetime had the distinction of ceremonially installing
all subsequent Gurus.
A ll
these facts indicate that Guru Nanak had a clear plan and
vision that his mission was to be continued as an independent
and distinct spiritual system on the lines laid down by him,
and that, in the context of the country, there was a clear
need for the organisation of such a spiritual mission and
society. In his own lifetime, he distinctly determined its
direction and laid the foundations of some of the new
religious institutions. In addition, he created the basis for
the extension and organisation of his community and religion.
T he
above in brief is the story of the Guru's life. We shall now
note the chief features of his work, how they arose from his
message and how he proceeded to develop them during his
lifetime.
(1)
After his enlightenment, the first words of Guru Nanak
declared the brotherhood of man. This principle formed the
foundation of his new spiritual gospel. It involved a
fundamental doctrinal change because moral life received the
sole spiritual recognition and status. This was something
entirely opposed to the religious systems in vogue in the
country during the time of the Guru. All those systems were,
by and large, other-worldly. As against it, the Guru by his
new message brought God on earth. For the first time in the
country, he made a declaration that God was deeply involved
and interested in the affairs of man and the world which was
real and worth living in. Having taken the first step by the
proclamation of his radical message, his obvious concern was
to adopt further measures to implement the same.
(2) The
Guru realised that in the context and climate of the country,
especially because of the then existing religious systems and
the prevailing prejudices, there would be resistance to his
message, which, in view of his very thesis, he wanted to
convey to all. He, therefore, refused to remain at Sultanpur
and preach his gospel from there. Having declared the sanctity
of life, his second major step was in the planning and
organisation of institutions that would spread his message. As
such, his twentyfive years of extensive touring can be
understood only as a major organizational step. These tours
were not casual. They had a triple object. He wanted to
acquaint himself with all the centres and organisations of the
prevalent religious systems so as to assess the forces his
mission had to contend with, and to find out the institutions
that he could use in the aid of his own system. Secondly, he
wanted to convey his gospel at the very centres of the old
systems and point out the futile and harmful nature of their
methods and practices. It is for this purpose that he visited
Hardwar, Kurukshetra, Banaras, Kanshi, Maya, Ceylon, Baghdad,
Mecca, etc. Simultaneously, he desired to organise all his
followers and set up for them local centres for their
gatherings and worship. The existence of some of these
far-flung centres even up-till today is a testimony to his
initiative in the Organizational and the societal field. His
hymns became the sole guide and the scripture for his flock
and were sung at the Dharamsalas.
(3)
Guru Nanak's gospel was for all men. He proclaimed their
equality in all respects. In his system, the householder's
life became the primary forum of religious activity. Human
life was not a burden but a privilege. His was not a
concession to the laity. In fact, the normal life became the
medium of spiritual training and expression. The entire
discipline and institutions of the Gurus can be appreciated
only if one understands that, by the very logic of Guru
Nanak's system, the householder's life became essential for
the seeker. On reaching Kartarpur after his tours, the Guru
sent for the members of his family and lived there with them
for the remaining eighteen years of his life. For the same
reason his followers all over the country were not recluses.
They were ordinary men, living at their own homes and pursuing
their normal vocations. The Guru's system involved morning and
evening prayers. Congregational gatherings of the local
followers were also held at their respective Dharamsalas.
(4)
After he returned to Kartarpur, Guru Nanak did not rest. He
straightaway took up work as a cultivator of land, without
interrupting his discourses and morning and evening prayers.
It is very significant that throughout the later eighteen
years of his mission he continued to work as a peasant. It was
a total involvement in the moral and productive life of the
community. His life was a model for others to follow. Like him
all his disciples were regular workers who had not given up
their normal vocations Even while he was performing the
important duties of organising a new religion, he nester
shirked the full-time duties of a small cultivator. By his
personal example he showed that the leading of a normal man's
working life was fundamental to his spiritual system Even a
seemingly small departure from this basic tenet would have
been misunderstood and misconstrued both by his own followers
and others. In the Guru's system, idleness became a vice and
engagement in productive and constructive work a virtue. It
was Guru Nanak who chastised ascetics as idlers and condemned
their practice of begging for food at the doors of the
householders.
(5)
According to the Guru, moral life was the sole medium of
spiritual progress In those times, caste, religious and social
distinctions, and the idea of pollution were major problems.
Unfortunately, these distinctions had received religious
sanction The problem of poverty and food was another moral
challenge. The institution of langar had a twin purpose. As
every one sat and ate at the same place and shared the same
food, it cut at the root of the evil of caste, class and
religious distinctions. Besides, it demolished the idea of
pollution of food by the mere presence of an untouchable.
Secondlys it provided food to the needy. This institution of
langar and pangat was started by the Guru among all his
followers wherever they had been organised. It became an
integral part of the moral life of the Sikhs. Considering that
a large number of his followers were of low caste and poor
members of society, he, from the very start, made it clear
that persons who wanted to maintain caste and class
distinctions had no place in his system In fact, the twin
duties of sharing one's income with the poor and doing away
with social distinctions were the two obligations which every
Sikh had to discharge. On this score, he left no option to
anyone, since he started his mission with Mardana, a low caste
Muslim, as his life long companion.
(6)
The greatest departure Guru Nanak made was to prescribe for
the religious man the responsibility of confronting evil and
oppression. It was he who said that God destroys 'the evil
doers' and 'the demonical; and that such being God s nature
and will, it is man's goal to carry out that will. Since there
are evil doers in life, it is the spiritual duty of the seeker
and his society to resist evil and injustice. Again, it is
Guru Nanak who protests and complains that Babur had been
committing tyranny against the weak and the innocent. Having
laid the principle and the doctrine, it was again he who
proceeded to organise a society. because political and
societal oppression cannot be resisted by individuals, the
same can be confronted only by a committed society. It was,
therefore, he who proceeded to create a society and appointed
a successor with the clear instructions to develop his Panth.
Again, it was Guru Nanak who emphasized that life is a game of
love, and once on that path one should not shirk laying down
one's life. Love of one's brother or neighbour also implies,
if love is true, his or her protection from attack, injustice
and tyranny. Hence, the necessity of creating a religious
society that can discharge this spiritual obligation. Ihis is
the rationale of Guru Nanak's system and the development of
the Sikh society which he organised.
(7)
The Guru expressed all his teachings in Punjabi, the spoken
language of Northern India. It was a clear indication of his
desire not to address the elite alone but the masses as well.
It is recorded that the Sikhs had no regard for Sanskrit,
which was the sole scriptural language of the Hindus. Both
these facts lead to important inferences. They reiterate that
the Guru's message was for all. It was not for the few who,
because of their personal aptitude, should feel drawn to a
life of a so-called spiritual meditation and contemplation.
Nor was it an exclusive spiritual system divorced from the
normal life. In addition, it stressed that the Guru's message
was entirely new and was completely embodied in his hymns. His
disciples used his hymns as their sole guide for all their
moral, religious and spiritual purposes. I hirdly, the
disregard of the Sikhs for Sanskrit strongly suggests that not
only was the Guru's message independent and self-contained,
without reference and resort to the Sanskrit scriptures and
literature, but also that the Guru made a deliberate attempt
to cut off his disciples completely from all the traditional
sources and the priestly class. Otherwise, the old concepts,
ritualistic practices, modes of worship and orthodox religions
were bound to affect adversely the growth of his religion
which had wholly a different basis and direction and demanded
an entirely new approach.
The following hymn from Guru Nanak and the subsequent one from
Sankara are contrast in their approach to the world.
"the sun and moon, O Lord, are Thy lamps; the firmament Thy
salver; the orbs of the stars the pearls encased in it.
The perfume of the sandal is Thine incense, the wind is Thy
fan, all the forests are Thy flowers, O Lord of light.
What worship is this, O Thou destroyer of birth ? Unbeaten
strains of ecstasy are the trumpets of Thy worship.
Thou has a thousand eyes and yet not one eye; Thou host a
thousand forms and yet not one form;
Thou hast a thousand stainless feet and yet not one foot; Thou
hast a thousand organs of smell and yet not one organ. I am
fascinated by this play of 'l hine.
The light which is in everything is Chine, O Lord of light.
From its brilliancy everything is illuminated;
By the Guru's teaching the light becometh manifest.
What pleaseth Thee is the real worship.
O
God, my mind is fascinated with Thy lotus feet as the
bumble-bee with the flower; night and day I thirst for them.
Give the water of Thy favour to the Sarang (bird) Nanak, so
that he may dwell in Thy Name."3
Sankara writes: "I am not a combination of the five perishable
elements I arn neither body, the senses, nor what is in the
body (antar-anga: i e., the mind). I am not the ego-function:
I am not the group of the vital breathforces; I am not
intuitive intelligence (buddhi). Far from wife and son am 1,
far from land and wealth and other notions of that kind. I am
the Witness, the Eternal, the Inner Self, the Blissful One (sivoham;
suggesting also, 'I am Siva')."
"Owing to ignorance of the rope the rope appears to be a
snake; owing to ignorance of the Self the transient state
arises of the individualized, limited, phenomenal aspect of
the Self. The rope becomes a rope when the false impression
disappears because of the statement of some credible person;
because of the statement of my teacher I am not an individual
life-monad (yivo-naham), I am the Blissful One (sivo-ham )."
"I am not the born; how can there be either birth or death for
me ?"
"I am not the vital air; how can there be either hunger or
thirst for me ?"
"I am not the mind, the organ of thought and feeling; how can
there be either sorrow or delusion for me ?"
"I am not the doer; how can there be either bondage or release
for me ?"
"I am neither male nor female, nor am I sexless. I am the
Peaceful One, whose form is self-effulgent, powerful radiance.
I am neither a child, a young man, nor an ancient; nor am I of
any caste. I do not belong to one of the four lifestages. I am
the Blessed-Peaceful One, who is the only Cause of the origin
and dissolution of the world."4
W hile
Guru Nanak is bewitched by the beauty of His creation and sees
in the panorama of nature a lovely scene of the worshipful
adoration of the Lord, Sankara in his hymn rejects the reality
of the world and treats himself as the Sole Reality. Zimmer
feels that "Such holy megalomania goes past the bounds of
sense. With Sankara, the grandeur of the supreme human
experience becomes intellectualized and reveals its inhuman
sterility."5
N o
wonder that Guru Nanak found the traditional religions and
concepts as of no use for his purpose. He calculatedly tried
to wean away his people from them. For Guru Nanak, religion
did not consist in a 'patched coat or besmearing oneself with
ashes"6 but in treating all as equals. For him the service of
man is supreme and that alone wins a place in God's heart.
B y
this time it should be easy to discern that all the eight
features of the Guru's system are integrally connected. In
fact, one flows from the other and all follow from the basic
tenet of his spiritual system, viz., the fatherhood of God and
the brotherhood of man. For Guru Nanak, life and human beings
became the sole field of his work. Thus arose the spiritual
necessity of a normal life and work and the identity of moral
and spiritual functioning and growth.
H aving
accepted the primacy of moral life and its spiritual validity,
the Guru proceeded to identify the chief moral problems of his
time. These were caste and class distinctions, the
institutions, of property and wealth, and poverty and scarcity
of food. Immoral institutions could be substituted and
replaced only by the setting up of rival institutions. Guru
Nanak believed that while it is essential to elevate man
internally, it is equally necessary to uplift the fallen and
the downtrodden in actual life. Because, the ultimate test of
one's spiritual progress is the kind of moral life one leads
in the social field. The Guru not only accepted the necessity
of affecting change in the environment, but also endeavoured
to build new institutions. We shall find that these eight
basic principles of the spirituo-moral life enunciated by Guru
Nanak, were strictly carried out by his successors. As
envisaged by the first prophet, his successors further
extended the structure and organised the institutions of which
the foundations had been laid by Guru Nanak. Though we shall
consider these points while dealing with the lives of the
other nine Gurus, some of them need to be mentioned here.
T he
primacy of the householder's life was maintained. Everyone of
the Gurus, excepting Guru Harkishan who died at an early age,
was a married person who maintained a family. When Guru Nanak,
sent Guru Angad from Kartarpur to Khadur Sahib to start his
mission there, he advised him to send for the members of his
family and live a normal life. According to Bhalla,8 when Guru
Nanak went to visit Guru Angad at Khadur Sahib, he found him
living a life of withdrawal and meditation. Guru Nanak
directed him to be active as he had to fulfill his mission and
organise a community inspired by his religious principles.
W ork
in life, both for earning the livelihood and serving the
common good, continued to be the fundamental tenet of Sikhism.
There is a clear record that everyone upto the Fifth Guru (and
probably subsequent Gurus too) earned his livelihood by a
separate vocation and contributed his surplus to the
institution of langar Each Sikh was made to accept his social
responsibility. So much so that Guru Angad and finally Guru
Amar Das clearly ordered that Udasis, persons living a
celibate and ascetic life without any productive vocation,
should remain excluded from the Sikh fold. As against it, any
worker or a householder without distinction of class or caste
could become a Sikh. This indicates how these two principles
were deemed fundamental to the mystic system of Guru Nanak. It
was defined and laid down that in Sikhism a normal productive
and moral life could alone be the basis of spiritual progress.
Here, by the very rationale of the mystic path, no one who was
not following a normal life could be fruitfully included.
T he
organization of moral life and institutions, of which the
foundations had been laid by Guru Nanak, came to be the chief
concern of the other Gurus. We refer to the sociopolitical
martyrdoms of two of the Gurus and the organisation of the
military struggle by the Sixth Guru and his successors. Here
it would be pertinent to mention Bhai Gurdas's narration of
Guru Nanak's encounter and dialogue with the Nath Yogis who
were living an ascetic life of retreat in the remote hills.
They asked Guru Nanak how the world below in the plains was
faring. ' How could it be well", replied Guru Nanak, "when the
so- called pious men had resorted to the seclusion of the
hills ?" The Naths commented that it was incongruous and
self-contradictory for Guru Nanak to be a householder and also
pretend to lead a spiritual life. That, they said, was like
putting acid in milk and thereby destroying its purity. The
Guru replied emphatically that the Naths were ignorant of even
the basic elements of spiritual life.9 This authentic record
of the dialouge reveals the then prevailing religious thought
in the country. It points to the clear and deliberate break
the Guru made from the traditional system.
W hile
Guru Nanak was catholic in his criticism of other religions,
he was unsparing where he felt it necessary to clarify an
issue or to keep his flock away from a wrong practice or
prejudice. He categorically attacked all the evil institutions
of his time including oppression and barbarity in the
political field, corruption among the officialss and hypocrisy
and greed in the priestly class. He deprecated the degrading
practices of inequality in the social field. He criticised and
repudiated the scriptures that sanctioned such practices.
After having denounced all of them, he took tangible steps to
create a society that accepted the religious responsibility of
eliminating these evils from the new institutions created by
him and of attacking the evil practices and institutions in
the Social and political fields. T his was a fundamental
institutional change with the largest dimensions and
implications for the future of the community and the country.
The very fact that originally poorer classes were attracted to
the Gurus, fold shows that they found there a society and a
place where they could breathe freely and live with a sense of
equality and dignity.
D r
H.R. Gupta, the well-known historian, writes, "Nanak's
religion consisted in the love of God, love of man and love of
godly living. His religion was above the limits of caste,
creed and country. He gave his love to all, Hindus, Muslims,
Indians and foreigners alike. His religion was a people's
movement based on modern conceptions of secularism and
socialism, a common brotherhood of all human beings. Like
Rousseau, Nanak felt 250 years earlier that it was the common
people who made up the human race Ihey had always toiled and
tussled for princes, priests and politicians. What did not
concern the common people was hardly worth considering.
Nanak's work to begin with assumed the form of an agrarian
movement. His teachings were purely in Puniabi language mostly
spoken by cultivators. Obey appealed to the downtrodden and
the oppressed peasants and petty traders as they were ground
down between the two mill stones of Government tyranny and the
new Muslims' brutality. Nanak's faith was simple and sublime.
It was the life lived. His religion was not a system of
philosophy like Hinduism. It was a discipline, a way of life,
a force, which connected one Sikh with another as well as with
the Guru."'° "In Nanak s time Indian society was based on
caste and was divided into countless watertight Compartments.
Men were considered high and low on account of their birth and
not according to their deeds. Equality of human beings was a
dream. There was no spirit of national unity except feelings
of community fellowship. In Nanak's views men's love of God
was the criterion to judge whether a person was good or bad,
high or low. As the caste system was not based on divine love,
he condemned it. Nanak aimed at creating a casteless and
classless society similar to the modern type of socialist
society in which all were equal and where one member did not
exploit the other. Nanak insisted that every Sikh house should
serve as a place of love and devotion, a true guest house (Sach
dharamshala). Every Sikh was enjoined to welcome a traveller
or a needy person and to share his meals and other comforts
with him. "Guru Nanak aimed at uplifting the individual as
well as building a nation."
C onsidering
the religious conditions and the philosophies of the time and
the social and political milieu in which Guru Nanak was born,
the new spirituo- moral thesis he introduced and the changes
he brought about in the social and spiritual field were indeed
radical and revolutionary. Earlier, release from the bondage
of the world was sought as the goal. The householder's life
was considered an impediment and an entanglement to be avoided
by seclusion, monasticism, celibacy, sanyasa or vanpraslha. In
contrast, in the Guru's system the world became the arena of
spiritual endeavour. A normal life and moral and righteous
deeds became the fundamental means of spiritual progress,
since these alone were approved by God. Man was free to choose
between the good and the bad and shape his own future by
choosing virtue and fighting evil. All this gave "new hope,
new faith, new life and new expectations to the depressed,
dejected and downcast people of Punjab."
G uru
Nanak's religious concepts and system were entirely opposed to
those of the traditional religions in the country. His views
were different even from those of the saints of the Radical
Bhakti movement. From the very beginning of his mission, he
started implementing his doctrines and creating institutions
for their practice and development. In his time the religious
energy and zeal were flowing away from the empirical world
into the desert of otherworldliness, asceticism and
renunciation. It was Guru Nanak's mission and achievement not
only to dam that Amazon of moral and spiritual energy but also
to divert it into the world so as to enrich the moral, social
the political life of man. We wonder if, in the context of his
times, anything could be more astounding and miraculous. The
task was undertaken with a faith, confidence and determination
which could only be prophetic.
I t
is indeed the emphatic manifestation of his spiritual system
into the moral formations and institutions that created a
casteless society of people who mixed freely, worked and
earned righteously, contributed some of their income to the
common causes and the langar. It was this community, with all
kinds of its shackles broken and a new freedom gained, that
bound its members with a new sense of cohesion, enabling it to
rise triumphant even though subjected to the severest of
political and military persecutions.
T he
life of Guru Nanak shows that the only interpretation of his
thesis and doctrines could be the one which we have accepted.
He expressed his doctrines through the medium of activities.
He himself laid the firm foundations of institutions and
trends which flowered and fructified later on. As we do not
find a trace of those ideas and institutions in the religious
milieu of his time or the religious history of the country,
the entirely original and new character of his spiritual
system could have only been mystically and prophetically
inspired.
A part
from the continuation, consolidation and expansion of Guru
Nanak's mission, the account that follows seeks to present the
major contributions made by the remaining Gurus.
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