I. Introduction*
The early modern period has proven to be a vastly important and formative era in the development of political theory, notions of statehood, and theorisations of sovereignty. Jean Bodin (1530-1596) is often cited as the first European philosopher to approach the topic of sovereignty comprehensively, with Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) and expression of social contract theory following shortly thereafter. These two thinkers, like many of their contemporaries, argued that the only coherent arrangement of sovereign authority is complete and undividable. During the same period, the geographical area now known as the Indian subcontinent saw equally developmental years in the theorisation and implementation of both authority and sovereignty. In Afzar Moin’s seminal work on the topic, The Millennial Sovereign, he describes the evolution of Mughal authority, arguing that “the social personality of kings developed via constant circulation through the realm in an ongoing dialectic with the social ideals and popular myths of their diverse subject populations”.[1] The notion of sovereignty from a Mughal perspective was intimately linked to the performative, and it relied on social charisma as much as, if not more so than, it did doctrine and philosophy.
One conceptualisation of sovereignty (or as will be explored, perhaps more appropriately, ‘sovereignties’) which has been understudied within academic literature is the idea of sovereignty within the Sikh tradition. Whilst the lack of discourse on Sikh sovereignty is likely attributable in part to the fact that the study of the Sikh tradition is in its relative infancy within Western academia, recent works have done an estimable job in beginning to chart the key themes of Sikh sovereignty. Hardip Singh Syan’s work Sikh Militancy in the Seventeenth Century: Religious Violence in Mughal and Early Modern India documents early examples of conflict from which the Sikh military body grew. Importantly, his account gives necessary weight to the claim that views of territoriality and political manoeuvrings were a thought-out and considered rebuttal to Mughal India, and not merely a rash display of recalcitrance. This argument is furthered in Purnima Dhavan’s When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799, which places events of the Khalsa within the context of India’s cultural ethos. Much credit must also be given to the work of Louis Fenech, whose translation and exegesis of Gurū Gobind Singh’s Zafarnāma shed important light on the dialogue between Sikh and Mughal polity. These works are all highly commendable and create essential scholarly dialogue on their respective topics. However, there is yet to be an attempt at coalescing these various facets into a more overarching mapping of sovereignty viewed through a Sikh lens.
The principal aim of this piece is to postulate that Sikhi, by design, was founded with a system of sovereignties embedded within it. From the choice of the vernacular word used to describe the tradition, dharam, to the eventual rise of a Sikh kingdom evincing statehood, the Sikh organism demonstrates multiple articulations of sovereignty that extend beyond both the schools of Hobbes and Bodin and of Mughal sacred kingship. It will present three exhibits of sovereignty within the Sikh tradition: firstly, how Sikhi as an organism is built as and engages with the body politic; secondly, how the notion of Gurūship marries the divine and temporal sovereignties; and lastly, how the idea of sovereignty was intended to be manifest within every individual Sikh through the formation of the Khalsa.
II. Sikhi and the Body Politic
In the summer months of 1606, one of the most significant watersheds in the history of the Sikh Gurūs took place at Lahore, when the fifth Gurū of the Sikhs, Gurū Arjan Dev, was tortured for days and executed at the behest of the Mughal emperor Jahāngīr. Pashuara Singh has phrased this moment as “the most controversial issue in Sikh history”,[2] due mainly to having to navigate through the complexities of the dynamic of power at the time, as well as the decision-making which culminated in the Gurū becoming the first in a long line of martyrs within the Sikh tradition. Scholars have differed greatly in their interpretations of the rationale for Jahāngīr to enact such an iconoclastic act. Hoshiar Singh places the reasoning at the feet of solely economic factors: that Gurū Arjan was unable to meet the tax of 100,000 rupees (some sources such as the Sūraj Parkāsh place the figure at 200,000) imposed upon him.[3] Others, such as Richard Davis, note that by the time of Gurū Arjan, the Sikh populace had evolved from a community of piety to an impressive social organism. By extension, the Gurū took on the mantle of leading all temporal matters pertaining to the Sikhs, including an engagement with the political dynamics of India at the time. It was therefore the Gurū’s endorsement of Jahāngīr’s rebellious son, the young prince Khusrau, which ultimately led to his martyrdom.
Regardless of which view one takes, it is evident that the commonality between these interpretations is that Gurū Arjan’s execution was most certainly due to factors pertaining to the temporal jurisdiction of the Sikh organism. Be it financial, political, social, or indeed a mixture of these, it was not simply due to a difference of faith or religious praxis that led to the Gurū laying down his life. Rather, Gurū Arjan’s execution provides for a most salient example of the Sikh organism, by design, occupying the space of the body politic. This is partly the reason I opt for the term ‘organism’ to highlight, albeit slightly loosely, that Sikhi is a multifaceted system of interdependent parts. It is the first aim of this section to illustrate that, as Hardip Singh Syan eloquently writes, “it was not Arjan’s martyrdom that gave a martial turn to the Sikh movement, rather it was the political and martial overtone of the movement that contributed to his martyrdom”.[4]
And to place Gurū Arjan’s martyrdom within the frame of Sikh sovereignty, the fallout from his execution resulted in some of the most expressive outward manifestations of sovereignty that had been seen within the Sikh tradition to that date. The establishment of the first seat of temporal and political authority of the Sikhs, the Akāl Taḵẖt, and alongside it the first formalised Sikh army, the Akāl Sena, both occurred within months of the fifth Gurū’s death. The second aim of this section is to illustrate how the consequences of Arjan’s martyrdom were the articulations of a sovereignty embedded within the Sikh organism from its beginnings.
The Sikh Dharam
The path of the Sikhs was never professed to be simply a faith or a framework of devotional worship. The vocabulary chosen by the Gurūs to delineate the tradition was dharam. The word dharam itself is often cited as the term that most closely resembles “religion”, most likely due to the fact that the derivation of both share similar significance (the Latin re and legere meaning “to bind back”, and the corresponding dhr meaning to hold and bind together). One may argue ad nauseum about the true definition of religion. However, what is important to note is that dharam extends beyond simply a framework of devotion or worship. It is more akin to the dharma that is spoken of in the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna is convinced of his need to continue fighting a battle against his kin as it is his moral duty to do so. It encapsulates both a worldly duty as well as a personal one. From a Sikh perspective, the term dharam is first found within the sixteenth verse of the first prayer of the Sikhs uttered by Gurū Nanak, the Japu Sāhib:
ਧੌਲੁ ਧਰਮੁ ਦਇਆ ਕਾ ਪੂਤੁ ॥
The bull of dharam is born out of compassion.
The bull here refers to the mythical cosmic bull, the kuyūthā, that was believed to carry on its back the angel who holds up the earth. I would argue the choice of the word dharam is an extremely significant one, as it set the precedent for what the Sikh organism was intended to be from the very beginning: a path of righteous living that extended from the sacral to a real engagement with the temporal. To refer to dharam as the entity that supported the world highlights its importance. In a sense, to dwell solely on the internal meditative practices that the Gurūs taught was not sufficient to call oneself a Sikh. Part of the dharam was to engage with polity with the systems of ethics and beliefs that Sikhi had within it.
Perhaps one of the most famous examples of political engagement within the history of the Sikhs, whose fallout is still evident today, is the meeting of Gurū Arjan and the prince Khusrau. According to Jahāngīr’s own memoirs, the Jahāngīrnāma, his eldest son Khusrau staged a rebellion to the emperor’s claim to the throne a mere six months after he first occupied it. Khusrau and roughly 4,000 accompanying horsemen laid siege to the emperor’s fortress at Lahore. He ultimately lost this skirmish and spent his remaining sixteen years imprisoned. The recalcitrant prince’s last stop before he engaged in battle was at Taran Tāran, near Amritsar, where he met with Gurū Arjan. Wheeler M. Thackston’s excellent translation of Jahāngīr’s memoir recording the incident reads as follows:
There was a Hindu named Arjan in Gobindwal on the banks of the Beas River. Pretending to be a spiritual guide, he had won over as devotees many simple-minded Indians and even some ignorant, stupid Muslims by broadcasting his claims to be a saint. They called him Gurū. Many fools from all around had recourse to him and believed in him implicitly. For three or four generations they had been peddling this same stuff. For a long time I had been thinking that either this false trade should be eliminated or that he should be brought into the embrace of Islam. At length, when Khusraw passed by there, this inconsequential little fellow wished to pay homage to Khusraw. When Khusraw stopped at his residence, [Arjan] came out and had an interview with [Khusraw]. Giving him some elementary spiritual precepts picked up here and there, he made a mark with saffron on his forehead, which is called qashqa in the idiom of the Hindus and which they consider lucky. When this was reported to me, I realized how perfectly false he was and ordered him brought to me. I awarded his houses and dwellings and those of his children to Murtaza Khan, and I ordered his possessions and goods confiscated and him executed.[5]
In this extract, Jahāngīr reports two main grievances against Gurū Arjan: that he has managed to garner popularity by winning over simple minded Hindus and Muslims and that he had placed a tilak, or saffron mark implying his support, on the forehead of Jahāngīr’s rebellious son. To dwell upon the second of these charges, it would appear that the Gurū had made a blatant political endorsement of the recalcitrant Khusrau. The applying of the saffron mark in particular is a powerful image. Nowhere else in Sikh literature is there evidence of a Gurū opting to bestow a tilak himself. Even when the Gurūship was passed on through the living Gurūs, the responsibility of administering the ceremony was always entrusted to a Sikh companion of the Gurū, never the Gurū himself. Gurū Arjan’s decision to make an endorsement of a political opponent being the one instance of a Gurū performing such a revered act speaks volumes of the stress placed upon political engagement. And indeed, it is apparent within other contemporary Mughal source material that Gurū Arjan was viewed as a tangible political threat and a “kāfir”, not just a docile spiritual head of a new faith. The following excerpt is taken from a letter by Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, an Indian Islamic scholar who was allegedly present at the time of Gurū Arjan’s execution:
These days the accursed infidel of Gobindwal was very fortunately killed. It is a cause of great defeat for the reprobate Hindus. With whatever intention and purpose they are killed – the humiliation of infidels is for Muslims, life itself. Before this Kafir (Infidel) was killed, I had seen in a dream that the Emperor of the day had destroyed the crown of the head of Shirk or infidelity. It is true that this infidel [Guru Arjun] was the chief of the infidels and a leader of the Kafirs. The object of levying Jizya (tax on non-Muslims) on them is to humiliate and insult the Kafirs, and Jihad against them and hostility towards them are the necessities of the Mohammedan faith.[6]
From the perspective of a Sikh sovereignty, Gurū Arjan’s execution—and the fallout from it—resulted in a large change in the expression of sovereignty towards a more pronounced territorial and martial one. The most immediate consequence of the Gurū’s death was of course the ascendency of a successor Gurū. According to the Gurbilās Patshahi 6 of Bhagat Singh, Hargobind was named the sixth Gurū of the Sikhs by his father, Gurū Arjan, prior to his travel to Lahore. However, it was only after Gurū Arjan’s death that the ceremony of anointing Hargobind as Gurū took place and was administered by Baba Budhā, a contemporary of the first five Gurūs. Rather poetically, the ceremony involved Baba Budhā placing the sacred mark of the tilak upon the forehead of Hargobind, the very same ritual that contributed towards Arjan’s death.
The Gurbilās literature speaks to two seminal moments that shift the exhibition of sovereignty to a more explicitly temporal articulation under the Gurūship of Hargobind. The first of these is the construction of the Akāl Taḵẖt (literally, the immortal throne) as the first seat of temporal authority associated with the Sikhs. The Akāl Taḵẖt, also known as the Akāl Bungā, was constructed by Gurū Hargobind in 1606, the same year as his father’s execution. The choice of the young Gurū, who would have only been eleven years old at the time, to react immediately to his father’s death with the construction of a political throne speaks to the vision of the Sikh organism at the time:
“In order to defend the claims of conscience, Gurū Hargobind and his disciples resorted to arms and made Akaal Takht the centre of their military activities… The Sikhs were thus transformed into warriors at the Akaal Takht by Gurū Hargobind for the cause of faith and seeking justice”.[7]
It is worth pausing to analyse Nayyar’s claim that the Sikhs were “transformed into warriors”. This statement follows what appears to be a popular metanarrative pervading Sikh scholarship, that Arjan’s martyrdom provides the single catalytic moment which evolves the Sikh psyche from one of simply spiritual rebellion to one of armed resistance as an inevitable response to a tyrannical Mughal regime. What this results in is a rather crude periodisation of the first five Gurūs occupying the space of sainthood, with the remaining five Gurūs occupying the space of warriorhood.
Whilst it is certainly true that the period of Gurū Hargobind’s Gurūship onwards saw the first instances of Sikh warfare, I would argue that this is not reflective of a change in attitude within the Sikh organism, but rather, in a shifting articulation and medium through such attitudes of sovereignty were required to be expressed. The establishment of the Akāl Taḵẖt can be viewed as the temporal manifestation of the dharam that Nanak had sung about 150 years previously. It is also correct to attribute the position of the first codified and regimented Sikh army to Gurū Hargobind’s Akāl Sena; Gurū Hargobind himself is the talismanic figure of Sikh militancy during the first half of the seventeenth century. However, there is evidence in the janam sākhī tradition that points towards the second Gurū of the Sikhs, Gurū Angad Dev, setting up wrestling akhārās (martial arts facilities) in order for the Sikhs to train physically and become battle ready. Perhaps then, it would be more appropriate to consider Gurū Hargobind’s decisions to establish seats of polity and organised militancy as the natural voicing of sovereignty at the time as was required by the Sikh dharam, and not as reactionary. Hardip Singh Syan’s work provides an excellent challenge to the existing notion of Gurū Hargobind’s actions being an inevitable response to an oppressive Mughal rule. As he succinctly notes, “the development of Sikh ‘militancy’ in the seventeenth century was far from a simple process of militarisation”.[8]
Returning back to the Gurbilās literature, Bhagat Singh’s work describes in verse Gurū Hargobind’s construction of the Akāl Taḵẖt:
ਗੁਰਦਾਸ ਬੁੱਢੇ ਕੋ ਲੈ ਨਿਜ ਸਾਥਿ। ਤਖਤ ਆਰੰਭ ਕਰਿ ਦੀਨਾ ਨਾਥ।
[The Gurū] taking Gurdās and Budhā alongside him, began the construction of the taḵẖt.
ਕਿਸੀ ਰਾਜ ਨਹਿ ਹਾਥ ਲਗਾਯੋ। ਬੁੱਢੇ ਔ ਗੁਰਦਾਸ ਬਨਾਯੋ।
ਖਚਤ ਰੇਖਤਾ ਤਖਤ ਅਕਾਰ। ਬਨਾਯੋ ਕਛੁਕ ਊਚ ਨਿਰਧਾਰ॥੩੯॥
No other was allowed to place a hand, Gurdās and Budhā completed the work.
The taḵẖt was constructed with bricks and mortar, and was completed to a specific height.
ਸਵੈਯਾ॥ ਦੇਸਨ ਦੇਸ ਨਿਦੇਸ ਸੁਨੀ ਗੁਰ, ਆਵਤ ਭੇ ਸਭਿ ਸੂਰ ਅਪਾਰਾ।
ਸ਼ਸਤ੍ਰ ਔ ਅਸ੍ਵ ਲੀਏ ਗੁਰ ਭੇਟ, ਸੁ ਚਾਹ ਭਰੇ ਮਨ ਮਾਹਿ ਉਦਾਰਾ।
Hearing the command of the Gurū, countless warriors arrived at his court.
They brought with them weapons and horses to offer the Gurū with enthusiasm.
There is much in the way of pertinent imagery to be gleaned from Bhagat Singh’s poetic account of Hargobind’s construction of the taḵẖt. Firstly, the notion of the two individuals being hand-selected by the Gurū to oversee the building itself. Bhāī Gurdās is held in very high esteem by the Sikh populace: he is one of only two individuals whose writings are considered worthy of being sung whilst seated in a Gurdwara other than those of the Gurūs and those within the Gurū Granth Sāhib, and his funeral rights were personally officiated by Gurū Hargobind himself. The responsibilities of polity was not just for the Gurū, but for the Sikhs as well.
Secondly, the reference to the height of the throne points towards not only Gurū Hargobind’s political vision of the Sikhs, but a deliberate engagement with the polity of India at the time. Jahāngīr had issued a proclamation stating that no throne may sit higher than that of the Mughal emperor. Gurū Hargobind had instructed Bhāī Gurdās and Baba Budhā to erect the throne marginally higher (roughly 12 feet) than that of Jahāngīr. The Akāl Taḵẖt’s significance extended beyond instilling a sense of political obligation upon the Sikh populace, acting as a challenge to the Mughal regime that had seen Gurū Hargobind’s father executed. As Surender Pal Singh has put: “It was a clear message to the world that the Gurū, as a keeper of the Divine will, was the true Sovereign”.[9]
The second moment that the Gurbilās literature speaks to is the donning of two swords, known within the tradition as mīrī and pīrī, by the Gurū to designate his mastery of the divine and the temporal worlds:
ਸਵੈਯਾ॥ ਪੀਤ ਪੁਸ਼ਾਕ ਧਰੀ ਸੁਖਸਾਗਰ, ਔ ਕਲਗੀ ਗੁਰ ਸੀਸ ਸੁਹਾਵੈ।
ਔ ਭੁਜ ਅੰਗਦ ਸੋਹਤ ਹੈਂ, ਪੁਨਿ ਪੀਠ ਪੈ ਚਰਮ ਧਰੀ ਛਬਿ ਪਾਵੈ।
ਦੋ ਅਸਿ ਲਾਇ ਭਗਵੰਤ ਤਬੈ, ਗੁਰ ਕੇ ਗਰ ਡਾਰ ਦੀਏ ਹਰਖਾਵੈ।
ਮੀਰ ਕੀ ਮੀਰ ਔਰ ਪੀਰ ਕੀ ਪੀਰ, ਸੁ ਦੋਊ ਧਰੀ ਭਗਵੰਤ ਅਲਾਵੈ॥੪੭॥
ਚੌਪਈ॥ ਇਹ ਬਿਧਿ ਸ਼ਸਤ੍ਰ ਸਭਿ ਤਨਿ ਧਾਰੇ। ਹਰਿਗੁਵਿੰਦ ਗੁਰ ਮਨਿ ਹਰਖਾਰੇ।
ਤਖ਼ਤ ਬੰਦਨਾ ਕਰਿ ਮਨੁ ਲਾਈ। ਬੈਠੇ ਤਖ਼ਤ ਨਿਕਟਿ ਸੁਖੁ ਪਾਈ॥੪੮॥
The ocean of peace [referring to the Gurū] adorned a yellow robe and upon their turban a plume.
On their arms were beautiful guards, and a glorious shield upon their back.
The divine bestowed two swords to the Gurū, and with happiness proclaimed:
“I have made you the king of kings and the saint of saints”.
The Gurū Hargobind was very pleased at his adornment of arms.
He bowed to the taḵẖt with devotion and sat beside it.
The concept of mīrī and pīrī was a signal to every Sikh that they must consider their sovereignty within the corporeal as well as the meditative. The request for Sikhs to now gift the Gurū with horses and armaments as opposed to money or silks is a nod towards this updated manifestation of sovereignty in the world. The place of the Akāl Taḵẖt was therefore very much intended as a military base for the Sikhs as much as it was a political seat.
III. Gurū: Teacher, Prophet, or King?
According to Bhāī Kahan Singh Nabha’s magnum opus, the Mahān Kosh (a work of three volumes which is considered an authoritative Sikh encyclopaedia) the term Gurū has over fifteen different translations depending on its context. The definition that is said to encapsulate all of the nuances is: “The Gurū is he who dispels ignorance and enlightens his disciples”, i.e., an enlightener. But throughout the Sikh canonical scripture, the Gurū Granth Sāhib, the talismanic figure of the Gurū is related to in numerous ways. The Gurū is portrayed as a friend, as a doctor, as a teacher, as the king of kings, and even as the perfect manifestation of the divine. Within this plethora of devotional descriptors, the Gurūs often describe themselves as a slave or a servant. It is the notion of the Gurū as the monarch which provides for the second articulation of Sikh sovereignty: namely, the sovereign of the temporal and the divine realms.
The first thing to note is that the majority of the Sikh Gurūs were highly critical of the notion of kingship that existed within Mughal India, a sentiment that existed long before the martyrdom of Gurū Arjan in 1606. Gurū Nanak has dedicated a subsection of composition that acts as a commentary directed to the emperor first Mughal emperor, Babur, known as Baburbani. Two excerpts of these verses are below:
ਖੁਰਾਸਾਨ ਖਸਮਾਨਾ ਕੀਆ ਹਿੰਦੁਸਤਾਨੁ ਡਰਾਇਆ ॥
ਆਪੈ ਦੋਸੁ ਨ ਦੇਈ ਕਰਤਾ ਜਮੁ ਕਰਿ ਮੁਗਲੁ ਚੜਾਇਆ ॥
Having destroyed Khuraasaan, Baabar terrorised Hindustan.
The divine is not to blame but has sent the Mughal as the messenger of death.
ਰਤਨ ਵਿਗਾੜਿ ਵਿਗੋਏ ਕੁਤੀ ਮੁਇਆ ਸਾਰ ਨ ਕਾਈ ॥
This jewel of a land has been defiled by dogs; no one gives any care for the dead.
We may infer that the Gurū’s understanding of kingship was never intended to act as a parallel to the existing systems that were in place. As will be explored in the following section, there were certainly elements of the Gurū’s charisma such as a performative social engagement which mirrored those of the Mughal emperors, however the strong critiques of rule that the Gurūs proclaimed suggests that their authority was meant to be perceived differently.
A natural question then arises: if not a direct opposition or rebuttal to Mughal kingship, what type of king was the Gurū understood to have been? A clue may be found in the nomenclature used within the literature of Bhāī Gurdās. Within his vārs (ballads), he writes the following:
ਸਤਿਗੁਰ ਸਚਾ ਪਾਤਿਸਾਹੁ ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਗਾਡੀ ਰਾਹੁ ਚਲਾਇਆ।
The eternal Gurū, the true emperor, has placed the gurmukh on the right path.
The term used to denote emperor is pātişahu, which according to Kahn Singh’s Mahān Kosh means not only “lord of the throne; monarch, emperor”, but also “the ten Gurus of the Sikhs, the true sovereigns”. The word used is strikingly similar to bādshah, the “superlative sovereign title of Persian origin” that was used to describe the Mughal kings. The deliberate use of such a similar vernacular is a noteworthy choice: The Gurū may be seen as employing a similar term as a resignification of the vocabulary. According to Sikh oral kathā tradition, the use of pātişahu was by design an extension of the bādshah, occupying also the realm of the divine. Not only did it critique Mughal rule by the insinuation of its “barbaric” acts being somewhat ungodly, but it also exalted the rule of the Gurūs to one that offered divine sanction to a temporal rule. Crucially, the notion of pātişahu is not limited to the regalities of the splendorous darbārs that Hargobind and the following Gurūs enacted. We see the term utilised to describe Gurū Nanak’s Gurūship as well, being described as “pehlī pātshahī” or the first pātişahu.
The thought that pātişahu extended beyond the darbār itself and was more of an intrinsic quality that transcended the physical space is one that is echoed throughout the Sikh organism and sheds light on the role of territoriality within the frame of Sikh sovereignty. Upon every Sikh’s initiation ceremony, they are read the following in their code of conduct: “Your place of birth is Kesgarh Sahib and your native place is Anandpur Sahib”. The latter is the location of the first amrit sanchār or initiation ceremony that took place in 1699, forming the Khalsa. Whilst the reference to Kesgarh is in part paying homage to this first amrit sanchār and instils a sense of lineage to the initiated, it also illustrates sentiments of nationhood and homeland transcending their own geography. That is not to say Anandpur is not a cherished land for a Sikh; rather its significance, and ergo the significance of any territoriality, is greater than the land it occupies. Of the five taḵẖts within the Sikh tradition, only two are actually located in Punjab, with the remainder stretching as far east as Bihar and as far South as Maharashtra. It follows that the Sikh organism is most certainly “a global rather than transnational entity with migrant communities linked to their societies of origin”.[10]
IV. Panth Khalsa: Sovereignty Manifest Within the Individual
The Gurū Granth Sāhib is commonly referred to within Sikh orthodoxy as the eleventh, final, and everlasting Gurū of the Sikhs. Within almost every Gurdwara in the world, the following two distichs, known by their specific poetic measure as dohrās, are recited by the entire congregation multiple times daily to conclude each sermon. These are also the most often-cited references to valorise the standing of the Granth Sāhib as the Gurū:
ਆਗਿਆ ਭਈ ਅਕਾਲ ਕੀ ਤਬੀ ਚਲਾਇਓ ਪੰਥ । ਸਭ ਸਿਖਨ ਕੋ ਹੁਕਮ ਹੈ ਗੁਰੂ ਮਾਨਿਯੋ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ।
ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਜੀ ਮਾਨਿਯੋ ਪਰਗਟ ਗੁਰਾਂ ਕੀ ਦੇਹ । ਜੋ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਕੋ ਮਿਲਬੋ ਚਹੈ ਖੋਜ ਸ਼ਬਦ ਮੈਂ ਲੇਹ ।
As was ordered by the timeless Lord, the Panth was established. The edict to every Sikh: consider the Granth as the Gurū.
Recognise the Granth as Gurū, it is the embodiment of the [living] Gurūs. Those that seek to meet with the Lord, contemplate the word of the Granth.
The first of these couplets is found in a Bhatt Vahi (literally “scroll of the bard”) belonging to Narbud Singh, a contemporary of the tenth Gurū, Gobind Singh. Upon nearing the time of his death in approximately 1708 AD, Gurū Gobind Singh is recorded as reciting this line in the city of Nanded, in present day Maharashtra. Its message to the entirety of the Sikh population to recognise the Granth Sāhib as Gurū is largely uncontested and, for the most part, considered unambiguous. However, the history of the second of these verses, beginning ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਜੀ ਮਾਨਿਯੋ, provides an interesting insight into how Gurūship was perceived by Sikhs within the early modern period. The verse as is written above, which is also as it is sung today, was written by Gian Singh in his poeticized chronicle of the Sikhs, Panth Parkāsh (a completely separate work from the Prachīn Panth Parkāsh authored by Rattan Singh Bhangoo) first lithographed in 1880. Gian Singh’s couplet appears to be an adaptation of a Rehatnāma (Sikh code of conduct) written by Prehlād Singh during the time of Gurū Gobind Singh’s life. Prehlād Singh’s verse is as follows:
ਗੁਰੂ ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ ਮਾਨੀਅਹਿ ਪਰਗਟ ਗੁਰੂ ਕੀ ਦੇਹ
Recognise the Khalsa as the Gurū, and consider it the embodiment of the [living] Gurūs.
Aside from some grammatical changes and word play, the only alteration by Gian Singh is the transference of recognition from the Khalsa as the Gurū to exclusively the Granth as the Gurū. The rationale behind Gian Singh’s modification is not certain, but despite it being of much later authorship and a reworking of the Gurū’s own words, it is interestingly Gian Singh’s verse which has retained popularity. Although seemingly only a change to one key term, the significance of considering Prehlaad Singh’s original narration compared with Gian Singh’s variation is difficult to overstate. When juxtaposed alongside Narbud Singh’s Bhatt Vahi, we introduce the concept of a dual Gurūship into the Sikh tradition: the Gurū Granth and the Gurū Khalsa Panth. This is an early instance within the tradition that the Sikhs are instructed to observe two different entities as Gurū, and it is the latter of these which provides for the third articulation of sovereignty for the Sikhs: namely, sovereignty manifest within the individual. It is the aim of this section to identify how the bestowing of Gurūship to the Sikh panth, the insignia they were instructed to partake in, and the continuation of the social charisma of the living Gurūs all speak towards its being imperative for sovereignty to be expressed within the persona of every Sikh individual.
Formation of the Khalsa, April 1699
It is generally accepted as a tenant of Sikh orthodoxy that during the spring harvest festival of Vaisakhi in 1699 AD, Gurū Gobind Singh inaugurated a new family of Sikhs known as the Khalsa. He performed a dramatic act in front of the large congregation gathered in Anandpur in the foothills of the Himalayas: with a sword in hand, he demanded the heads of five devotees. These five individuals entered a tent one-by-one, accompanied by Gurū Gobind Singh, and on each occasion the Gurū exited the tent alone with a sword dripping with blood. What occurred in that tent is the subject of much contention, as will be explored, but after some time the five devotees who had offered their lives were ushered back into a stunned Vaisakhi congregation. The Gurū then recited sacred verses as he churned water in a bowl with a double-edged sword. His wife, Mata Jīto, added sugar cakes to the elixir, and those same five devotees, who would become known as the panj piāre (the beloved five), sipped the ambrosia to form the nucleus of the Khalsa.
Unfortunately for historians, there is relatively little contemporary documentation surrounding the formation of the Khalsa, and equally little consensus amongst scholars as to which of the few primary source materials are to be considered reliable and which are merely romantic, apocryphal tales. As J. S. Grewal and Hew McLeod have noted, there is even debate as to the year in which the events occurred. This in itself is a peculiarity. Whilst the transmission of history in north India during the times of the Gurūs still relied primarily on the oral tradition, the Sikh convention, certainly by the time of Gurū Gobind Singh, had adopted the practice of written history as well. Gurū Gobind Singh himself dedicates numerous verses in his Bachittar Natak, or “wonderous play” to detailing various historical incidents including his birth and the execution of his father, Gurū Tegh Bahadur. He also employed Bavanjā Kavī, or 52 court poets, in his darbār, whose job was to translate the Sanskrit epics into contemporary languages. Arguably then, it was uncharacteristic that such a seminal moment within the development of Sikh sovereignty, and indeed the foundation of the post-living-Gurū-era was left unchronicled. Whether or not this omission was by accident or by design is, and likely will remain, unclear. But what does pervade both the Gurū’s own writings and those of contemporary sources is how the ideals of the Khalsa as a sovereign were to be perceived.
Before beginning to chart the significance of the day at Kesgarh, it is pertinent to first consider some important vocabulary. Up until the events of 1699, there were two main terms used to describe the Sikh populace. The first of these is sangat, derived from the Sanskrit sangh meaning company or fellowship. Sangat is one of the most common terms found within the Gurū Granth Sāhib, and it is typically used to describe the congregation of the holy or the devoted. The second is qaum, a word of Arabic origin, which is most often translated in English to “nation”. The word itself does not actually appear within the Gurū Granth Sāhib, despite its common usage to describe the Sikh population today. The earliest textual usage of the term within the corpus of literature that is permitted to be recited at a Gurdwara (and thus granted a special status of reverence) is within a verse of Bhāī Nand Lal Goya, a court poet in the darbār of Gobind Singh. In Goya’s Zindagi Nāma, he writes the following when describing the Sikhs: Qaumi misakīna qaumi maradāni kẖẖudā-sata (This qaum is the community of gentle and humble souls, a community of God’s men). The prominent eighteenth century military leader Jassa Singh Ahluwalia was also affectionately given the sobriquet sultan-e-qaum. In defining qaum within a Sikh context, Jasdev Rai opts for “a nation that sustains with reference to its culture, religion, language, outlook and cohesiveness without reference to geographical location or territorial sovereignty”.[11]
What is interesting to note is that there appears to be a marked and deliberate distinction between the vernacular term used to describe the Sikh populace in congruence with the context of praxis, and the associated milieu, with which that populace is being described. When speaking of the pious and devoted in religious scripture, a language evoking sentiments of community and peace are used, whereas in describing later articulations of the Sikh organism as a nation—or in characterising heroic individuals belonging to the tradition—a more imperial diction is utilised. As the Sikh organism navigated an increasingly volatile political and military landscape within Mughal India, the shifting vocabulary seems to reflect the shifting demands placed upon the Sikhs to embody a body politic. In a sense, for the Sikhs themselves to express sovereignty.
The word Khalsa itself also has Arabic roots in the word, khalis, meaning pure or clear. During the Mughal period, Khalsa was also used with regards to land revenue. It stood for the area that was directly under the emperor’s dominion, separate from local governance.
As Fenech notes in his recent work, there is a marked distinction between the concept of the sangat and the role of the Khalsa within the writings of the Gurūs. Most discernibly, there is a clear progression of the vocabulary used by Gobind Singh when addressing the Sikhs in his hukamnāmas (literally “letters of command”). In Gobind Singh’s early hukamnāma, he addresses the Sikh populace as the sangat, whereas in later letters which postdate the events of 1699 Gobind Singh uses Khalsa specifically. This distinction in vernacular appears to transcend a simple evolution of appellation. The earlier hukamnāmas which address the sangat—for example the address to the Sikhs of Lahore— speak of the Gurū’s appreciation of their piety. Whereas a later signed hukanāma addressing the family of Bhāī Roop Chand, an initiated Sikh who is referred to as Khalsa, requests them to bring armaments, troops, and camels to the fort of Anandpur to assist in military duty.
The earliest piece of major Sikh primary literature that describes the formation of the Khalsa is the Gur Sobha of Chandra Sain, more commonly known by the pseudonym Sainapati, compiled in 1711 AD. Sainapati was an amanuensis and one of the fifty-two court poets in the darbār of Gurū Gobind Singh. His Gur Sobha (literally “Radiance of the Gurū”) is a paean to Gurū Gobind Singh. Sainapati’s account is also sadly all too reticent on the details of the ceremony that initiated and formalised the Khalsa. However, it does provide useful illumination of what characteristics the Khalsa were seen to embody. The final lines of the fifth chapter are:
ਖਾਲਸ ਸਰੂਪ। ਅਨੂਪ ਰੂਪ। ਗਹਿ ਤੇਗ ਲੀਨ। ਅਤਿ ਜੁਧ ਕੀਨ॥੭੫॥੧੯੧॥
ਕੇਤੇ ਪਰਕਾਰ। ਤਾ ਕੋ ਬਿਥਾਰ। ਜੋਧਾ ਅਪਾਰ। ਕਰਿ ਜੁਧਿ ਸਾਰ॥੭੬॥੧੯੨॥
ਬਬੇਕੰ ਬਿਦਾਰ। ਤਨਖਾਹ ਦਾਰ। ਬਸਿਧਾ ਸੁਢਾਰ। ਕਰਿ ਜਗਤ ਸਾਰ॥੭੭॥੧੯੩॥
Adopting the Khalsa form, a unique identity. Brandishing the sword, [and] fighting in war.
Diffused in everything, manifest in many ways. Unparalleled warriors, they take to battle.
Wisest of the wise, giver of punishment. Balance of this entirely earthly expanse.
Whilst there may not be consensus on the details of the day of 1699, the commonalities which are found throughout the primary literature speak to aspects of the social charisma of Gurūship that were deliberately manifested. Gobind Singh issued a hukamana to the sangat ordering them to the fort of Anandpur, with the instruction not to cut their hair or shave their beards. Across the accounts of Sainapati, Koer Singh, and Sukkha Singh, the congruities of a blood-soaked sword, a grand marquee, and the Gurū standing upon a stage addressing an audience as opposed to in the more regal setting of the darbār all speak to a dramatic and grandiose performance put on by the Gurū. “When all had then gathered at the fair, the resplendent Gurū called out, ‘Is there any loyal Sikh here, devoted in body and spirit, who will offer his head to the Gurū?’”
This decision to stage a sensational, baronial spectacle does not necessarily tesselate with earlier examples of the Gurū’s unwillingness to partake in such theatre. Upon a request from the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to call the seventh Gurū, Gurū Har Rai, to his court to perform a number of miracles, he immediately declined and instead sent his son to appear before the emperor.
The notion then of the Gurū choosing to create such a spectacle for the formation of the Khalsa can be considered in three ways. Firstly, it speaks to the momentous nature of the event itself. Even in spite of the little detail of that seminal day, the first panj piāre are remembered throughout Sikhi. After first acknowledging the ten Gurūs and the Granth, the ardās then follows by remembering the panj piāre next, even before the biological sons of the tenth Gurū, which goes some way to illustrate their level of veneration. It would follow, then, that the institution of the panj piāre would require an inauguration of a scale to match its significance. Secondly, in a stance offered by Sushil Jain, Gurū Gobind Singh’s motive in inviting so many people to the Vaisakhi festival and in staging such a wonderful drama was to “rejuvenate the whole community of his followers who had seen some difficult times and were feeling dispirited due to Muslim excesses. The Gurū wanted to bring back the ancient kshatriya warrior fervour into his followers”. And lastly, it speaks to the performative nature of kingship and sainthood in the person of the sovereign in seventeenth-century India. As Afzar Moin notes throughout his work, the highly iterant nature of kingship during the late Mughal period meant it was unlikely that princes were groomed in isolation, studying scripture under the guidance of elders. It was far more plausible that the social personality of kings was developed through an ongoing dialectic with the ideals of their diverse subject populations. Early modern kingship, in other words, had a strong performative element to it which cannot be recovered from text alone.
The evidence of these contemporary accounts and Gurū Gobind Singh’s letters exalting the militaristic and heroic elements of the populace should not be confused with simply creating a new, soldierly order within the Sikh population. As has been explored earlier in this work, militancy and the organisation of the Akāl Taḵẖt and the Akāl Sena were important milestones in charting Sikh sovereignties, but with these formations, it is the responsibility and character associated with this instructed warriorhood and political dialogue that speaks to the sovereignty of the individual.
Gurū Hargobind’s formation of the Akāl Taḵẖt marked the investiture of the body politic of the Sikh dharam, but importantly the institution was always placed under the custody of a Sikh—in the first instance, under the guidance of Bhāī Gurdās. Indeed, since its inception in 1606, the position of the Akāl Taḵẖt’s jathedār was never held by the Gurū. Within the verses of Sainapati quoted above, he describes the form of the Khalsa as being anūp rūp, or of wonderous form. This exact phraseology is used in the third ballad of Bhāī Gurdās, when he describes the form of the second Gurū, Gurū Angad Dev. It becomes apparent, then, that the important social charisma that was portrayed by the living Gurūs was now entrusted to the Khalsa. It is important to consider that this sovereignty was not manifest within the Khalsa solely as the institution of initiated adherents or the organism that represented the Sikh ideal. In order for the social charisma of the Gurū to be upheld, a sense of sovereignty had to be imagined within each and every constituent individual of the Khalsa.
Crowns, Flags, and Surnames: Royal Insignia
Balzani writes that “in general and throughout India, receiving a turban from royalty or a god was a great honour bestowed on a chosen few”. Kulke and Schnepel both refer to the turban as a royal insignia when given by the Maratha chieftains of Orissa, as does Mayer when writing of the princes of Rajasthan. Nand Lal Goya quotes the tenth Gurū directly in his Tankahnāma:
ਕੰਘਾ ਦੋਵੇਂ ਵਕਤ ਕਰ ਪੱਗ ਚੁਣੈ ਕਰ ਬਾਂਧਈ
One should comb their hair twice daily, and tie a turban.
That Gurū Gobind Singh would instruct his followers to tie a turban has a significance beyond even the natural conclusion of exalting the Sikh psyche to one of royalty. Given the milieu of a late seventeenth century Mughal India under the rule of Aurangzeb, the tying of a turban was a deliberate display of political recalcitrance. One of the most iconic forms of the turbans worn at the time of the tenth Gurū, particularly by the Nihung Sikhs who formed a nomadic guerrilla warfare group, is known as the dumalla.
Within the mid-nineteenth century Persian writings of Mufti ‘Alt udDin, a politician serving in various capacities in the British Political Agency in Lahore, there are passages dedicated to limning the Nihang warriors: “While riding or on foot, the flying movement of the loose end of the turban was like a flag, demonstrating their magnificence”. Significant here is reference to the flag protruding from the top of the turban, known as a farlā. In his work charting the historic turbans, Amardeep Singh Madra writes the following of the farlā: “The farlā was introduced in 1702 after Gurū Gobind Singh saw the Khalsa’s [battle] standard cut down in the thick of battle. He was prompted to tie the flag in the turban of his standard bearer, Akali Man Singh Nihang. Henceforth, a wearer of the farlā held a position of utmost respect amongst the Khalsa, so much so that it became the supreme insignia of the warrior brotherhood”.
What is particularly striking about Madra’s commentary is that the farlā as an embellishment to the turban carries a heavy political weight to it. Its origins as a replication of a battle standard speaks volumes of Gobind Singh’s vision for the Khalsa as sovereign. The Khalsa Sikh, when adorned with a turban of such variety, quite literally becomes the flag bearer of the Sikh polity. The notion of the turban bore both martial and political connotations. It was not a symbol that was carried by a group of Sikhs, but rather mandated to be attached to every Sikh at all times.
This symbolic expression of individual sovereignty is extended further when looking at the names bestowed to every Sikh at the first amrit sanchār. The name Singh, which has become virtually synonymous with male Sikhs, is derived from the Sanskrit siṃha (literally “lion”) and was used as a surname to denote a distinguished or high-ranking person, usually of aristocratic or royal descent. Its earliest recorded usage is found with the second-century Śaka ruler Rudradāman I, who affectionately gave his children the suffix siṃha. In the following fifteen centuries, the term is consistently found amongst kings, noblemen, and warriors, and it is the surname that Gurū Gobind Singh chose to give to every initiated Sikh male. In part, this choice was likely to create a sense of kinship amongst the Sikh populace, whose previous names would have been intrinsically linked with their jāt and social status. Gurū Gobind Singh’s choice of a common surname may have been deliberately chosen to eliminate any caste-related social stigma among the initiated. However, the choice of a kṣatriya surname with royal connotations speaks to the Gurū enduing a sense of warriorhood and sovereignty within each and every individual. For female initiates, the surname Kaur was given, which has equally royal connotations. Its exact derivation is debated, but the most commonly cited terms are kanwar and kumār, both meaning prince.
As Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh has briefly touched upon in her work, the five external items of the Khalsa may constitute the Sikh way of cultivating the self, in a framework not too dissimilar from that of Michel Foucault’s art of existence. According to Foucault, activity devoted to the self “constituted, not an exercise in solitude, but a true social practice”, and that it is this principle that “establishes its necessity, presides over its development, and organizes its practice”.[12] Gurū Gobind Singh’s stress placed upon the external form of his Khalsa, from their attire to their surnames, serves as a medium through which both the corporeal and the psychological can be more boldly delineated. As Kaur Singh notes, “They simultaneously constitute a social practice and are a means of intensifying social relations. They are concerned with forming an ethical citizen situated within an active social, political, and religious world”.[13]
The bestowing of royal insignias coupled with this notion of self-cultivation neatly illustrate the deliberate intention for the continuation of the Gurū’s personified lineage. A Khalsa Sikh would, quite literally, fly the flag of the nation upon his or her head, and as such, be required to act as a bastion for political engagement, martial readiness, and social endurance.
V. Conclusion: Sikh Sovereignty(/ies?)
The aim of this work has been to explore three distinct, yet ultimately interlinked, articulations of sovereignty that exist within the Sikh organism, namely: a system by design of engagement with the body politic, the talismanic figure of the Gurū as the manifestation of temporal and the divine rule, and the onus of the individual belonging to the Sikh panth to maintain the social charisma of the sovereign through their allegiance to the Khalsa. By definition, these various articulations of sovereignty may contradict some traditional theories of the sovereign being connoted with a sense of exclusivity.
However, I believe that to a Sikh, it is imperative that all of these sovereignties act together and simultaneously through the Gurū Granth, the Gurū Khalsa Panth, and the Sikh dharam. It does not make sense to create a system of hierarchy between them, nor can one be completely delineated from the others. Instead, in order to appreciate the understanding of sovereignties to the Sikh, one needs to be prepared to allow these multiple manifestations to co-exist as complementary systems as opposed to conflicting ideologies. The intimacy between the divine, the Gurū, and the Sikh, requires a sense of sovereignty to exist across all of these planes. That is not to say that the ideal of sovereignty shifts between them, but rather that the shared philosophy of sovereignty must exist on multiple planes in order for a Sikh to embody both the mīrī and the pīrī, as Gurū Hargobind exemplified.
I would argue, then, that the Sikh organism does not have a singular theory of sovereignty. It has embedded within it a system of multiple sovereignties that exist harmoniously. And it is only through an allegiance to all of these sovereignties that the Sikh is truly in line with dharam.
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*I am indebted, and offer my heartfelt thanks, to Nihal Singh not only for the opportunity, but also for his provocative questions, keen editorial eye, and invaluable suggestions.
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[1] Afzar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign – Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam (Columbia University Press, 2012), 28-29.
[2] Pashuara Singh, “Understanding the Martyrdom of Guru Arjan” Journal of Punjab Studies (2005): 29.
[3] Hoshiar Singh, “Sri Guru Arjan Dev – His Life and Mission. The Sikh Review (1974): 7.
[4] Hardip Singh Syan, Sikh Militancy in the Seventeenth Century: Religious Violence in Mughal and Early Modern India (I.B.Tauris, 2013), 127.
[5] Wheeler M. Thackston, Jahangir, Emperor of Hindustan (Oxford University Press, 1999), 59.
[6] Yohanan Friedmann, Shaikh Ahmad Sirhandi: An Outline of His Image in the Eyes of Posterity (McGill University, 1966), 110-112.
[7] G. S. Nayyar, “The Akal Takht in Historical Perspective 1606-1839” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (1985): 341.
[8] Hardip Singh Syan, Sikh Militancy in the Seventeenth Century: Religious Violence in Mughal and Early Modern India (I.B.Tauris, 2013), 249.
[9] Surender Pal Singh, Celebrating the foundation day of Akal Takht Sahib (Akal Bunga) (2018).
[10] Jasdev Rai, “KHALISTAN IS DEAD! LONG LIVE KHALISTAN” Sikh Formations 7(1) (2011): 1-41.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, “Sacred Fabric and Sacred Stitches: The Underwear of the Khalsa.” History of Religions, 43(4) (2004): 298-299.
[13] Ibid., 299.
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Jeevan Singh Riyait