1

LOVE AND DESIRE IN SIKHISM:

AN ANALYSIS OF TEXTUAL TRADITIONS, ETHICS AND

FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES

By

Izhaarbir Singh Bains

Vinay Dharwadker, Advisor

A Thesis Submitted in

Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

in Languages and Cultures of Asia

at

The University of Wisconsin-Madison

May 2014
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Preface

This thesis project was undertaken with three primary objectives: (1) to develop the

theoretical framework in understanding Sikh ethics as an existentialist philosophy centered on

the concept of love; (2) to explore the various dimensions of love in the Sikh canon and

literature; and (3) to explore how effectively Sikh existentialism can respond to contemporary

issues regarding gender and sexuality.

Chapter One begins with an analysis of the concept of Guru in the Sikh tradition, and

establishes the idea that Shabad (Word) Guru is central to Sikh philosophy, therefore, it is central

to Sikh existentialism. This is followed by an analysis of Nikky Singh’s The Feminine ip in the

Sikh Vision of the Transcendent, in which I decentralize the concept of a feminine principle in

relation to the experience of the Transcendent; I argue that neither a masculine nor feminine

principle is at the core of the Sikh experience, rather it is the experience of love that is at the core

and is best understood by a framework of Sikh existentialism. Toward the end of the chapter,

some of the conflicts between theory and practice are explored, particularly in regards to

practical issues with gender inequality in the Sikh community.

Chapter Two utilizes writings from Guru Granth Sahib as well as Sikh scholars to

develop the concept of Sikh existentialism. This chapter develops the theistic core of Sikh

existentialism and in doing so, differentiates itself from atheistic existentialism such as Sartre’s

Existentialism is a Humanism. Sikh existentialism draws on some of the ideas about

existentialism developed by Sartre, but deviates from Sartre’s theory due to its theistic core.

Through an analysis of the various writings within Guru Granth Sahib and in particular the

opening of the Jap Ji, this chapter argues that love is at the core of Sikh existentialism. Chapter

Three analyzes the various representations of love in Sikh canon and literature. In particular, the
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literary analysis in this chapter explores the writings in Guru Granth, in Bhai Gurdas’s Vaar 27,

Bhai Nand Lal’s poetry, Puran Singh’s The Bride of the Sky, and two poems by Vir Singh.

My thesis culminates with the idea that individuals should be valued as human beings,

not as labels that create the dualism of self and other, and vital to this idea is how we understand

love. At the very least, our analysis of the representations of love within Sikhi should encourage

Sikhs to self-reflect and stand up for the rights of those marginalized. Lastly, Sikh existentialism

requires an internal organizational setup in the Sikh community such that no one is left feeling

marginalized.

With regards to the translations used for this thesis, I have attempted to cite Nikky

Singh’s The Name of My Beloved: Verse of the Sikh Gurus as consistently as possible; however,

wherever a translation by Nikky Singh was not available, I used an online resource,

srigranth.org, which is recommended in the works of both Nikky Singh and Gurinder Singh

Mann. In all of the transliterations in this thesis, I have attempted to remain consistent with the

sources that I have cited. For example, if I cite the online resource, then the transliteration is

quoted as it is provided online, and if I cite Nikky Singh, then the transliteration is as Nikky

Singh provides it. With regards to citing scriptural references outside of Nikky Singh’s

translations, I follow the procedure laid out by Gurinder Singh Mann in The Making of Sikh

Scripture. Following the transliterated quotation, in parenthesis is first a reference to the author

(e.g. M1 for Guru Nanak, M2 for Guru Angad, etc., or simply Kabir or Ravidas for non-Guru

authors), followed by a reference to Guru Granth Sahib abbreviated as GGS, and finally noted by

the page number found in the official copies of Guru Granth Sahib that are paginated at 1430

pages.
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In this work, I use the term Sikhi in place of Sikhism. Sikhi has an inbuilt “temporal

connotation, and refers to a path of learning as a lived experience” (Mandair, Sikhism

Introduction). In fact, many of the indigenous Punjabi terms, such as gurmat (Guru’s teaching)

and gursikhi, share this same temporal connotation. Mandair opts to ultimately modify the term

Sikhism by italicizing the ism, with the result being Sikhism, because he states that we must

recognize that Sikhi has continued to develop over time and now in its relationship to the West;

however, I will simply continue to use the term Sikhi, with the same understanding that Mandair

has suggested. This is important for Sikh studies in general, but also for my work, because the

term Sikhi connects back to the idea of Sikh existentialism through the ideas of temporality and

lived experience.

Finally, the successful completion of this work could not have been possible without the

incredible support of my friends and family who took their personal time to discuss and/or give

feedback on various parts of my work: Kiranjeet Kaur, Harmeet Kaur, Charanpreet Singh,

Bhajanpreet Singh, Lakhpreet Kaur, Sunmit Singh, and Sukha Singh. I am thankful to Professor

Anne Murphy for her extensive critique at the beginning stages of my work. My deepest

gratitude also goes to my graduate adviser, Professor Vinay Dharwadker, for the incredible

insight I received as well as the continuous support over the course of writing this thesis. I am

also greatly thankful for the support and guidance of Professors Anna Gade and Joe Elder. Last

but not least, I am thankful to my department, Languages and Cultures of Asia, which has always

been supportive.
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Chapter One: Symbols, Love, and Sikh Feminism

1. Introduction

From the Kama Sutra to Shakespeare and "Dear Abby," love and desire have been at the

heart of human activity, conduct, and curiosity. Society has always had an interest in the rules,

restrictions, and boundaries of love. The Kama Sutra is popular for its elaboration on physical

acts of love but also serves a spiritual purpose. Shakespeare used love to engage and entertain

his diverse audience. Today, the "Dear Abby" column serves to provide social norms and

advice, most of which is focused on love. There is no doubt that our society is driven by love

and desire. Love and desire are important to our society in human relationships and relationships

with the divine.

The fact that love and desire are also central to religious ethics may come as a surprise to

some. Love is a term commonly accepted by most societies and considered an appropriate topic

for people of all ages and backgrounds. "I love you" is a phrase often taught to young toddlers

beginning to develop their speech. In the context of close relationships, love is considered a

positive force in society. The same is not true for desire. Desire is a term that is connected with

lustful, sexual acts inappropriate to discuss at the dining table. It is a taboo topic reserved for

specific contexts. Society, as a whole, struggles to make connections between desire in human

relationships and desire for the Divine.

Discourse on religious ethics has also been concerned with the topic of love. For

example, Paul Ramsey states that “Christian ethics begins with a ‘leap’ by which alone Christian

love gives the name of ‘duty’ to the claims of neighbor” (101), but this thesis is not about

Christian ethics. It is about Sikh ethics. This is about how love and desire form the foundation

of Sikh existentialism. When considering the integration of love and desire throughout the Sikh
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tradition, one will find that these are not separate concepts but one and the same. I would like to

begin by trying to understand how and why the most basic concepts of love and desire, which

appear at the forefront of Guru Granth Sahib (GGS),1 have escaped the attention of astute

scholars of Sikh studies. Love and desire end up either as almost footnotes in lengthy,

systematic discussions of morality, or only as examples in Gurbani that express gender equality.

The objective of Avtar Singh’s Ethics of the Sikhs is a counter-argument to John Clark

Archer’s remark that “‘Nanak himself laid too little stress on human conduct and Sikhs have yet

to formulate a code for its true guidance’” (Singh, Ethics of Sikhs 4). Avtar Singh adopts a

thoroughly systematic approach, citing various sources of Sikh ethics, to construct an ethical

system with codes. In the process, love becomes abstracted as “an aspect of [Divine]

realization” or “a very prominent feature of Sikhism” (Singh, Ethics of Sikhs 209). In these

abstractions, love loses its central place in Sikh ethics, and desire does not even make an

appearance, often being associated with Christian conceptions of vice.

Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh’s The Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the

Transcendent, exhibits a profound understanding of concepts within Sikhi; however, it argues

that a feminine principle is central to understanding Sikhi and places the concept of love and

various representations of it as one part of that thesis. Nikky Singh’s two major motivations for

this work are (1) her desire to illustrate the great importance of a feminine principle in

understanding Sikhi because scholars had thus far solely focused on a male principle; and (2) her

desire for Western feminists to recognize Sikh feminism among its ranks of anti-patriarchal

ideologies. The combination of these two motivations lead her to a strong thesis that it is the

1
When referring to writings or ideas found within Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhs often use the term
Gurbani. From here on out I will interchangeably use Gurbani with Guru Granth Sahib, in order to reduce
verboseness, as saying “writings within Guru Granth Sahib” is unnecessary and doing so repeatedly can
become tiresome.
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feminine principle, not the masculine, which is central to connecting with the Divine. Nikky

Singh argues for this position while simultaneously recognizing that no such feminine or

masculine principle can be attributed to the Divine. While there is an apparent contradiction in

this claim, more importantly we find that love and desire do not have a central role in feminine

principle of the Sikh vision of the Transcendent.

A critical analysis of Nikky Singh’s work is crucial to my own. In order to develop love

and desire as central to Sikh ethics, I have to displace what has already been argued as being

central to understanding Sikhi. Furthermore, I must be able to explain what was previously

understood as central, as one part of the new whole that I construct. In effect, I will be inverting

the relationship between the concept of love and feminism in Sikhi, by arguing that feminist

ideas within Sikhi can be explained by a Sikh ethics of existentialism that is centered on love.

Aside from the problematic nature of the centrality of the feminine principle, there is much to be

admired about Nikky Singh’s depth of understanding of Gurbani. In fact, many of the

translations that I use are from Nikky Singh’s The Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh

Gurus. Also, while there are critical issues with establishing a centrality for the “feminine

principle” within Sikhi, Nikky Singh’s The Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the

Transcendent provides important scholarly insights into other areas of Sikhi such as Sikh

existentialism.

I delve into the critical analysis of Sikh ethics by first analyzing the root of the problem,

which is an over-emphasis on a particular symbol or idea. I will then follow with a broader

analysis of Nikky Singh’s work and the concept of feminism within Sikhi.
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2. Scripture or Guru - What Difference Does It Make?

Misrepresentation of core ideas often occurs when there is an emphasis on one particular

literary symbol. This occurs at the risk of missing the larger picture in which that symbol is

being used. A simple example of this is the way Guru Granth Sahib is often simply represented

in current academic literature as “scripture” or with the article “the” added before “Guru Granth

Sahib.” By doing so, scholars in Sikh studies focus primarily on the form, the scriptural aspect

of Guru Granth that is pertinent to their research, than on the substantial aspect of Guru Granth

which forms an important part of the interpretive framework for the Sikh community of

interpreters. Through this analysis we will see how, similarly, in Nikky Singh’s work the focus

falls much more on the symbolic forms than the substantial import of the messages in which her

symbols appear. I am not arguing that we should not engage in a close reading of scripture in

order to understand the depth of what is being relayed through the poetry. In fact, a close reading

is precisely what I will be doing in Chapter Three; however, what I am suggesting is that the

analysis of symbols and individual parts should not cause us to lose sight of the objective of the

whole.

It has become normative to write “the Guru Granth Sahib” or “Sikh scripture”, so it may

not be clear to most readers why a discussion on this subject may be necessary. By making the

distinction between “scripture” and “Guru”, I hope to relay the necessity of primarily

understanding the substantial ideas, so that we can come to understand the way in which Sikhs

see their scripture as “Guru” and precisely the importance of that understanding of Guru for

Sikhs in relationship to their scripture. This becomes especially important when in Chapter Two

I illustrate how this interpretive reflection on scripture forms a foundation for Sikh

existentialism. As Mandair explains, “Sikh philosophy…links Sikh subjectivity or lived-

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experience directly to the task of interpreting Sikh scripture on a daily basis” (Mandair, Sikhism

Ch. 5). After I make this idea clear, I will proceed to analyze the same error found in Nikky

Singh’s work, through the projection of a “feminine principle” as central to the Sikh vision of the

Transcendent.

Representing Guru Granth Sahib as “the Guru Granth Sahib” or “Sikh Scripture” is an

error both grammatically and theologically. Granth literally means book. Guru is a title like Dr.

and Sahib is a post-positional term of respect such as Esq. in English. The grammatical error

occurs because syntactically, it does not make sense to say "the Guru Granth." If we were to

speak of any normal book, it would be grammatically correct to write “the granth” because that

would simply mean “the book.” Granth in "Guru Granth" is a name, a proper noun in the same

manner as Nanak, Angad, or Arjun. Then, just as it does not make sense to write “the Guru

Nanak” or “the Guru Angad”, it does not make sense to write “the Guru Granth.” We can say

“The Nanak of Punjab” if we wanted to specify a particular Nanak from many others; however,

in the Sikh tradition there are not many Guru Granth Sahib, and even when there are multiple

copies of Guru Granth Sahib available in a particular area the article “the” is almost never

utilized to specify which Guru Granth Sahib, because in the Sikh tradition it is assumed that they

are all identical in content if not in pagination. Furthermore, by adding the article "the" we turn

what is properly understood as a person or a subject into an object or a thing, such as a book.

Sikhs do not treat Guru Granth Sahib as an object, rather as a subject with which they can have a

personal relationship. Writing “the Guru Granth” devalues the substantial importance of Guru

Granth in the practical and interpretive practices of Sikhs.

By placing the word "the" in front of Guru Granth, the emphasis and concept of "Guru" is

minimized and a greater emphasis is placed on the form "granth." This practice suggests that
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form is more important than the message or idea. The reverse is what is historically, textually,

visually, and aesthetically substantiated in Sikh ideology. Historically, Guru Nanak is noted to

have carried his pothi, or collection of writings, with him everywhere he traveled. He practically

expressed the importance of Shabad by making the pothi that he carried as the center of the

ceremony of passing the Guruship.2 Guru Arjan, the Fifth Guru, showed by example that it is the

message that is of the highest importance, by placing Adi Granth on his bed while he slept on the

floor. At this point, Adi Granth had not yet taken the completed form and appointment as Guru

Granth, yet Guru Arjan slept on the floor while placing Adi Granth on his bed.3 If nothing else,

these historical and symbolic acts of Guru Nanak and Guru Arjan should crystallize the

ideological importance of the message over the material form.

It is important to understand that by sleeping on the floor, Guru Arjan is not putting “the

book” or “scripture” at a higher level than himself; he is not placing an object as being valued

higher than a subject. Guru Arjan is emphasizing that Shabad, the message or idea itself, is what

is of utmost importance and that the form is secondary. In the Sikh perspective, forms, human or

non-human, are transient, but ideas are transcendent. Ideas take a form of their own through

lived practice. We encounter this idea when Guru Amar Das, the third Guru, says "vahu vahu

bani nirankar hai"-- Wondrous! Wondrous! Word is the Formless One (Singh, The Feminine

Principle 45). Again, we find this idea when Guru Raam Das, the fourth Guru, says "bani guru

guru hai bani vich bani amrit saare"—“Word is Guru, Guru is Word, and within the Word are

all treasures”. In both of the Guru’s statements, an intimate closeness is revealed between Word

and the One; for human beings, Word is representative of the One. Furthermore, it is important

2
Singh, Nikky-Guninder Kaur. The Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the Transcendent.
Cambridge [England: Cambridge UP, 1993. Print. 35.
3
Ibid. 35 – 37.
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to notice that theologically it is neither an evolution nor a revolution when Guru Arjun places

Adi Granth on the bed, while himself sleeping on the floor. Rather, his act is simply a

continuation of the same theological understanding imparted by Guru Nanak, continuing on

through each Guru. Having the pothi as the center of the Guruship ceremony develops the

foundation that form is only legitimized by being centered on the substance, the message.

Therefore, Bhai Lehna becomes Guru Angad, because his life is a living practice of the message.

Substance takes precedence over form.

Visually and aesthetically, Sikhs have continued Guru Arjan's reverence for Shabad.

Their personal, rather than objective, interaction with Guru Granth Sahib is illustrated in every

Sikh Gurdwara. The following are a few examples of these practices: (1) Sikhs maintain all of

the decorum of a 16th – 17th century court of a Sovereign; (2) Sikhs bow in front of Guru Granth

Sahib; (3) Sikhs take hukam, a command or guidance, for the day from Guru Granth Sahib; (4)

they offer their prayers in front of Guru Granth Sahib; and (5) when concluding religious

services for the day, they place Guru Granth on a bed in a room dedicated to Guru Granth.4

In the Sikh poetic imagination, we find the same idea expressed when they sing the

following at the conclusion of their communal prayer:5

Sabh sikhan ko hukam hai Guru maniyo Granth

Guru Granth Ji maniyo pargat guraan ki deh.

Jo prabh ko milbo chahai khoj Shabad meleh.

It is a command to all Sikhs to accept the Granth as their Guru

4
In addition to these 5 points, Sikhs also place Guru Granth Sahib at a higher platform, have a
person stand behind and fan, cover Guru Granth Sahib with cloth and in some places such as Harmandir
Sahib (Golden Temple) they have armed persons patrol or guard the entrance to the court.
5
No academic translation of this verse was available, so I have translated this myself.
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Understand Guru Granth Ji as the embodiment of all of the previous Gurus.

Those who desire to connect with the One will find the connection within Shabad

Here, we find that "Granth" is not simply "book" “or “scripture” for the Sikhs, as writing “the

Guru Granth” would have us believe. Granth in “Guru Granth” is actually symbolically

representative of Shabad/Guru, idea or message. It is why the poetic phrase states "Those who

seek to connect with the One will find the connection within Shabad." From the preceding lines

we understand that Shabad is directly connected to "Granth." Again, the message takes

precedence over the material form.

All of the examples I have provided so far have expressed the notion that idea takes

precedence over form; that the message or idea itself is what the Gurus stressed. This is why the

pothi of Guru Nanak takes the form of Adi Granth to finally becoming Guru Granth Sahib by the

decree of Guru Gobind Singh. To represent Sikh ideology correctly requires discussing Guru

Granth within the context of the substantial idea than only the formal representation. This means

that we must revise the way we write about Guru Granth. We must move away from only using

normative representations such as "scripture" or "the Book" or “the Guru Granth Sahib” or other

forms that are alienated from the substantial import of Guru within Sikhi, without also at least

explaining the substantial import. At the very least we can remove the unnecessary article “the”

and simply write “Guru Granth.”

I will provide an example of how Guru Granth is discussed in current literature and give

suggestions for how this representation can be revised to more closely connect with Sikh

ideology. The Making of Sikh Scripture is the title of a book by Gurinder Singh Mann. In the

title of this text, Guru Granth is reduced to simply “Sikh Scripture” and the ideological

importance of “Guru” is completely lost. One simple revision of this title would suggest
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"Scriptural formation of Guru Granth”. While this retains the word “scripture”, it simultaneously

distinguishes between “scripture” and “Guru Granth”. This still allows the author to have his

book indexed under books regarding scriptures. Furthermore, while Guru Granth may be

physically composed of scripture, in the suggested title, the element of “Guru” in Guru Granth

retains its significance as a subject and not as an object.

By now it has become clear that normative ways of discussing Guru Granth Sahib

devalue, distract, and misrepresent the symbolic and ideological importance of Guru Granth

Sahib. What remains unanswered is why so many excellent scholars, such as Pashaura Singh,

Gurinder Singh Mann, and Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh have continued this normative practice.

It must be abundantly clear in their expertise that such a representation is misrepresentative of

Sikh ideological understanding and practice itself. While I cannot speak on their behalf, I can

venture to say that it is not a purposeful misrepresentation, rather an inevitable and unconscious

consequence of making Gurbani the object of study. As an academic, one is supposed to ideally

take an objective or neutral approach to one’s object of study in order to properly study and

present one’s findings. For a Sikh author this may mean un-appropriating the cultural, religious,

and ideological biases one may possess while doing Sikh studies. Unfortunately, in the case of

discussing Guru Granth Sahib, this act of un-appropriating becomes counterproductive to the

objective of academic study, because it leads to a misrepresentation of Sikhi.

In the end, why does it really matter? It matters because normative methods of discussing

Guru Granth Sahib, at the least, distract from the ideological and substantial importance of

“Guru” in Guru Granth. While the distinction between “the Guru Granth” and “Guru Granth”

may appear trivial, the distinction is as sharp as that between a book and a subject. Over time,

the discourse on Guru Granth Sahib has been and will continue to be shaped by the way Guru
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Granth is represented. The manner in which this discourse proceeds has long-term

consequences, as one of the ways that the non-Sikh world interacts with that of the Sikh is

through literature. If we are to continue in our discourse to discuss Guru Granth in a manner that

is inconsistent and disconnected from the way that Sikhs themselves interact with Guru Granth,

then are we not presenting a non-existent reality that has no historical, theological, or practical

basis?

3. The Non-Centrality of the Feminine Principle in the Sikh vision of the Transcendent

As stated earlier, one of Nikky Singh’s motives is her observation that “in Sikh literature

itself, male and female principles play an equally important role in the process of analogy, but in

Sikh studies up until now, the male principle has tended to dominate” (Singh, The Feminine

Principle 10). This is a completely valid, factual observation and a motivational start. A cursory

look at the major English translations of Guru Granth Sahib, such as by Gurbachan Singh Talib

or Gopal Singh, reveals that translations of Guru Granth Sahib are plagued with references to

“Him,” “Lord,” “His” and other male centered pronouns which have no ideological basis in

Sikhi. This is where a feminist approach to translation has been helpful in Sikh Studies. Nikky

Singh’s The Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh Gurus is a much more helpful and accurate

translation of Gurbani than any of the previous translations. This is because she carefully and

poetically translates the message; however, it is her work on developing a centrality of the

feminine principle toward the Sikh vision that becomes problematic. The hermeneutic approach

of solely focusing on words that are symbolically or grammatically feminine, to develop a

centrality of the feminine principle in an individual’s relationship with the Divine, eventually

leads to a contradiction to her objective for the study which is to show that neither “masculine”

nor “feminine” are central to the Sikh understanding of the Transcendent.

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Along with countering the dominance of the male principle in Sikh studies, Nikky

Singh’s other motivation is “that a feminist consciousness ought to be extended to eastern

cultures” (The Feminine Principle 3). In following these two motivations, she develops a

hermeneutic approach to literary analysis, because “the remembrance and recognition of the

feminine principle in the Sikh literary sensibility demands an analysis of the vocabulary,

imagery, and themes articulated by seers and composers themselves” (The Feminine Principle

7). If a word in Gurmukhi is grammatically feminine, there is a claim to a feminine principle

present. This approach is the foundation for her strong thesis that Guru Granth Sahib “as a

whole attest[s] to how the Transcendent can be apprehended most sensitively and aesthetically

through the feminine experience” (The Feminine Principle 15).

What is particularly an issue is the strong thesis itself, and in particular the term “most”

that I have italicized above. One cannot both maintain there is not a preference for masculine or

feminine in discussion of the Transcendent, while also arguing that it is the feminine principle

that is “most” useful. However, we will see that it is actually the issue of applying the

hermeneutic approach too strictly, in the singular focus on certain terms that becomes

problematic, such that “if and when the words are taken individually, the dynamism of the

statement is missed” (Singh, The Feminine Principle 49).

The contradictions between the hermeneutic approach and the objective for the work are

apparent early. Nikky Singh first says that, “in Sikh literature itself, male and female principles

play an equally important role in the process of analogy,” but within a few sentences of that

claims that the “analogical relationship between the Transcendent and the Female shows that she

embodies what the Reality uniquely is” (The Feminine Principle 10). By “the Female” she

simply means the grammatically feminine words, and proceeds to elaborate them as “joti or light,
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the spirit informing all,” “kudarati, creation itself…saguna form of the totally nirguna,” and

“nadir, the benevolent glance from beyond” (The Feminine Principle 10).

Nikky Singh begins her discussion about the presence of the feminine principle with a

discussion about the role that poetry plays in Sikhi. She states that poetry “functions as both the

medium and the source of divine revelation” and the proof that she provides for this is the exact

same lines we discussed earlier: “Bani [Word] is the Guru, the Guru Bani, Within Bani are

contained all elixirs” (The Feminine Principle 16). She claims that the Sikh Gurus “understood

their poetic utterances as feminine”, and the reasoning provided for this is that “Bani,

grammatically feminine, is the general designation for the sacred poetry.” Nikky Singh

interprets “Guru” here to mean Guru Nanak, Guru Angad, et al., which is disputable in context of

the use of the word Guru in the entirety of Guru Granth Sahib, starting from mul mantar.

Although this interpretation of Guru is problematic, I would like to point out that the primary

issue is within her statement that the Gurus’ “revelation, the feminine principle, takes equal rank

with them” (Singh, The Feminine Principle 43). The point of contention is that she equates

revelation to a feminine principle on simply the basis of a word being grammatically feminine. In

order to further develop the idea of the importance of the feminine principle, another example

that we discussed earlier is provided: “Vahu vahu bani nirankar hai” – “Bani is the Formless

One.” Again the same argument as earlier is provided in that the word bani, being a feminine

noun, “imparts primacy to the feminine principle within the totality which we have termed the

‘Primal Paradox’” (The Feminine Principle 45). The problem here is that while the term is

clearly a feminine, the only purpose of those lines is to establish the primacy of substance over

form, of the primacy of the message itself. In order to read any more into it would require an

esoteric analysis.
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Furthermore, this purpose of the lines that I have suggested is also found in Nikky

Singh’s work when she states that “Guru Arjan gave bani the form of Granth and Guru Gobind

Singh…put the seal of finality on bāni when…proclaiming the holy book, Guru Granth, his

successor” (The Feminine Principle 45). If I were to apply her method to the term “Guru

Granth,” of deciphering masculine or feminine principle based on grammar, then I would arrive

at the conclusion that the masculine principle is at the forefront of the Sikh vision. This would be

because the term “Granth” is masculine. However, doing so would be to make the same mistake

that current translators have been making in their translations. This is not desirable because we

want to arrive at a translation that is devoid of the obfuscations of masculine and feminine.

Hopefully, the conflicted nature of this argumentation makes it clear that the terms “bāni” and

“Granth” signify nothing more than the idea of the message itself, and that their context signify

the primacy of idea over form in relation to the status of Guru Granth.

Another example of focusing on one particular symbol at the cost of the overall meaning

is found on the same page where Nikky Singh used the line “ape purakhu ape hi nari” -- “It

itself is man; It itself is woman” (The Feminine Principle 52). When analyzing the Salok in Jap

Ji, particularly the line “Day and night are the female and male nurses…”, she claims that in the

Salok the female nurse has primacy over the male nurse because the female nurse appears before

the male nurse in context of the quoted line in the sloka (The Name of My Beloved 67). This

argument appears to completely ignore the presence of the masculine term “purkahu” meaning

“man” in the earlier line “ape purakhu ape hi nari” and narrowly focuses on the female. If I

were to follow the argument and apply it to the line about the One being both man and woman,

this would mean that woman is actually consort to man, because in the context of “ape purakahu

ape hi nari”, man appears before woman. None of this makes sense in the context of Nikky
 19

Singh’s larger arguments about the One being “beyond all categories” and that “equality between

women and men is one of the basic postulates of the Sikh faith” (Singh, The Feminine Principle

52, 55).

My philosophical disagreements thus far with the thesis of Nikky Singh’s work serve

only the purpose of decentralizing the notion that a feminine principle is central to the Sikh

experience of the Transcendent. I am not in disagreement with recognizing the importance of the

feminine in the writings of Guru Granth; my only caution is that we do not in the process violate

our own desire to emphasize gender equality. Feminine diction, grammar, and imagery, are all

plenty and vital, so that we do not lose herstory in the making and understanding of Sikh history.

For example, in regards to the maternal imagery present in Gurbani, Nikky Singh tells us “The

Sikh maternal imaginary reveals to us the Subject who carries in her womb the power to produce

-- or refuse” (Birth of Khalsa 165). By closely reading the writings of the Sikh Gurus we have to

purposely bring out the feminine and other human characteristics that are altered or completely

dismissed by the traditionalist masculine translations.6 Furthermore, as Nikky Singh duly notes,

by emphasizing the nature of gender equality present in the words and works of the Sikh Gurus

and not being reflective of our own attitudes and practices, Sikhs have effectively blinded

themselves to the nature of their abuse of women.7 Having said this, I am critical of arguments

that decentralize the masculine only to centralize the feminine, as the focus on either violates the

egalitarian nature of Sikhi in Gurbani.

The Sikh existentialist praxis of love is central to an understanding of Sikhi. Nikky Singh

explains that the guru appropriates “love as the highest form of action” and that “they alone who

6
Singh, Nikky-Guninder Kaur. The Birth of the Khalsa: A Feminist Re-memory of Sikh
Identity. Albany: State U of New York, 2005. Print. 156.
7
Ibid. 185.
 20

love, find the Beloved” (Birth of Khalsa 165). Only through this praxis of love is the egalitarian

principle of gender equality realized. This is why Nikky Singh claims that Guru Nanak’s vision

of the Transcendent disclosed to him the commonness and oneness of his fellow-beings - men

and women - which was to become the ethical paradigm for him and for his followers”

(Feminine Principle 28). Till the principle of love is not brought into practice, inequalities and

discriminations of all kind continue to be problematic. Nevertheless, the concept of love can

become problematic if discussions of divine or human love or the nature of human love are

entertained, as can be seen through the problems faced by the homosexual community. Therefore

an analysis of the various representations of love in the Sikh canon and literature becomes

necessary. I will pick up on this subject in Chapter Three, through an analysis of the various

representations of love in the Sikh canon and literature.

Nikky Singh states that gender equality is a fundamental aspect of the Sikh faith. Aside

from the scriptural references and some of the actions of the Gurus, this idea is verified in the

ethnographic study, The Guru’s Gift, by Cynthia Mahmoud and Stacy Brady. In fact, they make

the following statement:

Living in the context of an ongoing women’s movement in North America, these

women nevertheless seek their equality not through Canadian or American

feminism but through Sikhism - and not as an innovation within Sikhism but as a

reclamation of something they perceive as already there. (8)

Sikh ethics, in the form of Sikh existentialism, is fully capable in and of itself in

advocating gender equality. In the following chapter I will develop the concept of Sikh

existentialism as a philosophy centered on the concept of love, which is capable of providing

responses to ethical issues such as gender equality. As Nikky Singh notes when talking about the
 21

bride groom analogy later in her book, Guru Nanak is talking about the human and only the

human, not any particular gender, when she states: “the very fact that the male Gurus identify

with the female affirms a human situation” (Feminine Principle 92).

4. Issues Regarding Gender Equality in the Sikh Community

There are a couple of issues that have not been addressed in this chapter that are worth

considering. First, someone paying attention to Sikh history could claim that Guru Gobind

Singh’s creation of the Khalsa was a violent act and such a creation violates the peace-loving

nature of ideas contained in the writings of the first five Gurus. It is not within the scope of this

thesis for me to fully elaborate how the first and the tenth Guru’s actions and ideas are not in

conflict, but I will briefly defer to the ideas expressed by Nikky Singh in her The Birth of the

Khalsa: A Feminist Re-memory of Sikh identity. Through extensive analysis of the writings of the

tenth Guru and the first Guru, she states that “Nanak’s Jap and Gobind’s Jaap mingle, echo, and

coincide as they place love into the very womb of language. The infinite body of Love - preet

preete (Jaap, verse 68) - opens our bodies so that we revel together” (Birth of Khalsa 165). Part

of the explanation of seeing continuity from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh is each

individual’s interpretation, especially in the words they choose. Instead of seeing the creation of

the Khalsa as a violent act, she sees it as an act of heroism, and explains:

...love and heroism are not antithetical approaches -- the former is not chosen by

the ‘peace-loving’ Nanak or the latter by the ‘warrior guru.’ They are not contrary

movements, for love is not a withdrawal and stepping back into one’s own space,

nor is heroism a charging and stepping ahead into another’s space. And they are

not bifurcated into either ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ characteristics. Both love and

heroism are basic hormones essential to life. They flow out together from the
 22

primal Sikh experience in the River Bein, and they are both suffused in bani.

(Birth of Khalsa 164)

When we look at the bani of Guru Gobind Singh, Nikky Singh says that “Guru Gobind Singh’s

Swayyais rhythmically repeat that without love, all religious practices are ineffective.” This

expression is so much so that Nikky Singh claims “The hymns of the Khalsa are grounded in the

powerful passion and intimacy between us and our Divine” (Birth of Khalsa 165). This is the

same intimacy that we will discover in Chapter Three in the analysis of the Sikh canon and

literature.

The second problem that we have hinted at but not thoroughly discussed is the glaring

gap between theory and practice, in particular, the gender equality advocating ideas versus the

gender equality violating acts in the patriarchal setup of many Sikh families. Nikky Singh is

reflective of this as she states, “In fact, the more clearly we remember the egalitarian birth of the

Khalsa in Anandpur, the more intensely we are disturbed by the tragic inequities prevailing in

our homes and in our communities, and the more urgently we need to react to eradicate them”

(Singh, The Birth of the Khalsa 191). In response to the practical inequality, many people such

as Sukhminder, lay the blame on Punjabi culture and see a separation between Sikhi and Punjabi

culture:

I am into the [Punjabi] culture big time and some people have come to me and

said, ‘You dance and dancing is wrong. A Sikh girl should not be dancing!’ I am

totally against this. I will do what I want to do and no one is going to be able to

tell me and say I am wrong for doing this because in Sikhism everything is out in
 23

the open and that is important to me. Show me where dancing is something that

goes against the divine spirit. (Brady and Mahmood 12).

As Brady and Mahmood had already told us, the women they interviewed perceive their gender

equality as arising from within Sikhi. However, what is it in Sikhi that enables someone such as

Sukhminder to state “I will do what I want to do…show me where dancing is something that

goes against the divine spirit”? My explanation is that this is due to the existentialist nature of

Sikhi, and this is why exploring Sikh existentialism becomes immensely important. The

subjective nature of Sikh existentialism becomes both a cure and a poison, because it is the

subjectivity of existentialism that allows one person to claim that women are free to do what they

want, while someone else to assert narrow and restrictive ideas, such as the notion that women

should be subservient to men, due to each of their interpretations of Gurbani.8 However, we will

see in Chapter Two how such restrictive interpretations, which are manifestations of the

manmukh state of mind, are actually contrary to the ideas contained in Sikh existentialism.

8
Jakobsh, Doris. Relocating Gender in Sikh History: Transformation Gender in Sikh
History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
 24

Chapter Two: Sikh Existentialism

But what we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the

universe give a shit what happens to us—not the collective idea of

sentient life but each of us, as individuals. (Green 281)

The mystical idea of the universe caring about the individual is a central theme in Guru

Granth Sahib. This is because Sikhi is Guru Nanak’s qualified pantheism. In these terms, Sikhi

believes in a concept of God in which God is both immanent in and transcendent of Creation. As

Nikky Singh writes, “The Transcendent is everywhere without being contained in anything as

such” (Feminine Principle 40). The immanence of God is what allows for a meaningful

connection between the Creator and Creation, while the transcendent nature of God is what

allows for the union of human beings with God. This is how the pantheistic nature of Sikhi

along with its mysticality forms Sikh existentialism. Hence, at the outset we must admit what is

obvious: Sikh existentialism must be a theistic existentialism. To build an understanding of a

Sikh existentialism, the terms “theistic” and “existentialism” need to be defined and placed in the

context of Sikhi.

1. Theism and Its Importance in Sikhi

The term theistic tells us that there must be an It or God or whatever personal name one

may assign to the It that has created what we know as our extant universe. The existence of an It

in Sikhi ought to be emphasized, given Arvind-pal Mandair’s recent scholarship on this subject.

He has argued that “one can technically be an ‘atheist’ and still strive for a gurmukh state, since

the basis of Sikhi has little or nothing to do with belief in a divine deity” (Sikhism Ch. 6). There
 25

are two separate and vital concepts in Mandair’s assertion: (1) anyone, even an atheist, can strive

for Guru Nanak’s ideal human state, gurmukh; and (2) the concept of a divine deity is irrelevant

to Sikhi. Combined, this is possibly one of the most powerful statements made in Sikh studies to

date. It is therefore important to understand both why and how this statement is made, and to call

attention to the flaws inherent in it.

It is possible for anyone to strive to be a gurmukh; however, this does not make the

second part of Mandair’s assertion true. In fact, the second part of Mandair’s statement,

regarding the lack of importance of a divine deity, is false. The theist aspect of Sikh

existentialism relies on and will be explained through this understanding.

Mandair sets out the objective for his work at the outset:

The perspective that I am seeking should not only be suited to Sikh and non-Sikh

sensibilities alike, but more importantly it should allow readers to connect their

own lived experiences today to the poetry of the Sikh Gurus, to begin to

understand why they felt it necessary to produce such writings, and to apply these

to the contemporary world. (Sikhism Ch. 5)

This broader concern provides the context for why Mandair’s work focuses on realizing Oneness

solely as a mode of ego-loss. The trend in modern culture has been toward secularist thought or

thought in which “God is dead,” as Nietzsche once put it; however, to assume that an ethics or a

philosophy built on a concept of a personal God, never mind its abstractness, cannot or will not

be able to relate to the contemporary world, is equivalent to arguing that atheists do not have

anything meaningful to say about ethics, or cannot live ethically.9 It is therefore important to

9
Mandair claims in one of his other works that “though rarely considered, one consequence of
locking the discourse of ethics into a belief system is that it has prevented contemporary Sikhism and
individual Sikhs from adequately responding to the complex variety of ethical questions now being
raised” (Religion and the Specter of the West 237).
 26

recognize the seriousness of dismissing the concept of a divine deity in Sikhi and the

implications of doing so.

In developing ideas about Sikh philosophy, Arvind-pal Mandair’s work anticipates these

challenges clearly:

This is not to get rid of a personal God. Indeed reference to a ‘personal God’ who

takes infinite names, abounds in the hymns of the Gurus. Rather it is to suggest

that the notion of a personal deity is the result of an experience that comes up

against the limits of language and should therefore be understood in a radically

different way. It means that the object of the Gurus’ teaching (hence the subject

matter of what we call Sikh philosophy) is existence itself, and that this existence,

which is identical to non-existence, is neither different from, nor the same as,

what we ordinarily term by God. (Sikhism Ch. 6)

The assertion that the concept of a personal God is an invention due to the limits of language, is

swift and powerful, but both historically and philosophically inaccurate. If Guru Granth Sahib

had been comprised solely of the writings of Sikh Gurus, from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind

Singh, then it may have been possible, though still difficult, to strongly argue for this

interpretation; however, as is the case, Guru Granth Sahib is also comprised of the writings of

Sufi saints and as well as other bhagats and writers, many of whom existed well before Guru

Nanak. To argue that Guru Nanak’s beloved is a non-existent beloved would also have to suggest

that the representation of a beloved in all cases in Guru Granth Sahib is, logically, a non-existent

beloved.
 27

There is a set of requirements in terms of consistency in the writings of the Sikh Gurus

and other writers included in Guru Granth Sahib. Pashaura Singh provides a thorough

explanation of the process of inclusion of writings within Guru Granth Sahib:

This process began with a sifting through the writings of those bhagats who

shared the Sikh theological vision, a vision that involved a belief in one God

(Akal Purakh) beyond all form and sectarian garb, the basic equality of human

beings, the doctrine of the word, the spiritual discipline of nam simaran, the

doctrine of God as true Guru immanent in human soul, the company of the saintly

people, and the emphasis upon true inner religiosity. Those hymns that did not

conform to these ideals were rejected in preliminary scrutiny (The Guru Granth

Sahib 183).

As we have here, a core requirement is a broad doctrine of monotheism, which suggests the

existence of the One. Whether a Sufi saint like Sheikh Farid believes in a monotheistic God, or a

bhagat like Ravi Das believes in a pantheistic God, becomes irrelevant in the context of Guru

Nanak’s understanding of this Oneness, which is a broad doctrine of monotheism. This may be

why Mandair argues for the irrelevance of categories such as theism and atheism, or in this case

monotheism or pantheism, as Sikhi has its own superior terminology to discuss such issues:

namely, sargun and nirgun. In fact, in theistic terms, Guru Nanak’s broad doctrine of

monotheism is best understood in the context of a pantheistic conception, because pantheism is

able to encompass both the Hindu and Muslim aspects of the Divine, the former being sargun

(with attributes, immanent) and the latter nirgun (without attributes, transcendent). It is the

interpretation of these two terms that is at the heart of the philosophical difference between
 28

Mandair’s and my interpretation of Sikh philosophy, a difference that I will return to later as I

discuss the mystical dimension of Sikh existentialism.

A large problem confronting Sikh studies currently is the direct appropriation of Western

concepts into discussions about Sikhi, without reflecting on the suitability of such an

appropriation in the Sikh context, as we saw in the previous chapter with regards to feminism.

Arvind-pal Mandair suggests as much while discussing the interaction between Sikh reformers

and colonialism, when he says that their construction of a Sikh worldview “was instrumental in

transforming an amorphous Sikhi into the more concrete, boundarified entity that we call Sikhism

today”. This, I would argue, is more of a reason to analyze the mystical nature of Sikhi, for it is

the mysticism of Sikhi that forms its existentialism. It is due to this amorphousness of Sikhi that

“the teachings of the Sikh Gurus [are] existential-affective as opposed to merely conceptual and

therefore speak to a lived existence” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 5). Instead of embracing this

amorphous nature of Sikhi and explaining it in its existential terms, early Sikh reformers such as

the Singh Sabha writers allowed “indigenous terms such as Sikhi, Sikh dharam, gurmat or Panth

to be translated as Sikhism” (Mandair, Sikhism Introduction). This problem has not disappeared

in current times, as we see it ever-present in discussions of feminism and Sikhi, whether it is in

Nikky Singh’s The Feminine Principle or in the debates at the new Sikh Feminist Research

Institute (SAFAR). In fact, while attending one of SAFAR’s events in 2012, I was able to

observe a discussion among Sikh feminists and scholars about the need for defining what it

means to be a Sikh feminist; the primary proponent for such a redefinition of feminism in a Sikh

context was Jakeet Singh, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Illinois State University.

Sikh existentialism must be framed in a Sikh context, without which both the terms Sikh

and existentialism risk losing all meaning. This means that I will have to first illuminate my
 29

insistence on the existence of the concept of an It in Sikhi. I chose the word “It” because the

particular form of God is ambiguous in the Sikh context, as is evident by the term Akal Moorat---

Timeless in form (Singh, Verse of the Sikh Gurus 51). There are no other pronouns that can

describe the existence of It, as all of them refer to gender and/or plurality. My use of It is

represented in Gurbani by Naam; Naam serves as this non-existent pronoun or as a name, and

encompasses all pronouns and proper nouns previously used, such as Raam, God, Allah, etc. To

properly comprehend my discussion of the presence of an It in the mul mantar, here is the

mantar in a transliterated form, together with the translation provided by Nikky Singh:

Ik Oankar

Sat Naam

Karta Purakh

Nirbhao

Nirvair

Akal Moorat

Ajooni

Sai Bhang

Gurprasad

There is One Being

Truth by Name

Primal Creator

Without fear

Without enmity

Timeless in Form
 30

Unborn

Self-existent

The grace of the Guru. (The Name of My Beloved 51)

In Gurmukhi, what is represented in the transliterated Ik is actually the numeral 1. What the

numeral 1 means is quite clear: one. What Oankar and especially Ik Oankar means cannot

become clear without the context of the entire mul mantar. Mandair begins his discussion of the

central ideas in Sikh philosophy by focusing on the mul mantar and the first five stanzas of the

Jap Ji, because according to him these compositions “articulate some of the key concepts that

become foundational to Sikh philosophy” (Sikhism Ch. 5). These particular stanzas are

important, but the mul mantar plays an especially important role in Sikh philosophy. This is

because, as Gurinder Singh Mann notes, “the Sikh invocation [mul mantar] at the opening of

each rag section and at each subsection in the Adi Granth…serves a structural purpose” (Mann,

Sikh Scripture 101). The mul mantar appears in a few variations throughout Guru Granth Sahib;

however, two elements of it do not ever change. These, Mann notes, are “1 Oankar, marking the

unity of God, and gurprasadi, indicating the role of the Guru” (Sikh Scripture 101). This is

where Mandair’s work loses sight of the larger idea in the mul mantar, as his entire discussion

builds upon a focused view of Ik, and never explains or revisits the remaining terms in the mul

mantar in relation to the opening phrase Ik Oankar.

It is important to analyze some of the terms in the mul mantar here. The word karta refers

to a doer or a creator. The term purakh here is suggestive of a being, and due to its masculine

root a masculine being; however, in the context of the full mul mantar, the masculine root loses

meaning. The next two words appear to be qualitative, meaning without fear and hatred. We

discussed akal moorat earlier, but moorat here is feminine. The next two terms, ajooni and sai
 31

bhang, appear to be addressing an age-old philosophical problem of an infinite regress of causes.

In fact, Guru Nanak does present us with a cosmology that addresses this philosophical problem

in the form of the Shabad “Arbad narbad dhundukara” (M1, GGS 1035). This Shabad is

explained by Kohli as, “the Guru says that for millions of years there were was darkness all

around. There was neither earth nor sky...When it was His will, he created the world, stretched

the wide expanse without prop…” (Kohli 82). The cosmology is also discussed in Guru Nanak’s

Asa Ki Vaar, “Aapinai aap saajeo” (M1, GGS 463). Both these Shabads elaborate on the

concepts of ajooni and sai bhang in the mul mantar. This is an important point to consider, for if

we repeat the process of comparing various Shabads to the mul mantar, we find that almost

every time, if not always, every Shabad in Guru Granth Sahib can be related back to the mul

mantar; this is why it is called the mul mantar (the root or fundamental formula) in the Sikh

traditional lexicon. This is the structural purpose of the mul mantar at which Mann hints.

At the risk of being accused of being too literal in my understanding of these terms in the

mul mantar, by ignoring the limits of language, it is important to note Guru Nanak’s own clear

insistence on the existence of an It in the following Shabad:

Ŧuḏẖ bin ḏūjā nāhī ko▫e.

Ŧū karṯār karahi so hoe.

Ŧerā jor ṯerī man tek.

Saḏā saḏā jap Nānak ek. ||1||

There is no other than You.

You are the Creator; whatever You do, that happens.

You are the strength, and You are the support of the mind.

Forever and ever, meditate, O Nanak, on the One. ||1|| (M1, GGS, 723)
 32

Lastly, Guru Granth Sahib does inform us that Creator and Creation are quite literally One,

through Bhagat Kabir’s statement:

Aval alah nūr upā▫i▫ā kuḏraṯ ke sabẖ banḏe.

Ėk nūr ṯe sabẖ jag upji▫ā ka▫un bẖale ko manḏe. ||1||

Logā bẖaram na bẖūlahu bẖāī.

Kẖālik kẖalak kẖalak mėh kẖālik pūr rahi▫o sarab ṯẖāʼnī. ||1|| rahā▫o.

First, Allah created the Light; then, by His Creative Power, He made all mortal

beings.

From the One Light, the entire universe welled up. So who is good, and who is

bad? ||1||

O people, O Siblings of Destiny, do not wander deluded by doubt.

The Creation is in the Creator, and the Creator is in the Creation, totally pervading

and permeating all places. ||1||Pause|| (GGS 1349)

There are many more Shabads from Guru Granth Sahib which explain this concept of the

Creator and Creation being one. Going through the mul mantar, it becomes clear that Oankar is

being clarified more and more in personal human terms, or as Mandair puts it, as a personal God.

His particular use of the term personal God to argue that the conception of an It is entirely due to

an appropriation of Western theological conceptions is in itself a misappropriation of the term

personal God here. This is because the term personal God is not actually sufficient in explaining

the experience being relayed by Guru Nanak in the mul mantar. Guru Nanak is stating, in a

concentrated form, his existential experience of It, in order to describe his experience as well as

the process of arriving exactly at this experience. Another way of making this claim is to say
 33

that Guru Nanak is explaining his experience of Nirgun through his experience of Sargun. This

leads us to ask: What is nirgun and what is sargun?

According to Mandair, nirgun refers to something that is non-existent and sargun is the

concept of existence. He uses this interpretation of the two terms to develop the statement that

“the basis of Sikhi has little or nothing to do with belief in a divine deity” (Sikhism Ch. 6). So it

is essential to examine what these terms mean, as they appear numerous times in Guru Granth

Sahib. In my analysis of various instances where the term nirgun is employed, I have found that

it consistently has only two types of usage. In the instances where it refers to a person, the

general meaning is a lack of virtues, and is usually used to express humility.10 In the instances

where it refers to It or God, there are three general meanings: (1) transcendent;11 (2) beyond

description, indescribable, unfathomable;12 and (3) primal force.13 One further thing to note here

is that sometimes when It is described as nirgun, It is also represented as sargun in the same

Shabad.14 As Vinay Dharwadker describes in Kabir: A Weaver’s Songs, nirguṇa refers to a “God

(nirguṇa Rāmā) or godhead (Brahman)” that is “without qualities or attributes,” whereas saguṇa

refers to “with qualities, attributes” (Dharwadker 279, 286). Given this range of meanings, as

well as the meaning of these terms as used in Kabir’s poetry, it is not clear why Mandair

consistently refers to nirgun as non-existent. There is a significant distinction between saying “I

10 “Mohi nirgun maṯ thorī▫ā…” (M5, GGS 203)

11 “So▫ī bas ras man mile gun nirgun…” (Ravidas, GGS 346)

12 “Ŧerī nirgun kathā kā▫e si▫o…” (Kabeer, GGS 333)

13
“Nirgun mili▫o vajī vaḏẖā▫ī…” (M5, GGS 392)
14
“Īgẖai nirgun ūgẖai sargun…” (M5, GGS 827)
 34

cannot describe It” and “It does not exist.” It is therefore invalid to claim God to be a non-

existent in Sikh philosophy.

The various instances of nirgun, the manner in which the mul mantar contains references

to God in personal terms, and the way in which the mul mantar plays a central role throughout

Gurbani convey the importance of and the manner in which God appears in Guru Granth Sahib.

It also conveys the radical re-interpretation of key terms that would be required in order to argue

that “the basis of Sikhi has little or nothing to do with belief in a divine deity” (Mandair, Sikhism

Ch. 6).

2. Existentialist Foundation in Sikhi

Existentialism by itself is generally understood in Western, atheistic terms. Since Sikh

existentialism must be theistic, it cannot perfectly transpose onto Western forms of

existentialism, such as that articulated by Jean-Paul Sartre in Existentialism is a Humanism. This

imperfection is also why Sikh will always need to be prepended to existentialism when talking

about existentialism with regard to Sikhi. There are sufficient overlapping ideas between Sikhi

and Western existentialism, grounded in Sartre’s theory, that justify the claim that Sikh ethics is

grounded in existentialism. The primary conceptual similarities are that: (1) a human being

approaches life essentially in human, and not in any other, terms; (2) human beings are free

agents; and (3) human dilemmas are morally subjective, because they are always enveloped by

an environment and a context.

Emerging out of the mul mantar are the first few stanzas of the Jap Ji, which makes it

obvious that “any discourse going by the name ‘Sikh philosophy’ would have to ground itself in

relation to [Guru Nanak’s] direct experience and the possibility that others today can experience

something similar, here and now” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 5). Mandair hence argues further that
 35

“Sikh philosophy would have to locate its authority within an existential as opposed to an

epistemological (=transcendental) perspective”; and that the object of “the Gurus’ teaching

(hence the subject matter of what we call Sikh philosophy) is existence itself” (Sikhism Ch. 5), is

found in Guru Nanak’s statement that “Truth is higher than everything, but higher still is truthful

living.” (Siri, 62; Shan 32). This statement is widely understood by Sikhs to mean that what is at

the core of the experience of being human is the ability to live truthfully, and it is this truthful

existence that becomes a mode of attraction for the Divine. This attraction is depicted by

Mandair’s translation: “The Creator freely unites to Himself, once love is formed for the truth”

(Teachings of Sikh Gurus 5). We have thus established that agency is an important factor in Sikh

existentialism, a topic that I will discuss in greater detail later.

In the first stanza following the mul mantar, Guru Nanak makes two important points.

First, he remarks on the eternal nature of God, as something outside the causal effects of time.

Second, he comments on how an individual can relate to the experience of this God, and in doing

so rejects the sole authoritative status of any and all previous religious and philosophical systems

and praxes. In these lines, Guru Nanak rejects several spiritual practices of the time as a means

of attaining a realization of the Divine: bodily purification,15 maintaining silence in speech,

abstinence from worldly desires, and intellectual efforts. We can further confirm that “Guru

Nanak did not accept any of the existing worldviews” from other parts of Guru Granth Sahib

(Singh, Feminine Principle 171), as evident in his statement that "The Vedas and the Kateb do

not know the mystery” (GGS 1021). The same sentiment is found in the words of Guru Arjan

15 I have translated “sochai” as “purity,” according to the translation provided by Prof. Sahib Singh
in his translational work Guru Granth Darpan. This is consistent with the reference to bodily purification
that appears later in the Jap Ji.
 36

when he says, “He is beyond the world of the Vedas and the Kateb, The Supreme King of Nanak

is immanent and manifest” (GGS 397). Lastly, in order to show the continuity of this idea, Guru

Gobind Singh proclaims, “I have seen religions from all countries, but I have yet to see followers

of the Creator” (Singh, Name of My Beloved 115).

This is not to say that the Sikh Gurus did not think that the Vedas or the Qu’ran could

contain any truth or that they are not revealed by God. We discover, for example, that Guru

Nanak thought that “sacred books are the creation of God...and that reading these divine texts,

therefore, helps save us from evil”; however, at the same time, the Sikh Gurus do not approve of

the ritualistic reading of these scriptures, which they feel “does not generate peace (Paṛi paṛi

dajhahe sati na ai, M1, AG, 1026); instead, it creates arrogance (Ved paṛihe tai vad vakhaṇahe,

M1, AG, 638)” (Mann, Sikh Scripture 11). The Sikh Gurus were not interested in claiming that

the spiritual experience of others was false, otherwise the inclusion of Bhagat Bani in Guru

Granth Sahib would be deeply self-contradictory. In relation to the scriptural authority of the

various scriptures of their time, however, Guru Nanak and the subsequent Gurus “perceived

[themselves] as having access to a higher and more complete truth, which was directly revealed

to [them]...” (Mann, Sikh Scripture 11).

Sikh existentialism cannot exist without this non-acceptance of the authoritative status of

other systems and identities upon the individual. This is best stated by Nikky Singh:

The existentialist nature of the Sikh religion is embodied in the first words

pronounced by Guru Nanak after his mystical encounter with the Divine: ‘There

is no Hindu; There is no Musalman.’ The human being exists essentially,

authentically as a human being, not as a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or a

 37

Buddhist. This message forms the basis of Sikh philosophy. (Feminine Principle

171-172)

This is a radical message for Guru Nanak’s time, as it debases the caste-centered structure of

society, while simultaneously allowing for the advocacy of rights of all humans by

deconstructing markers of identity. Guru Gobind Singh states this idea explicitly as “someone is

Hindu and someone a Muslim, then someone is Shia, and someone a Sunni, but all the human

beings are categorically recognized as one and the same (as human) …” (DG 47). Furthermore,

for the Sikh Gurus, “as in existentialism, systemization is to be denounced; the human being

becomes the central protagonist. It is from this point of view that we discern an existential

perspective in the Sikh religion” (Singh, The Feminine Principle 171). The place of the human

being as the central protagonist is evident from Guru Nanak’s questions, which are always

centered on “What do I do?”

It is at this moment, as a human being, and as having rejected all previous systems, that

Guru Nanak sets upon the path to find meaning in human action. The fundamental existential

question that arises at the end of the first stanza of the Jap Ji is: “How then to be true? How then

to break the wall of lies?” (Singh, Verses Sikh Gurus 51). In recognizing how swiftly Guru

Nanak moves from stating the eternal nature of God to the manner in which one can relate to

God, Nikky Singh duly notes that “the transition from the True Name to true living is immediate

and spontaneous” (Verses Sikh Gurus 5). This immediacy indicates the importance of the

experiential to the Ultimate, because, for Guru Nanak, the eternal nature of God’s existence

makes experiencing Oneness the most crucial attainment of human life. It is in the experiential

that this Oneness can be realized. Human agency is therefore at the core of Sikh existentialism.
 38

Sartre begins with the assumption that God does not exist. Guru Nanak starts with the

assumption that the transcendent and immanent Divine exists (GGS 1). Both try to grapple with

human meaning according to their assumptions. Interestingly, the first principle at which they

both arrive is similar, if not the same. Sartre states that “…man is nothing more than what he

makes of himself. This is the first principle of existentialism” (Sartre 22); whereas Guru Nanak

states that “each individual determines his or her destiny by his or her own action” (GGS 8),

which he also explains with the proverbial phrase, “people reap what they sow” (GGS 4). For

both of them, action through human agency determines what becomes of an individual.

Once we have established the importance of the idea of human beings as free agents in

Sikh existentialism, we need to further explore the implications of these statements by Sartre and

Guru Nanak. What Sartre means is that there are no deterministic forces, or forces outside a

human being, that directly impact the choices or actions that he or she makes. For Sartre this

means that human beings are always responsible for all the choices they make or the actions they

perform. As I have suggested, a similar idea is echoed in Guru Nanak’s words; however, it is

essential to understand that there are two aspects to human agency in Sikhi. First, there is human

agency in relation to the actions that human beings perform in their daily lives. Second, human

agency is related to experience of Oneness or union with God, all of which is related to Divine

Grace. In this second sense, human beings are not free agents, in the sense of being able to

connect with the Divine by their own will; there is an element of Grace involved in achieving

this highest spiritual experience. With regard to the relation of human agency to ethical action,

we consistently find in Guru Granth Sahib that Guru Nanak insists on the fact that human beings

have agency, and that they are fully responsible for ethical action. It is important to note the

distinction between human agency as it relates to the experience of Oneness, and human agency
 39

as it relates to ethical action, because this distinction ultimately connects back to, and justifies,

Mandair’s claim that “anyone, even an atheist, could strive for Guru Nanak’s ideal human state,

gurmukh” (Sikhism Ch. 6). Harnam Singh Shan provides several examples of human agency in

relation to ethical action in Guru Granth Sahib, as follows:

Man has himself to bear the consequences of his good and bad actions. (Shan 62)

We should ourselves arrange our own affairs with our own hands. (Shan 71)

That is being true when one knows how to live truthfully. (Shan 79)

They alone have found the right way who eat what they earn, through toil, and

share their earnings with the needy. (Shan 80)

While Shan provides examples from Gurbani, he is not the only writer to agree with this notion

of human agency. In fact, much of contemporary Sikh scholarship is in agreement with this idea.

For example, Nikky Singh states that “The sacred and the secular, the metaphysical and the

physical, the Divine and the human are not separate at all. The transcendent is actualized in the

daily human acts…” (Sacred and Secular Desire Ch. 1). Now that we have established that

being essentially a human being and being a free agent are fundamental parts of Sikh

existentialism, there are two further points about existentialism according to Sartre left to discuss

before we can discuss the manner in which love forms the core of human agency as it relates to

ethical or daily life.

The kind of existentialism that Sartre talks about also requires an understanding that

“there is no human nature” (Sartre 22). This means that there is no preconceived or pre-existing

essence of human beings that allows us to dismiss acts such as murder, theft, or dishonesty as

inevitable and part of human nature. Also, it means that there is no concept of inherent goodness

or badness of human beings prior to their birth. Guru Nanak’s way of stating this exact
 40

sentiment is “I am not good. No one is bad” (GGS 728). This statement, as literally translated,

appears as a possible self-contradiction. One may think that “no one is bad” would mean that

human nature is such that everyone is good, and it would appear that Guru Nanak is claiming

that such a thing as human nature exists. This cannot be, because Guru Nanak also says, “I am

not good.” In order for the statement “No one is bad” to be a tautology about human nature, it

would have to be true in all instances, including that of the person making the statement. Guru

Nanak instead starts with the statement, “I am not good,” which creates an ambiguity about

human nature. With this ambiguity follows the necessary subjectivity of moral dilemmas that

humans face, for we can never judge whether someone or something is good or bad in all

instances. Sartre echoes this inherent subjectivity of human experience when he says that

existentialism is a doctrine in which “every truth and every action imply an environment and a

human subjectivity” (18).

The lack of any assumption of human nature and the statement regarding the subjectivity

of the human condition are both interrelated because they are bound by the idea that it is the

human being who comes into the world, and only after having come into the world may make

something of him/herself. In the composition of the Sikh Gurus, we constantly find them

addressing their man (self) or tan (body) about what it has done since coming into the world.

One direct example of this is found in Guru Amardas’s composition Anand Sahib, where he says,

“O my body, why have you come into this world? What actions have you committed?” (“Ė

sarīrā meri▫ā is jag mėh ā▫e kai,” M3, GGS, 922). As proposed earlier and clarified now, the

Sikh Gurus are committed to the idea that human beings are free to act in the manner in which

they wish to act, and to make of themselves and of their lives as they wish. For the Gurus,

though, human action should be directed in a manner that will allow a person to be worthy of
 41

Grace, and to achieve union with the Divine or It. Although the Gurus state that Divine union

should be the highest purpose of human life, they do simultaneously emphasize the freedom of

human action. This is why, in the Salok that concludes and summarizes the Jap Ji, Guru Nanak

says, “According to their own actions, some are drawn closer, and some are driven farther away”

(“Karmī āpo āpṇī ke neṛai ke ḏūr,” M1, GGS, 8). This supports Mandair’s claim that, “one can

technically be an ‘atheist’ and still strive for a gurmukh state” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 6). What

this gurmukh state is will be explored further below; however, as atheism is not the objective of

Sikh existentialism, it is necessary to refocus on the mysticism.

Ethical human action is independent of Grace; however, it is also mystically related to

achieving Grace. To be able to achieve Oneness spiritually, one needs divine Grace. In order to

be worthy of that divine Grace, one needs to have experienced Oneness on the worldly level.

This is how the sacred and the secular intertwine in Sikhi. What does it mean to achieve

Oneness on the worldly level? Achieving Oneness is identical to becoming a gurmukh, and as

Mandair puts it, “it is a state of being-in-the-world where plurality punctures one’s sense of

individuality, which is not true oneness at all, and where one’s actions are spontaneous”

(Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 1). This is understood as a psychological state in which there “emerges an

unconditional and infinite love for one’s fellow human beings and respect for all life” (Mandair,

Sikhism Ch. 1). According to Nikky Singh, “the mystical experience in Sikhism is not apart or

separate from the everyday; rather, the deeper the awareness of the Transcendent, the more

vibrant is the participation in the secular world” (The Name of My Beloved 14).

3. Love in Sikh Existentialism

The sense of becoming worthy of Grace through the actions one commits in life is found

abundantly in Guru Granth Sahib, especially in the Shabads relating to the bride’s love for her
 42

beloved. One example is found in the stanza that is the conceptual core (rehaao or refrain) of a

Shabad by Guru Arjan, and which deserves to be quoted:

Aasaa, Fifth Mehl:

The bride shows such special devotion, and has such an agreeable disposition.

Her beauty is incomparable, and her character is perfect.

The house in which she dwells is such a praiseworthy house.

But rare are those who, as Gurmukh, attain that state||1||

As the soul-bride of pure actions, I have met with the Guru.

In worship, marriage and in the next world, such a soul-bride looks beautiful.

(M5, GGS, 370)

The term used for the type of soul-bride16 is suhaagan, and the most important attribute of this

gurmukh is that he or she can be metaphorically considered to be a suhaagan only if he or she is

among those “who embrace love for the beloved” (“Sahīā se sohāgaṇī jin sah nāl piār jīo,” M1,

GGS, 71). The sacred love for the Divine is realized as gurmukh, in secular terms, as a love for

Creation. This love is achieved when “the ego's wall is broken by orienting the self towards a

divine imperative”, but the trick in the understanding and following of the imperative is that “the

ego itself must become silent so that one no longer says ‘I am my self’” (Mandair, Teachings of

the Sikh Gurus 0.2.2). Most importantly, the ego no longer “sees itself in opposition to others, in

opposition to the cosmos” (Nikky Singh, The Name of My Beloved 10). It is important to note

16 For the Sikh Gurus, all human beings are soul-brides in the context of the Shabads that talk about
the destiny of a bride. However, it is important to note that “The Sikh Gurus desire the divine One, and
feel it joyously as father and mother; as groom and as bride; as friend, brother, and sister...” (Singh, Of
Secular and Sacred Desire Introduction).
 43

this concept of no longer “centering on ‘I,’ ‘me’ and ‘mine,’” (Singh, The Name of My Beloved

10), because this idea arises again in Puran Singh’s conceptions about love in Chapter Three.

There are many intricacies in how ego, action, divine imperative, and language interact

with each other in Guru Nanak’s teachings. Mandair explains these ideas thoroughly in his two

books, Teachings of the Sikh Gurus and Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed. It is important to

emphasize that the concept of love, something that remains to a certain extent unexplored in

Mandair’s work, plays a central role in the mysticality of Sikh existentialism. Love becomes the

center through which human action is to be performed. In fact, we find this idea in the fourth

stanza of the Jap Ji itself; and elsewhere we find the Guru saying, “...Make love your pen and

mind the writer… Siri, 16” (Shan 55). Nikky Singh’s translation of the fourth stanza of Jap Ji

effectively leads into my next chapter, in which I will explore the various representations of love

and desire in the Sikh canon.

The True Sovereign, Truth by Name,

infinite love the language.

Seekers forever seek gifts

and the Giver gives more and more.

What can we offer for a glimpse of the Court?

What can we say to win divine love?

In the ambrosial hour, exalt and reflect upon the True Name.

Through actions each is dressed in a body,

but liberation comes only from the Gaze of grace.

Says Nanak, know the Absolute thus. (Singh, The Name of My Beloved 52-53)
 44

The first set of questions that arises in the Jap Ji, which I addressed earlier, was: ““How then to

be true? How then to break the wall of lies?” (Singh, Verses of the Sikh Gurus 51). The answer

was that one has to overcome one’s ego by attuning oneself to the Divine imperative, to a point

where one does not see oneself as separate from others. The function of the second and third

stanzas is to indicate the extent to which everything that is extant is in accordance with the

Divine imperative (hukam) -- “the law of impermanence” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 5). In the

fourth stanza, then, the question becomes: what can a human being do to relate to God, if

everything already belongs to God? In this context, sacrifices and rituals lose all meaning. What

becomes relevant is that infinite love is the language of the Divine, and it is not devotional acts

of rituals and sacrifices that will allow one to “glimpse the [King’s] Court.” Communication with

the Divine requires a human being to act in, with, and out of love. Although the mysticism does

not become evident in the English translation, here the eighth line, “karmi aavai kapra,” is a

metaphorical dressing of the body through one’s actions, so to appear beautiful in order to seduce

the Divine. After all, the question is, “What can we say to win Divine love?” The focus is on

winning Divine love. This seduction of the Divine is a concept that I will revisit in the next

chapter. In the progression of the Jap Ji, two interrelated, central concepts arise: (1) it is essential

to cease to be ego-centered, by attuning oneself to the Divine; and (2) it is equally vital to act in

love. Acting in love actually becomes the act of attuning oneself to the Divine imperative. This

is why Guru Nanak says, “blessed is that fortunate bride, who is in love with her [Beloved]”

(“Nānak ḏẖan suhāgaṇī jin sah nāl piār,” M1, GGS, 19).
 45

Chapter Three: The Centrality of Love and Desire

The Sikh mystical journey is not a journey away from our

world. Rather, it is grounded in and of this earth. It is here in our

everyday existence that we develop our moral, intellectual,

aesthetic and spiritual capacities and experience the Ultimate

Reality. The journey begins and ends in love for fellow beings, an

immersion into our particular and material and secular world, and

an insight into beauty and intimate relationships here and now.

(Singh, The Name of My Beloved 17)

1. Analysis of the Sikh canon

The preceding chapter discussed how love forms the core of Sikh existentialism. In this

chapter I will explore the various representations of love and desire in the Sikh canon. We will

see through the following discussion that desire is not wholly separate from love, but has a vital

role in the experience of love itself. In the select bride groom Shabads that I analyze here, the

term desire does not explicitly show up, but the concept of desiring is implicitly present

throughout. I will analyze select poems from the Sikh canon and literature in the following

manner. The analysis begins with bride and groom Shabads within Guru Granth Sahib.

Following this is an analysis of Vaar 27 by Bhai Gurdas, where I begin to problematize the issue

of human and divine love. Nand Lal’s poetry will be utilized to address some of these issues,

and this will conclude the survey of the Sikh canon. We will then look at some Sikh literature

that is technically outside of the Sikh canon but is celebrated enough within the Sikh community

to be worthy of scholarly attention. Here I begin by analyzing a play by Puran Singh, a

celebrated twentieth-century Sikh mystic and poet, in which he relays his philosophy of love.
 46

Then I briefly analyze two short poems by Vir Singh, a highly recognized poet, author, and

scholar within the Sikh community during the twentieth century.

The purpose of analyzing these poems is to understand how they fit within the context of

what we have discussed so far, as well as to key in on particular terms and phrases that are

used. The first poem from Guru Granth Sahib analyzed below is one Nikky Singh has titled as

“The Fish and the Ruby” in her translation.

You are the enjoyer, you are the joy,

You are the ravisher too;

You are the bride in her dress,

You are the spouse on the nuptial bed.

My beloved is dyed in love – Fully permeating everyone!

You are the fisherman, you are the fish,

You are the waters, you are the trap;

You are the weight that holds the net,

You are the lost ruby swallowed by the fish.

My love is imbued

In a myriad colors, my friends.

The virtuous bride perpetually enjoys her spouse,

But here am I sitting all alone!

Says Nanak, this is my plea: join me with you!

You are the pool, you are the swan,

You are the lotus in the day,

You are the lily of the night,

 47

You watch them, you rejoice! (GG: 23) (Singh, Of Sacred and Secular Desire

Ch. 1)

As identified earlier, the saguna form of the One is plentiful in Guru Granth Sahib. This is

expressed as “the One in its saguna aspect inheres in the entire cosmos” (Singh, The Feminine

Principle 65). Examples of the saguna forms are clear through the expressions of It is the bride,

It is the groom, It is the fisherman, and It is the fish. This description is akin to what one would

expect in the madness of love, in which a person sees their beloved in everything around them

and the only thing on their mind is their beloved. Every discussion, every thought, every thing,

and every action is a reminder of their beloved. This madness of love is discussed elsewhere

when Naam Dev, in addressing society, says “I am crazy - the Lord is my Husband” (“Mai baurī

merā rām bẖaṯār,” Naam Dev, GGS, 1164). As Kohli reminds us, “If the arrows of love pierce

the body, there is no remedy with any doctor in the world. But without love, the body is like a

heap of ashes” (Kohli 62). In this mad state of love, one does everything to appease their

beloved by beautifying and decorating oneself (“Racẖ racẖ ṯā kao karao singār,” Naam Dev,

GGS, 1164). The element of beauty is seen in this Shabad through the “ruby,” the “bride in her

dress,” the “spouse on the nuptial bed,” the “lotus,” and the “lily.” Beauty is expressed both in

terms of nature and in terms related to human intimacy, bringing the experience of Oneness with

the cosmos and oneness in human intimacy closer in relation.

Focusing on the intimate terms, though, we observe some innuendos. She is in her bridal

dress, and he is sitting on the nuptial bed. What else does a newlywed couple do on the night of

their wedding? However, at the end of the composition, she is sitting all alone without him,

desiring him, and wanting that experience of oneness with him. Maybe he partied too hard

earlier or maybe he does not desire her. This type of deserted bride, one not desired, is
 48

elsewhere referred to as duhagan (“Parem bicẖẖohu ḏuhāgaṇī ḏarisat na karī rām jīo,” M5,

GGS, 928). The suhagan, or the virtuous and happy bride, is the one who is perpetually enjoying

her beloved. The duhagan’s desire to become a suhagan is epitomized when she asks “How

have you enjoyed your Dear Beloved? O sister, please teach me, please show me” (“Lālan rāviā

kavan gaṯī rī,” M5, GGS, 739). In fact the duhagan becomes so desperate in her desire for her

beloved that she is willing to do and give anything and everything just to meet “the [Love] of

[her] life, for even an instant” (“Ik nimakẖ milāvhu mohi parānpaṯī rī,” M5, GGS, 739). This

plea to the sister reads like a Dear Abby column, and the answer that Abby gives at the end is

“eradicate [your] self-conceit,” your ahunbudh (the intellect centered on I), and you will become

a suhagan, “the [virtuous] soul-bride” (“Māṇ ṯāṇ ahaʼnbuḏẖ haṯī rī,” M5, GGS, 739). As

discussed earlier, love in Sikh existentialism is actualized through human agency, and here we

find its clearest expression is in the puncturing of individuality through the experience of

plurality, through the experience of sargun, and ultimately through the eradication of the

obsession over “I.” Clearly, all of this is a reference to the human experience being used as a

metaphor for the divine experience. But what are we to make of this metaphor? Are the two

loves, the human and the divine, equatable? Or is one being sublimated to the other? What are

we to make of “you are the joy”? Is not the “joy” the ecstatic, climactic moment of intimate

experience? Often the traditionalist approach to interpretation of Shabads such as this have

attempted to sidestep the human experience altogether by sublimating human passion into divine

passion, human desire into divine desire, and ultimately human love into divine love. The

subtleties and intricacies in the textual instances of the human experience within Gurbani are

carefully avoided by most traditional kathavachiks (oral exegetes); finding a kathavachik that

discusses these human components is as rare as the suhagan.

 49

The translation of the second Shabad from Guru Granth Sahib that I present here is titled

by Nikky Singh as “Be Like the Bride.”

If we forget our beloved for an instant,

We suffer terribly.

If you are not lodged in our minds,

How will we be honored at your door?

By meeting the Guru, we find peace,

By divine praise, devouring fires burn out.

O my mind, remember divine virtues day and night.

Those who never forget you Are rare in this world!

With our light merged in yours – Our consciousness tuned in with yours,

Violence and selfishness slip away;

There is no more doubt or sorrow.

Those whose hearts hold the One,

The Guru leads them to their divine union.

If we make our body like that of a bride,

The Enjoyer will take pleasure in us;

Do not fall in love with anything

That is fleeting.

The virtuous are like an auspicious wife: She enjoys the divine spouse on her bed.

The four fires are extinguished

By the waters from the divine font;

A lotus blooms wide inside,

 50

Thirst is quenched by an ambrosial flow.

Says Nanak, befriend the Guru,

So you will receive truth at the divine door. (Singh, Of Sacred and Secular Desire

Ch.1)

The suffering that is experienced is that of the duhagan when she forgets her beloved and

becomes immersed in “I.” When there is “I,” It is not there, but when It is there, I am not. These

expressions are found in both Guru Nanak’s writing and Bhagat Kabir’s, as Mandair explains

that “God (or the experience of the One) and ego cannot be in the same place at the same time”

(Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 1). His translation of Kabir’s thought is as follows:

When I am, Hari is not.

Now Hari is, and I am no more.

By saying ‘You, You’ I have become You

‘I am’ is in me no longer. (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 1)

Therefore, only when ‘It’ is in the lover’s mind, and not the ego, can one obtain honor at ‘It’s’

door. The moment of meeting the Guru is the moment of meeting one’s beloved, which is what

brings peace to the duhagan. The ‘devouring fires’ can be interpreted in consonance with what

we have discussed so far: the ego-centered nature of the self. Ultimately in this discussion of the

ego, the Shabad concludes “Those whose hearts hold the One, The Guru leads them to their

divine union.” The relationship between human agency and Grace, which was discussed in

Chapter Two, becomes crystallized here. The human being has the agency to replace the “I”

with One through his/her saguna experience, which makes the human being worthy of the Grace,

and which ultimately leads to the spiritual experience of divine union.

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In the second half of the Shabad, the discussion reverts back to the metaphor of human

experience through becoming like the bride. It is when one becomes suhagan that It enjoys us;

here is the innuendo yet again. She is reminded not to fall in love with the ego or even with the

materiality of the saguna experience, as all of it is transient and will come to an end. This is a

reminder that everything is subject to time, the Divine imperative, other than the Eternal. This

reminder of the saguna experience is found elsewhere when Kabir says “You tear off the leaves,

O gardener, but in each and every leaf, there is life” (“Pāṯī ṯorai mālini pāṯī pāṯī jīo,” Kabir,

GGS, 479), but Kabir at the same time warns against idol worship when he jests at the practice of

it and says, "The sculptor carves the stone and fashions it into an idol, placing his feet upon its

chest. If this stone god was true, it would devour the sculptor for this" (Kabir, GGS, 479)! Later

in the Shabad, we are reminded again, “like an auspicious wife: She enjoys the divine spouse on

her bed.” Here, the same set of questions regarding human versus divine love arise again. From

all of these expressions of intimacy, we do, however, see that the most passionate love “is

described through the symbolism of conjugal love,” because in human terms “there is no higher

passion than man’s love for woman or the husband’s love for his wife,” and according to Anand,

“Guru Nanak uses this symbol to bring God nearest to human understanding” (Anand

15). Anand tells us that every aspect of this love has been described: whether it is “the wish of

the woman to be desired by her [Husband],” or the efforts “she makes towards that end,” “the

happiness fulfillment on being accepted, the pang of waiting, the frustration of being denied and

every change of mood the woman undergoes with the change of the season” (Anand

17). Ultimately, Kohli tells us that “God is love and reciprocates our love with open arms. In

this case Godhead becomes intensely personal like a human beloved” (Kohli 59).
 52

Outside of Guru Granth Sahib, two poets greatly admired within the Sikh tradition are

Bhai Gurdas and Bhai Nand Lal. In the opening of Vaar 27 by Bhai Gurdas, we are presented

with an exposition of the relation between human and divine love. The translation provided here

is by Jodh Singh, and when we analyze the Shabad, we will see the difficulties of traditional

interpretation with what the text itself renders. For the purposes of analysis, I have provided

both the transliterated form of the Gurmukhi and Jodh Singh’s translation into English.

ik oa(n)kaar sathigura prasaadhi||

laelai majanoo(n) aasakee chahu chakee jaathee||

sorat(h) beejaa gaaveeai jas sugharraa vaathee||

sasee pu(n)noo(n) dhosathee hue jaath ajaathee||

maeheevaal no sohanee nai tharadhee raathee||

raa(n)jhaa heer vakhaaneeai ouhu piram paraathee||

peer mureedhaa pireharree gaavan parabhaathee ||1||

One Oankar, the primal energy, realized through the grace of the divine master.

The Lovers Laila and Majanu are well known in all quarters of the world.

The excellent song of Sorath and Bija is sung in every direction.

The Love of Sassi and Punnun, though of different castes is everywhere spoken

of.

The fame of Sohani who used to swim the Chenab river in the night to meet

Mahival is well known.

Ranjah and Hir are renowned for the Love they bore each other.

But superior to all Love is the Love the disciples bear for their Guru. They sing it

at the ambrosial hour of the morning. (Singh, Vaaran Bhai Gurdas 143)
 53

The characters presented here are the infamous lovers in the popular culture of Punjab. Within

Bhai Gurdas’s Vaar, we find the richness of the experience and universality of love, across time

and across cultures through the characters themselves. Laila and Majnun are the lovers

celebrated from the Middle East, a story that dates back to some of its earliest anecdotes found in

the ninth century CE through the Kitab al-aghani (The Book of Songs). Sorath and Bija are

lovers from the Sindh region, whose story is still performed today; they are especially popular in

Haryana and one can find YouTube music videos depicting this story. Sassi and Punnun, another

couple from the Sindh, are depicted here as those whose love transcended social divisions,

transcending caste! Love knows no worldly limits and the lover knows no limits as to what he or

she will do to be with their lover.

We find this theme again in the story of Sohni and Mahival. Sohni, a married woman,

crosses the river every night to meet her real lover, a man who is not her husband! But Anand

told us that the most passionate love “is described through the symbolism of conjugal love”

(Anand 15). Elsewhere, Naam Dev echoes this violation of social norms and standards for love,

when he says “Like the woman who falls in love with another man…just so, Naam Dayv is in

love with the Lord” (“Jaisī par purkẖā raṯ nārī,” Naam Dev, GGS, 1164). It appears that in so

far as the text of the poets is concerned, there appears to be a comfort with the transcendence of

love. After all, if as we discussed in Chapter Two, the language of the Transcendent is love, then

would not the experience of love be transcendent? It seems love becomes a volatile object for

traditionalists, such that it necessitates confinement into social categories such as caste or

marriage. The story of Sohni, which Bhai Gurdas is telling the reader to remember, is one that

reminds us that love transcends these social categories, that it can never be confined through any

social construct or agreement.

 54

Using the Shabad by Guru Amar Das, “Forsaking her Husband Lord and leaving her own

home, she gives her love to another,” a traditionalist account can attempt to counter-argue that

here the Guru is issuing commentary that provides a corrective to Naam Dev’s exposition,

because the Shabad concludes with saying that such an “ugly and ungraceful [bride] is

abandoned and left behind by her Husband” (“Pir cẖẖodiā gẖar āpṇā par purkẖai nāl piār,” M3,

GGS, 89); however, context is extremely important. A critical question needs to arise here: who

or what is the “(an)other” in the context of love between devotee and ‘God’? The Shabad starts

by making it explicit that it is talking about a manmukh. Manmukh is the opposite of

Gurmukh. Manmukh is the duhagan, the one driven by self-conceit, by the obsession over “I.”

The “I” is the other, because as long there is “I,” “Hari” is not. The manmukh then is a person

who only pursues that which fulfills the desire of his or her ego. The enjoyment of (an)other

becomes the enjoyment of desires of “I” in opposition to the realization of “Hari.” Guru Amar

Das is stating here that the “Ŧarisnā” (desire(s)) of an egoist or manmukh “are never satisfied”,

and so this duhagan “burns and cries out in pain.” Avtar Singh informs us that “It is thus the

lasciviousness which is disapproved of,” the desire that is not in the context of love with one’s

beloved (Singh, Ethics of the Sikhs 60).

Looking back at the context of Sohni, she is miserable with her husband because he had

never been her true love and was only married to him because her father did not approve of her

loving Mahival, most likely because Mahival was a buffalo-herder and her father was merchant.

The issue of caste comes up here again. The only way Sohni can ever experience being suhagan,

then, is through her union with her true love Mahival; loving her ‘husband’ would be a violation

of her true love! Why else would a woman from her time risk traveling at the worst possible

time of the day (night), through treacherous terrain to another land, to meet with her lover, if not
 55

to routinely experience the purity in the ecstasy of that union of true love? In the story, she

spends every night with Mahival in his hut. This routine of union is alluded to through the phrase

gaavan parabhaathee (singing at the ambrosial hour), a phrase that is used several times

elsewhere in Guru Granth Sahib as a devotional discipline of remembering God every morning.

The story of Heer and Ranjha follows the same pattern of love being denied by society

due to various societal constraints. If there is a theme to be found among these stories, it is that

all of these lovers, by overcoming the obstacles put in their way by society, sacrificed their

“selves,” so that they can experience union with their beloved. So what is it then that Bhai

Gurdas means when he speaks about the love between the devotee and “God,” such that the love

is sung every morning? My interpretation, in consonance with the previous discussion, is that

through these characters, Bhai Gurdas is reminding devotees that they must practice the

discipline of sacrificing one’s self, and replacing one’s “I” with “It,” because that is what love

ultimately requires - the state of being egoless, gurmukh; willing to do anything and everything

to experience union with one’s beloved. It is important to note that in the final lines of the

composition, the English translation claims that the divine love is superior, but in the actual

translation of the composition this idea does not appear anywhere. If we follow the text, the

examples of human love do not appear to be addressed as something inferior to divine love.

Instead, each of the examples presents cases of individual lovers who overcame obstacles

presented by society and overcame their own ego in order to achieve union with their beloved.

All of the themes that we have so far discussed reappear in Bhai Nand Lal’s composition

Zindagi Nama. According to Sikh tradition, this composition was originally presented by Nand

Lal to Guru Gobind Singh under title of Bandagi Nama; however, the tenth Guru was so

impressed that he requested Nand Lal to retitle it as Zindagi Nama. If we ask Nand Lal, how one
 56

sees God, Nand Lal replies, “in every painting, the painter radiates, but a heretic (manmukh),

cannot unravel the mystery” (Bindra 88). Why does Nand Lal say that the manmukh cannot

unravel the mystery? There are two reasons for this. The first is that the manmukh is always

looking outside of the self in a binary relationship between the self and others. Therefore, instead

of seeking God within the self by replacing I with It, the person continually seeks God as

somewhere out there. Nand Lal states:

He dwells in your heart but you are searching around,

And he dwells in your abode but you are running towards Mecca, the

Muslim Holy Place. (Bindra 142)

The only way to realize that It within one’s self is through the experience of saguna, because

until that saguna experience, the idea of the opposition between I and the other never disappears.

This is why Nand Lal states:

When he abides in all the hearts,

Then every heart is his abode and shelter.

When you have perceived that he resides in all the hearts,

To revere all the hearts should become your ideal. (Bindra 89)

The first reason for the manmukh not being able to unravel the mystery is that the manmukh was

always looking outside of the self. The second reason is because once the self realizes the God

within oneself, the self is still susceptible to claiming “I am God.” This can never be the case

because as our earlier discussion of Jap Ji reminds us, only “God” is eternal, and everything else

is susceptible to the Divine imperative (hukam) -- “the law of impermanence” (Mandair, Sikhism

Ch. 5); therefore, the highest duty of human life becomes to realize the Oneness among all. This
 57

climactic moment of the “self” having to decide whether it states “I am God” or realizes that it is

a part of God, is relayed by Nand Lal:

The perfect creator appears in his creation,

As the creator dwells in his own creation.

The creation and the creator are fused into one,

And the pious ones, forsake all in their entirety, except the Almighty.

Then, you too, O My Friend, will have to decide,

Who the Almighty is and who you are. (Bindra 125)

And finally if we ask Nand Lal, what are the characteristics of a person who loves, Nand Lal

answers in a manner that appears to be in consonance with much of what was discussed earlier:

They are devoid of jealousy and enmity, and are above malice,

And they never indulge in bad deeds.

They revere and respect every body,

And create the affluent out of the indigent.

They endow nectar to the lifeless ones,

And confer existence to the waning hearts.

They bring greenery into the dehydrated woods,

And convert the stink into aroma.

Individually, they all are very tender-hearted,

Always pursue the godly nature, and epitomize the Almighty. (Bindra 90-91)

We see the practical consequences of what happens when one no longer sees the world in binary

terms of me and other. The person no longer feels possessive and jealous, experiences enmity or

malice. Nand Lal elucidates by seeing God in everything, one reveres and respects everything,
 58

so much so that they become an inspiration for others. This is reminiscent of the conclusion of

the Salok summarizing Jap Ji: “Those who remember the Name earn true success. Nanak says

their faces shine, and they take many with them to liberation” (Singh, The Name of My Beloved

67).

2. Analysis of Sikh literature

Having concluded the discussion of writings within the Sikh canon, I now explore the

issues of human and divine love through an analysis of the play The Bride of the Sky by Puran

Singh and a brief analysis of two poems by Vir Singh translated by Nikky Singh. So far, a lot of

what I have discussed could be dismissed by traditionalists on the account that much of it is

through my interpretation of works written in the Gurmukhi script and that I may have lost much

to translation. At the end of the day, I must admit that the traditionalists could be totally right in

their viewpoint that typically Sikhi has always sublimated human desire and human love into

divine love and there is not much more to say about it other than that human love is only

acceptable in the context of marriage. After all, are not Sikhs a community, and therefore would

they not require love to be confined? I will return to these issues of boundaries, interpretations,

and authority in the conclusion of the thesis, but at this point, I hope to have problematized the

traditionalist account of the simple sublimation of human love into divine love, at least to a small

extent. The benefit of looking at Puran Singh’s play is that, because it is written in English, it

gives us an opportunity to analyze the text of a highly recognized mystic in the Sikh tradition

without any need for translation.

The Bride of the Sky is a play centered on the story of an earthly person falling in love

with a nymph, and the consequences of this forbidden love. Sant Singh Sekhon provides helpful

commentary in the introduction prior to the play, which I will be using, and at times responding
 59

to, because ultimately Sekhon’s opinion of the play is along traditionalist lines: “In Panjabi folk-

lore romantic love is celebrated as sublimated passion that lifts the lovers to the divine level.

Only this folk-lore does not care to give it a human meaning...How one would wish that the

passion of love were given a proper human meaning” (Singh, The Bride of the Sky xiv)! It is not

clear to me why Sekhon feels that the passion of love is not given human meaning in either the

Punjabi folk-lore or in Puran Singh’s play. It is that passion of love that functions on the social

level to destroy the binary construct of me and other. After all, as Avtar Singh states, “we find

Sikhism attempting a synthesis of mysticism with realism in the ethico-spiritual realm of human

beings” (Ethics of the Sikhs 261). The ultimate expression of this “...is universal brotherhood -

which includes equality and altruism - as expressed in the attitude as well as the conduct of the

person” (Singh, Ethics of the Sikhs 201). Is this not the same expression of universal

brotherhood found in Article 1 of the U.N. Charter of Human Rights?17 So, how is there not

human meaning? As we proceed in the analysis of the play, I will continue to provide my

interpretation of the human meaning found in Puran Singh’s writing.

The play begins with a young man noticing a nymph flying around in the sky, with whom

he instantly falls in love. In response to the young man’s love, the nymph comes down to earth

and stays with him briefly, makes loves with him, and returns to heaven. In response to her

leaving him, “The young man goes mad from the ecstatic pain of love” (Singh, The Bride of the

Sky vii) and people interpret the expression of his madness as saintliness.

What has transpired so far in the story should be familiar from the earlier stories,

especially this resultant madness in the absence of his beloved - similar to the state of the

duhagan. In Puran Singh’s own representation of this event, he simply writes “at last the saint

17
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
 60

elopes with a woman’ and ‘retires with his lady-love to the Himalayan solitude” (The Bride of

the Sky viii). This is similar to Sohni eloping every night to the solitude of Mahival’s hut. The

innuendos appear again with the phrase “retires with his lady-love.” If the innuendos earlier had

not made clear what it is that lovers do, then Puran Singh explicates the entire experience of

intimacy quite clearly:

Her moon-round breasts pointed to the youth its fruits,

The dazzle of her face was naked, sun-like;

She showered on him the half-opened buds of her starry smiles,

...

She loved him, over-stepping all borders of self-restraint, like a fountain that

flows.

The sun did laugh on high,

And a murmur and a subdued laughter passed in the sky,

The young man was ashamed of the broad sunshine!

She knew she was young, ever-young,

And what else should there be for him when she was there?

Was God, Heaven and earth there?

It was an all-kindled love,

It was a whole sky of flowers that suddenly had

Caught fire of their own bloom and attire.

The moment was of the lifting of veils,

And of God appearing in a face of clay;

The moment was ashamed of the broad sunshine!

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She looked at him quietly,

As her fine black lashes, swept the beauty that blazed in the sky,

Her heart beat with moaning of the lover’s-lonely nights.

Was it her forehead sparkling?

Or the moon?

The young man was ashamed of the white, soft light!

She waved her veil to uncover her graces,

She flaunted a braid aimlessly,

As a bird ruffles the surface of a lake and arranges its plume.

She played with her robe,

A white Swan floated on the lake of his heart;

The young man was ashamed of the soft sweet sounds!

She touched her jewels lightly,

And uncovered a cluster of stars in her hair,

And the bright jewel hanging at her neck

Decoyed the moon-beams to her breast!

And he was a black, brown man,

He was trembling, pale and hushed.

The young man was afraid of that death-sweet caress! (Singh, The Bride of the

Sky 8-9)

Puran Singh uses this scene of lovers spending an intimate night together in conjunction with a

metaphorical connection to nature, which is also a metaphorical connection to God. Once again

human intimacy, experience of love, and nature all come closer in relation. Though he is making
 62

that connection to the Divine, he still maintains the use or appearance of the human physical

interaction. Puran Singh’s allusion to the Divine does not hide the fact that the human

interaction is important, and is an innocent and pure love. What would commonly be colored as

lust is appreciated and embraced as pure love. Whether she “uncover[s] her graces,” or she

“play[s] with her robe,” or makes “soft sweet sounds,” or whether he sees “the moon-beams to

her breast” (Singh, The Bride of the Sky 9), the embarrassment expressed by the man, along with

these terms, indicates the purity and innocence of natural human love without the attached

societal stigma. Ultimately, the human meaning that arises out of this passage is the full

acceptance and embracement of the physicality and sensuality of human living.

Proceeding in the story, we see how society has a need to bound love, a concept that they

cannot fully comprehend, when “The people said...the saint has fallen. He has eloped with a

woman, his miracle is gone” (Singh, The Bride of the Sky viii). The saint self-reflects upon

society’s accusation that he has sinned, as Puran Singh continues:

He cannot believe that when he ran away with her, he had sinned. ‘Could that be

sin which gives such lasting pangs of pleasure?’ He argues further, ‘If one soul

grows strong as two with one sin. And the two flames burn, blending in one still

more glorious! Are these sins then? Or new kindlings of faith, new life-centers in

the void vasts?’ (Singh, The Bride of the Sky x)

In the first statement ‘Could that be sin which gives such lasting pangs of pleasure?’ the saint

appears to be making a literal argument about the appreciation of the physical act of love. In the

following statement, “If one soul grows strong as two with one sin,” the saint begins to speak of

the legitimacy of two people coming together physically and spiritually and when he says “And

the two flames burn, blending in one still more glorious!” there arises a direct parallelism
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between coming together as physical bodies and two souls coming together metaphorically. This

convergence expresses the physical and spiritual support of individuals coming together, which

helps them grow stronger. The souls coming together gives support to the physical act of

running away together and the physical act of their love. The saint does not see how any of this,

whether physical or spiritual, could be tainted. While the saint goes on to say “Are these sins

then? Or new kindlings of faith, new life-centers in the void vasts?”, which seems to lean toward

an interpretation of the sublimation of human passion into spiritual experience, the initial

impression from the saint’s thoughts on the “lasting pangs of pleasure,” as full embracement of

the human physical experience, is not lost. In fact, that initial statement appears to stand on its

own, with the further combined physical and spiritual statement appearing as a support rather

than the crux of the argument that neither the physical nor the spiritual experience is one that is

tainted. In terms of this excerpt providing human meaning, what appears to surface is a

celebration of the human physical interaction that is rich with meaning and especially rich with

emotion; that a physical experience devoid of this emotional experience would not necessarily

qualify as love.

After being separated for a while, the nymph one day appears on earth again, in the garb

of a woman. The saint identifies her and they both once again elope to the solitude of the

Himalayas. The nymph has always had a husband in heaven, the Yaksha, who upon “thinking

that ‘she must have gone back to earth to love that black little man again’ bids ‘a cluster of

damsels’ of heaven ‘to go and search for her in the moon-light on earth and down the deep lakes

below the snows’” (Singh, The Bride of the Sky 14). The saint does not know that there is a plan

set in motion by the Yaksha and the damsels to bring the nymph back to heaven, and that nature

itself is a part of this conspiracy by the heavenly beings. One night he convinces the nymph,
 64

who repeatedly tries to inform him of this trap, to come out into the beautiful moon-lit night with

him; due to the innocence and sincerity of his love, the nymph finally obliges. When she does,

the heavenly beings succeed in using the moon-beams as means of returning the nymph to her

husband in heaven. In the Sufi stories that Bhai Gurdas presents, it is society that is the obstacle

to the union of true love, but here it is the heavenly beings themselves. The rest of my analysis

of the play will look at what unfolds in the next scene, which is presented as Puran Singh’s

philosophy of love.

In the following scene the Yaksha accuses the nymph of having fallen from her heavenly

status through her love of a man of the earth, and as having betrayed her love to him. In reply to

this she tells the Yaksha:

...is not love and freedom one? ...Heaven is freedom: It is love and there is no

restraint on love here. You are dreaming of earth as earth sometimes dreams of

heaven...Love is beyond all sense of possession, beyond all needs of sense. It is

self-realization of God in Beauty’ (Singh, The Bride of the Sky ix).

In her reply, the nymph counters the Yaksha by saying that his love is not true love, because it is

possessive. The Yaksha then cannot truly have loved her, because by having this possessiveness

over their relationship he is expressing his manmukh state, his state of ego-centeredness, of “I,”

“me,” “mine,” a state that, as we discussed earlier, can never realize true love.

The earth is full of jealousies!

And heaven is no less,

There are too many eyes that love Beauty

And Beauty is truth only when it is she,

But those that loved best are blinded by the others’ curse;
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Love is more than eyes, more than light

And love can suffer most and endure more (Singh, The Bride of the Sky 19)

From this excerpt, it appears that love is something that is beyond both human beings and the

gods, because the genuine experience of love by two individuals is something that even the gods

would be jealous of. The power of love is stated by the saint in the final two lines. The fact that

the gods can be jealous functions to literally and metaphorically bring them down to earth. This

moment of equating the two, the human and divine, works to place love onto a pedestal that is

worth striving for by all. In terms of human meaning, love appears to be the force that enables

one to suffer and endure even those unbearable moments outside of one’s control that wreak

havoc upon one’s life.

The nymph makes her final argument to the Yaksha, through the following statements:

Exchange places with me,

Be me, not so much that distant you.

No one can ever be disgusted of his me

But even angels are tired of this you,

Do not call me you,

Make me me.

And freedom is in the hollow of your palm! (Singh, The Bride of the Sky 30)

The nymph is emphasizing to her husband that if you love me, do not be you over there, but

instead be me; be the person that you love. No one can be disgusted of the person they love, but

even angels get tired of the person who loves them or tries to possess them. The lover needs to

change the perspective of how he views the relationship between himself and her, by eliminating

the binary of me and you, of I and other, and of ultimately removing me and mine. The nymph
 66

is saying to her heavenly husband: do not try to turn me into the one who is loved or constricted,

the distant you that is being possessed. She tells him, see me as me, the one who loves, who is

free. In changing your perspective in this way, you free me and you free yourself to actually

love. In response to all of this, the Yaksha finally concedes, “Such is the fate of all those who

like me waver on the path and toil not to earn joy, love, grace, but only wait until His Mercy fills

them…’” (Singh, The Bride of the Sky ix). The point of emphasis here is on the concept of

“toiling,” of action; that the person who does not actively live a life of love, ends up living a

miserable ego-centered life that cannot realize true love because he is trapped in the possessive

nature of the ego saying “mine.”

At the end of that scene, the two heavenly spouses appear to have reconciled their

differences and the nymph does not revisit the saint on earth again. One thing I would like to

point out is that in this narrative the nymph appears to be a cheating wife, a theme we

encountered earlier with Sohni and in the analogy used by Naam Dev. A critical question that I

think Puran Singh’s narrative answers is the question of: What is one possible reason, aside from

lust, that a spouse would cheat on their married partner? The answer that arises here is that a

strong reason for this is that the spouse’s outward manifestation of their ego through

possessiveness is what causes the other spouse to cheat with another lover. Does not the human

meaning in this become that one should not allow the relationship with one’s spouse to degrade

to the level of egotistical possessiveness and that the preservation of true love is what is

important for marriage? What is the point of “conjugal love,” a term that simply substitutes for

the phrase “sex is only allowed in marriage,” if that marriage has degenerated from any real

expression of love? Is not love in that context “lasciviousness,” which we had discussed earlier?
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Toward the end of the book, the society begins to view the man as a saint again, and

when travelers come by they ask him questions. There are two replies by the saint that are

particularly interesting. The first is another critique of man’s possessiveness, as Puran Singh

writes:

This is all the foolish religion left

in the worlds below, to call

others sinners and themselves

pious, and stone them to death!

They forgive no one but themselves, the beasts! (Singh, The Bride of the Sky 45)

Here, we see that those that become religious, according to Puran Singh, become devoid of the

ability to truly love, because in their spiritual experiences they begin to call their own spiritual

experiences as the true experience. The religious attempt to possess the spiritual experience as

solely their own, something none other can experience. This creates a binary between pure and

sinner, and between me and other. As we have seen in all our examples so far, love is far too

volatile to be contained by anyone or anything, even religion. When the questioner asks the saint

“what his religion was, the hermit had no answer” (Singh, The Bride of the Sky xi). Finally, we

return to our question of what to do with human love? Is it to be experienced, is it to be

sublimated, or is it to be avoided? The saint replies that humanly love is not to be spurned:

When a woman sleeps in the arms

of a man, he imagines she is one single soul,

This is ignorance, Avidya!

And when a man takes a woman to love,

she imagines he is one single soul,

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Just what she sees and scents,

This is ignorance of the infinite

background of the multitudes

coming behind and going before! (Singh, The Bride of the Sky 42)

Our analysis of Sikh literature finally ends with a brief analysis of two of Vir Singh’s

poems.

“Desire for the Beloved”

The cowgirls longing for Krishna

That people speak of,

Sassi writhing for her Punnu

That the desert sands record,

Heer’s angst for Ranjha,

Or Majnun’s sickness –

These do not display love;

These hide a deep mystery.

Oh formless One! Isn’t this the desire

You ignited at the beginning of time?

Is this not the spark

You set in every heart?

Our desire to meet you

Is our longing from you, –

When your mystery strikes us

We become crazy for you! (Singh, Of Sacred and Secular Desire Ch. 3)
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“Inner Blaze

Ablaze in love, crying, and searching

The lover Majnun spent his entire life.

But Leli his beloved, did not melt;

She did not come to him.

At last Majun gave up and sat still, with

“Leli” “Leli” ever on his lips.

While he was devoted to his Leli

Leli made her entry into his depths.

Leli too now ardently searching

Came upon her Majnun.

“I am Leli,” “I am Leli” she cried to

Majnun who now was Leli.

The lover becomes the beloved

When stillness abides within” (Singh, Of Sacred and Secular Desire Ch. 3)

Vir Singh reaffirms for us what we have been thinking all along. There is no separation between

physical and metaphysical love. There is no separation between love and desire. It is the desire,

ultimately infused within us by the One, which leads us to experience this love! And again, we

witness how love transcends all boundaries. There is no restriction on love by religion, caste,

nor culture; love transcends all of these societal categories. This is because the madness, the

ecstasy, the physical intimacy, the angst, and the separation are all things that are universally

experienced. These universal experiences are what unite us in our humanity; what allow us to
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empathize. So why try to imprison that which continually tries to unite? Nikky Singh eloquently

expresses this feeling that we’ve had thus far about our poets and their works:

The poets do not whisk us away into some world of Plato’s Pure Forms; rather,

they motivate us to make sense of our own twenty-first-century reality. With

them we learn to navigate our lives. But importantly, they teach us without

teaching. They are not missionaries. They are not preachers. They are not

lecturers. Their desires overflowing from their deepest selves pour into that

visceral hub where dictatorial rules and regulations never reach. Real change

comes from the heart and mind – within each individual; not from external laws

and public policies. In order to transform the world we live in, we need to change

our consciousness. The material and affective textures of lyrics can do so. The

harsh critic of poetry, quite well knew its force. Plato banned the poets from his

Republic because “poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them

up.” Today we desperately need poetry to water our parched empathy and

humanity. (Singh, Of Sacred and Secular Desire Conclusion)

This brings us back to where we began: “the journey begins and ends in love for fellow beings,

an immersion into our particular and material and secular world, and an insight into beauty and

intimate relationships here and now” (Singh, The Name of My Beloved 17). This is not about the

greatness of “Sikhism” or any “ism,” it is about the need to appreciate human be-ing in itself, to

appreciate the human relationships, the experience of intimacy as what it is, as something to be

celebrated about humanity and not simply converted into something other-worldly. After all,

Puran Singh reminds us that even the other-worldly are jealous of the love we can achieve on

this Earth!
 71

The Conclusion

Precisely, Nalwa, stated, ‘This state belongs not to an individual,

but to the Khalsa commonwealth. It is the sacrifices of a whole

people over a century, blessed by the Guru’s Grace, that we have

won an empire. Let them choose who shall lead them by consensus

(gurmata). Kharak Singh is my friend but not able to bear this

burden. Let’s not fail our people when they need our dispassionate

lead most.’ (Singh, The Sikhs in History 109)

My thesis so far leads the reader into thinking that this experience of love, at the core of

Sikh existentialism, has the power to continually and routinely enable people to view the world

outside of the social binary constructs, and that this existentialist doctrine will always unfold in

this way. Such a view is far too idealist and unable to cope with the harsh realities. This is not

to say that such an idealist unfolding does not happen in reality. There definitely are individuals

and families that operate in such an open existentialist framework, as the evidence from Brady

and Mahmood’s work suggests:

Living in the context of an ongoing women’s movement in North America, these

women nevertheless seek their equality not through Canadian or American

feminism but through Sikhism -- and not as an innovation within Sikhism but as a

reclamation of something they perceive as already there. (Brady and Mahmood 8)

Nevertheless, the number of those that do not operate in this framework far outweigh those that

do. Even though Sikhi can brag about its inherent gender equality, it is the Punjab, a location

dominated by the Sikh population, where female infanticide is the highest in India; kuri maar

(female infanticide) was a practice abhorred and abolished by Guru Amar Das. Ultimately, it is
 72

the subjective nature of this existentialism that lends to expressions of myriad interpretations,

even bad ones, but who can say which interpretation is good or bad if it is all subjective?

According to what we’ve discussed so far, it would seem the authority to do so should rest in an

individual or a community committed to becoming gurmukh, and we will see how in Sikh history

this is achieved for a short span, but we will also see what happens when the ego of a manmukh

overtakes this authority relegated to the community. We will discover how Sikh existentialism

has always been circumscribed with the Guru as the center of authority, and ways in which this

relationship continues and changes with the inception of the Khalsa.

Before I proceed any further on the above mentioned discussion, I must address who my

interpretation of eroticism within the Sikh canon and literature would affect the most. This is the

homosexual community. In fact, Mandair in his Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed anticipates

my new interpretative work when he says:

More recently many Sikhs have called for new ways of interpreting Sikh scripture

on the question of gender and sexuality which give greater credence to the trans-

gendered ‘standpoint’ of devotional love that is central to the Sikh Gurus’

teachings. Recent research suggests that such new interpretations are likely to

complicate the issue considerably as the Sikh Guru’s writings on love and

eroticism may challenge the peculiarly modern perceptions of

sexuality. (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 6)

I hope that my interpretation of eroticism within the poetry and literature examined in this paper

has complicated the issue considerably. The Sikhs are not exempt from the egotistical claims of

me and mine and of the constructions of social binaries, such as heterosexual and homosexual.

What is this “hetero” and “homo” when intimacy as we have discussed is entirely sexual?! Let’s
 73

be real about what the innuendos are. When Sikh religious leaders openly condemn

homosexuality as unnatural and provide their justification, not through Gurmat, but by

referencing “other major world religions,” are those individuals not operating in the framework

of manmukh, incapable of puncturing their individuality with the experience of plurality? A

recent controversial, albeit highly successful and insightful, Sikh missionary and preacher, Yogi

Bhajan, once said, “If you do not see God in all, you do not see God at all.” The saguna

experience cannot be realized so long as binaries between the self and other continue to exist. If

Sikh leaders cannot see God in homosexual individuals and create an opposition between their

own selves and homosexuals through their interpretation of sexuality, then the question that

continually begs itself is: are they not operating in the framework of the manmukh state, as our

discussion of gurmukh and manmukh has unfolded?

A large part of the issue of interpretation is stating that homosexuality is opposed to Sikh

living, a view that centers on the interpretation of the role and purpose of family. If we stick to a

strictly historicist standpoint that pins interpretation as only legitimate in a particular time and

place, then surely we would have to agree with the viewpoint that homosexuality would not

render a valid way of life according to Sikhi, because the only way to have a family in the pre-

modern time was to have intercourse or to adopt another family member’s child. Mandair’s

response to this judgment is that it “bears a strongly Christian, and especially Catholic imprint,

which believes in natural law: ‘what is natural is what is moral’” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch.

6). Furthermore, this strictly historicist viewpoint violates the existentialism of Sikhi that we

have argued is inherent so far, as existentialism argues the subjectivity of human beings to their

environments. Today it is fully possible for one to have a non-traditional family, and there are
 74

even popular accounts of heterosexual adults who state that they were adopted by homosexual

couples as children.

Furthermore, one has to question the centrality of family itself, especially if one of the

most influential members of the Sikh community, Bhai Gurdas, did not marry during his

lifetime. Is it the experience of family that is important or the experience of community? As

Mann tells us, Sikhi cannot be experienced individually because “[Guru Nanak] believes in the

individual’s obligation to work toward collective liberation (Api tarai sangati kul tarai, M1, AG,

353; Api tarahe sangati kul tarahe tin safal janamu jagi aia, M1, AG, 1039)” (Mann, Sikh

Scripture 7). Therefore, community (sangat) is what takes a central role of the Sikh. While

family plays an important part in the growth of the community, it is not central to that

experience. Mann supports this claim when he says that “A successful individual is one who

attains liberation for himself or herself but who in addition assists in the liberation of everyone

around. It is not an issue of choice but a moral imperative” (Mann, Sikh Scripture 7). A possible

heretical question arises if we insist that still ‘family’ is what is central: Why did Bhai Gurdas

not marry and have children? Was he historically bound by his sexuality? Was he homosexual?

Let’s not get too carried away here without evidence, but hopefully we get the point about taking

the strict historicist viewpoint too seriously.18

After all of this, it is still possible to dismiss all of what I have suggested by claiming that

the only examples of love are always presented in terms of him and her. There are many more

examples of love present in the Sikh canon, that of the mother and son, and even oddly water and

18
I would not be surprised by subsequent scholarship that analyzes a notion of ‘homo-erotic’ love
in Vaar 27 by Bhai Gurdas. I was only able to present Pauri 1 of Vaar 27, but the main theme in the entire
Vaar is “Pir Murida Pirharri,” the love between the ‘Guru’ and ‘devotee’/‘disciple.’ If we do not
interpret Guru as God, but Guru as the physical Guru, Guru Nanak or Guru Arjan, then is this a ‘homo-
erotic’ love between the Sikh and the Guru that is being expressed by Bhai Gurdas?
 75

milk, that I simply do not have the space here to explore. Therefore, the examples of the

heterosexual experience simply become a means to understanding and not as anything

more. Furthermore, as I earlier suggested, this construction of binaries; of him and her, of hetero

and homo, are antithetical to the experience of erotic intimacy of our poets, where any sense of

self is replaced by an experience of being one with one’s beloved, both spiritually and

physically. At the very least, the experience of universal brotherhood and social equality that are

“the fundamental principles of the social ethics” (Singh, Ethics of the Sikhs 148) arising from

Sikh existentialism, dictate that Sikhs advocate for the social equality in terms of the legal rights

available to homosexuals. Is it not the ninth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Tegh Bahadur, who is

celebrated amongst the Sikhs for having given his life for the rights of Hindus, to live the way

they choose to, even though some of the social practices of the Hindus contradicted the Sikh way

of life? If none of what I said pierces, even a bit, the shell of an individual entirely opposed to

homosexuality, then I have nothing more to say. But to whom these words may have affected,

let us together enjoy the words of the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak:

Jao ṯao parem kẖelaṇ kā cẖāo.

Sir ḏẖar ṯalī galī merī ā▫o.

Iṯ mārag pair ḏẖarījai.

Sir ḏījai kāṇ na kījai. ||20||

If you desire to play this game of love,

then step onto the Path with your head in hand.

When you place your feet on this path,

give your head, and do not fear (public attention). (M1, GGS, 1412)
 76

Although not much more can be said, there is much that can be done. Walking on the

path of love requires action, particularly social action. While what Nikky Singh said about real

change only coming from within ourselves holds true, this process of change can be expedited

and, in the process, the lives of those that are affected by these issues can actually be improved if

we attempt to change the public policies and implement proper laws. Assessing how this can be

done on the national or global level is outside of the scope of this thesis. Instead, I will look at

how the experience of Sikh existentialism has always, historically, been in relationship to the

central role of the Guru, and in the process how the authority of interpretation has been exercised

by the Sikh community over time. In doing so, I will suggest how a representational form of the

Sikh community today, centered on the concept and role of Guru, can help it resolve a lot of the

existentialist issues.

We discussed in chapter one that the Guru that appears in Guru Granth Sahib almost

always refers to God in the form of Shabad, especially so when it comes to the concept of

ultimate source or authority of spiritual inspiration.19 Furthermore, Mandair explains that when

Guru Nanak renunciates his own personal authority it is “indicative of the fact that his own

preceptor was not a human guru but an impersonal principle: the Word (shabad) which Nanak

also calls satguru (lit. the true authority) a term that implies a personal relation to the Word.

Personal or impersonal, only the Word speaks truly about the nature of existence” (Mandair,

Sikhism Ch. 5). Aside from their devotional and spiritual role, the Sikh Gurus had always played

an important social function as well, through the various towns they founded20 and the role they

19
Some of the examples we discussed in chapter one were: (1) the wondrous speech is ‘God’ (‘vahu
vahu bani nirankar hai’); and (2) the Bani is Guru and the Guru is Bani (‘Bani Guru Guru Hai Bani’).
20
More scholarship is needed in analyzing the composition and functioning of the cities founded by
the Sikh Gurus, at the time of their founding. In what ways did these cities correspond to the egalitarian
principles propounded in their teachings?
 77

played in responding to political authorities such as Akbar, as well as the manner in which they

created an authentic identity for their community over time. In particular, “the compilation of

the Adi Granth was intimately linked with the process of Sikh self-definition. The Sikh Panth

had indeed developed a strong sense of independent identity by the end of the sixteenth century”

(Singh, The Guru Granth Sahib 174). The most striking assertion on this subject is by Guru

Arjun “from the Bhairau hymn, where Guru Arjan makes a direct assertion of independent

identity: ‘We are neither Hindu nor Musalaman’” (Singh, The Guru Granth Sahib 174).

Any Panth or community, needs some broad level of structure that entails what is or is

not within the bounds of that community. The Sikh Gurus appear to exercise this social and

political authority in history when they excommunicate individuals for attempting to change the

actual writing of the Shabads such that their meaning changes. As Avtar Singh clarifies in the

context of Guru Amar Das’s prohibition of kuri maar: “In view of the fact that the Sikh Gurus

did not have political power to translate their moral disapproval into legislation and make

infanticide unlawful, resort was had to the highest form of social and moral disapproval, in terms

of social dissociation and excommunication” (Singh, Ethics of the Sikhs 149). Therefore, due to

this lack of laws within the organizational structure of the community, and especially a coercive

agency to enforce laws, it fully becomes possible for many individuals to apply only some ideas

and not all ideas to their own lives. This also explains why the Sikh Gurus would need to create

multiple institutions and practices to tackle particular issues such as casteism. It speaks

ultimately to the existentialist nature of Sikhi, that people must recognize and correct the

immorality of their actions themselves by understanding their responsibility as human

agents. What we do see in early Sikh history, during the time of the first ten Gurus, is that even

though much of the authority of interpretation lay with the Sikh Gurus, interpretation was still
 78

open to the community. This can easily be evidenced through the poetry of Bhai Gurdas and

Nand Lal that we have examined here; their works are considered exegesis of Sikhi in the Sikh

tradition.

A remarkable event in the history of the Sikhs occurs in 1699, in the creation of the

Khalsa, “an entity capable of making and remaking its own laws” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 2).

This very capability is inherent in Sikh existentialism. As Mandair warns, though:

The Khalsa’s access to power remains legitimate only if it remains true to Guru

Nanak’s and Guru Gobind Singh’s sovereign principle: the constant need to

undermine the self (ego), the remembrance of absolute self-surrender. Once it

forgets this paradoxical principle it self-destructs. (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 2)

The self-destruction of the community appears to happen again and again after the death of Guru

Gobind Singh, but what is important to note here is that “final authority was now jointly

conferred on the text (Guru Granth) and the institution of the Khalsa (Guru Panth)” (Mandair,

Sikhism Ch. 2). Furthermore, these twin institutions – Guru Granth and Guru Panth – “were

invested with sovereign authority” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 2). Membership in the Guru Panth is

not exclusive either. Consistent with Sikh existentialism, “this path was open and available to all

irrespective of one’s social status” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 2). Nevertheless, today there are

homosexual amritdharis (initiated Sikhs, also known as Khalsa), who unfortunately, even while

being members of the Khalsa, cannot be open about their sexuality. Therefore, it is pertinent to

revisit the time period when the Khalsa was created, how it functioned and ultimately why this

contradiction occurs, such that amritdhari members of the Khalsa cannot be open?

Both McLeod and Malik provide great insights into the nature and functioning of the

Khalsa at its inception. McLeod argues that through his thorough research of the rahit literature
 79

as well as proto-rahit literature (Bhai Gurdas and certain compositions in Guru Granth Sahib),

the “evidence does not indicate that Guru Gobind Singh uttered a Rahit which was opposed to

the traditional version that we have today or that it was inconsistent with it. It does, however,

suggest that he announced a considerably simpler one" (McLeod 48). The simplicity of the early

Rahit makes sense in the context of what we have so far been discussing as Sikh existentialism

and how individual Sikhs acted with an implicit understanding of their own obligations. Malik

tells us the same things when he expounds on the character and constitution of the Khalsa in the

eighteenth century:

In the Khalsa army there was no place for external discipline. Their basis of

discipline was each soldier’s inner conviction and his sense of dedication to the

cause. He obeyed all orders because he considered it his sacred duty to perform

all such actions as furthered the cause of Dharma….Further, the democratic

functioning of the army gave the individual soldier a feeling that he was his own

leader and the duties he was carrying out were self-imposed. (Malik 84)

These features of having a simple Rahit and of acting on the basis of inner discipline are

connected to what has been called Sikh existentialism. Moreover, when discussing even the

intricacies of the individual units within the Khalsa army and the individuals themselves, see

what Malik tells us:

Individually each one of the Khalsa was a purified soul, a dedicated social worker

and an intensely motivated soldier who understood the issues at stake. (Malik 86)

There was no question of pay, for the followers were not considered in the service

of their leader; they were equal partners in the booty. The plunder acquired during

a campaign was jointly accounted for and equitably distributed. Horses and arms
 80

were distributed according to need and then according to the claim of the men

who had acquired them. A share was also set apart for the common pool. (Malik

88)

The individual had as much a right to command an army as to lead the

congregation in prayer provided, however, he had the requisite qualifications.

Being a Knight of the Khalsa he was subordinate to none and was his own leader.

(Malik 89)

An individual Khalsa soldier was a unit capable of operating automatically,

independent of his companions, for he was not one; he was an army unto himself.

(Malik 89)

Although the individual Khalsa member had freedom to this great extent to act individually, it

always made more sense for the Khalsa to operate not as individuals but on the smallest scale as

several members working together. This is where Malik discusses the rights of the individual as

a member of the group, in the quotes provided above. An important note here is that the

followers in group of the Khalsa “were not considered in the service of the leader who was, in

fact, barely allowed the dignity of senior among equals” (Malik 83).

More importantly, the Khalsa’s application of its political and social authority is seen

through the creation of gurmata and the meetings of sarbat khalsa in the immediate time period

after the death of Guru Gobind Singh. In the sarbat khalsa, or the general meeting of the Khalsa,

which was considered the highest unit within the organizational structure of the Panth, "meetings

were called only when important policy decisions were required to be taken. It was sort of a

direct democracy” (Malik 89). In the process of the meeting itself, “the Nihangs or Akalis, who

usually presided over these meetings, zealously guarded the right of the humblest of the Sikhs to
 81

speak his mind and to give his opinion” (Malik 90). These meetings concluded with a gurmata,

or the resolution of the Guru, through unanimous consent. Where they could not arrive at a

unanimous consent, they would attempt to open Guru Granth Sahib at random to read a passage

and see what the implied meaning of that passage may be to their situation (Malik 90). Mandair

tells us that “The gurumata was usually organized on the occasion of Baisakhi or Diwali at

Amritsar and was considered to be morally binding on all Sikhs since it was seen as an

application of the Guru Granth-Guru Panth or miri–piri doctrine” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 2). In

this early composition and function of the Khalsa then, we see how Sikh existentialism that

operates on the individual level finds an operative structural model through the republican and

democratic principles of the sarbat khalsa.

This early process of self-governance by the people within the Sikh community was

disrupted by the bullish takeover of Sikh misls by Ranjit Singh in the creation of what came to be

known as the Sikh Empire. Mandair concurs with this point when he says “Ranjit Singh had

acquired for the Sikhs a territorial sovereignty with its attendant material benefits for some, but

at the cost of the concept of sovereignty evolved by the Sikh Gurus” (Mandair, Sikhism Ch. 2).

This period of disruption as well as the subsequent annexation of the Sikh Empire into the British

Kingdom effectively brought an early end to the development of the democratic process of Sikh

governance. As the need arose, following defeat at the hands of the British, to prove that Sikhi

could provide the same level of moral and religious teaching as that of Christianity, Sikh scholars

of the time proceeded to publish works that are clearly understood by contemporary scholars as

having been greatly affected by the very framework of colonialism itself. An attempt was made

in the first fifty years of the 1900’s to revive Sikhi within the masses by the Singh Sabha

reformist scholars. By 1951 their efforts culminated in the creation of the Sikh Rehat Maryada,
 82

which particularly addressed the issue of the sheer diversity of interpretations of Sikhi and

attempted to give a standardized version which all Sikhs could follow. In consonance with my

argument of Sikh existentialism, McLeod informs us “that only a portion of the Rahit dates from

the time of Guru Gobind Singh. It evolved according to the conditions of the time, producing

significantly different patterns as the circumstances of the Sikh Panth changed" (McLeod

6). The present day Sikh Rehat Maryada is a reflection of this subjectivity and change. 21

Even though the Sikh Rehat Maryada was ratified after extensive work, it still left many

questions unanswered, which the current generation has had to deal with. For example, in recent

years since 1998, the Sikh leadership has, on multiple occasions, made statements against

homosexuality, without producing any real reasoning based upon Gurmat. Even greater than this

is the issue that the leadership within the Akal Takht is only representative of the Sikh population

residing within Punjab and is unable to represent or deal with the concerns of the Sikh diaspora.

As a result, today, no real governing principle for the whole Sikh community exists, presenting

an immense challenge for Sikhs to understand and apply the social implications of Sikh

principles. Till the Sikhs are not able to address this larger issue of representation and

governance, the sheer diversity of interpretations arising out of the subjective nature of Sikh

existentialism will continue to present challenges to individuals and the community at large. As

a scholar, it will be interesting to see how the new generation of Sikhs responds to this lack of

representation and the ways in which they attempt to address the issue. As a Sikh, what I am at

last suggesting, is the need of nothing short of a revolution in regards to the organization of the

community itself; that current day Sikh activists could learn much from the early formative

21
In this paragraph, I have provided a very quick overview of the history post 18th century as it
pertains to my thesis. For an extensive account, please see: Mandair, Arvind-pal Singh. Sikhism: A Guide
for the Perplexed. New York: Bloomsbury Pub. Plc, 2013. Chapter 3.
 83

period of the Khalsa and use their creativity to find ways to implement its principles within the

Sikh community. To be clear, this is not a call for Khalistan; that is not what I mean by learning

from the early formative period of the Khalsa. What I am stating is that there is a need for a

model of representation in which populations from the ‘diaspora’ and the ‘homeland’ are

represented, and in which no discrimination is made on the basis of any societal basis, whether

gender or sexuality. Only when such a representation is constructed will the model of Sikh

existentialism, centered on the concept and role of Guru, be realized today. Once such a model

of representation has been re-imagined and recreated, open discussions and decisions can be

made about issues such as homosexuality, by the community and for the community. In the

words of Nikky Singh:

Rather than boast, we should internalize the spirit of Baisakhi. ‘[T]he ideas that

have the most powerful hold upon us are not those we think about….The most

powerful ideas are those we think with. They are the ideas that lie ‘behind’ our

eyes, enabling us to see; what we do see is shaped by them.’ I believe that if we

keep the liberating praxis of Baisakhi 1699 ‘behind our eyes,’ we will instantly

start doing something about the problems facing the Sikh community in a real

way. Our re-memory is not a superficial celebration of Guru Gobind Singh’s

accomplishment three centuries ago -- it is changing our thoughts, our emotions,

and our actions today. (Singh, The Birth of the Khalsa 191)
 84

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