Sikhism

Sikhism was founded by [[guru-nanak|Guru Nanak]] in the Punjab region of northern South Asia at the turn of the 16th century, in a context substantially shaped by the encounter of Hindu bhakti devotionalism, Islamic Sufi devotionalism, and the broader Indian religious landscape. Nanak’s teaching — that there is one divine reality, that this reality is to be remembered and loved, that all human beings are equal before it, and that practical service is the ground of spiritual life — was transmitted through a lineage of nine successor Gurus across two centuries.

The ten Gurus

The succession (with approximate teaching periods):

1. [[guru-nanak|Guru Nanak]] (1469–1539) — founder; established the principle of Ik Onkar (one divine reality), the institution of langar, and the foundational hymns.
2. Guru Angad (1504–1552) — formalized the Gurmukhi script in which the scriptures would be written.
3. Guru Amar Das (1479–1574) — substantially developed the institutional structures, including the requirement that all visitors first eat in the langar before meeting the Guru (a teaching against caste).
4. Guru Ram Das (1534–1581) — founded [[san-francisco|the city]] of Amritsar.
5. Guru Arjan (1563–1606) — compiled the first edition of the scripture (the [[guru-granth-sahib|Adi Granth]]); built the [[harmandir-sahib|Harmandir Sahib]] (Golden Temple) at Amritsar; martyred under the Mughal emperor Jahangir.
6. Guru Hargobind (1595–1644) — introduced the principle of miri-piri (temporal and spiritual authority); inaugurated the tradition’s organized self-defense.
7. Guru Har Rai (1630–1661).
8. Guru Har Krishan (1656–1664) — became Guru at age five; died of smallpox at eight while caring for victims of an epidemic.
9. Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621–1675) — martyred in Delhi by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb for defending the right of Kashmiri Hindus to practice their faith.
10. Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708) — founded the Khalsa (the initiated community of committed Sikhs) in 1699; established the five articles of faith (the 5 Ks); transferred Guruship permanently to the scripture (now the [[guru-granth-sahib|Guru Granth Sahib]]) and the community.

The teachings

Several foundational principles:

• Ik Onkar (one divine reality) — the opening invocation of the scripture; the theological foundation. The divine is one, formless yet present in all forms, beyond gender, beyond caste, beyond religion.
• Nam japna (remembering the name) — the contemplative discipline of repeating, hearing, and dwelling on the divine name. The principal contemplative practice.
• Kirat karni (honest work) — the obligation of earning one’s living through honest labor, neither parasitic nor exploitative.
• Vand chakna (sharing with others) — the obligation of sharing what one has with the community and especially with those who have less. The langar is the institutional embodiment.
• Sewa (selfless service) — the practice of serving the community and the broader world without expectation of reward. Cooking and serving in the langar is the principal training ground.
• Equality — the radical insistence that all human beings, regardless of caste, gender, race, or creed, are equal before the divine. Substantially counter-cultural in the caste-organized society in which Sikhism emerged; remains a continuing teaching.

The Khalsa and the 5 Ks

In 1699, Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa — the order of initiated Sikhs committed to the discipline of the path. Initiates take the surname Singh (lion) for men and Kaur (princess) for women, and observe the 5 Ks: kesh (uncut hair, often kept under a turban), kara (steel bracelet), kanga (wooden comb), kachera (cotton undergarment), and kirpan (a small ceremonial sword, symbol of the obligation to defend the vulnerable). Not all Sikhs take initiation into the Khalsa; the broader community of practitioners is called the Sangat.

Langar — the free kitchen

Among the institutions Sikhism is most known for is [[langar]] — the free community kitchen attached to every gurdwara (Sikh house of worship). The langar serves vegetarian food to anyone who comes, regardless of religion, caste, race, gender, or social status, with everyone sitting together on the floor at the same level. The langar is staffed by sewa — volunteers cooking, serving, and cleaning. The largest langars (such as at the [[harmandir-sahib|Harmandir Sahib]] in Amritsar) feed tens of thousands of people daily. The langar is at once a contemplative practice (cooking and serving as devotion), a social institution (counter-caste, counter-hierarchy), and a continuing model of how feeding the world might be organized — a model the platform takes seriously as it thinks about its own work.

The scripture

The [[guru-granth-sahib|Guru Granth Sahib]] is the principal scripture and [[guru-granth-sahib|the eternal Guru]] of the Sikh community since 1708. It contains hymns by the Sikh Gurus, by Hindu and Muslim devotional poets (Kabir, Ravidas, Farid, others) whose teaching the Gurus recognized as compatible with their own, and by other contributors. It is treated with the reverence due a living teacher: it is enthroned in the gurdwara, opened ceremonially, and consulted for guidance.

Honest framing

A few notes for clarity:

• The Khalistan question. Modern Sikh history has been substantially shaped by the partition of British India in 1947 (which divided the historic Sikh homeland of Punjab between India and Pakistan and produced massive displacement and violence) and by the subsequent tensions between the Sikh community and the Indian state, including the 1984 Indian Army assault on the [[harmandir-sahib|Harmandir Sahib]] (Operation Blue Star), the 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms, and the continuing question of Khalistan (an independent Sikh homeland). [[0mn1one|The platform]] notes the political context without taking a position on contested sovereignty questions.
• The diaspora. Substantial Sikh communities exist in the UK, Canada, the U.S., East Africa, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere — often the result of British colonial labor migration and later refugee flows. The diaspora communities have substantially extended the langar tradition globally.
• Internal diversity. The Sikh tradition has substantial internal diversity — Khalsa Sikhs and Sehajdhari Sikhs, various movements (Namdharis, Nirankaris, the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, others), and the question of who counts as Sikh and on what terms is contested within the community.

See also

Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.

• Subset of: [[spirituality]]
• Parallels: [[bhakti]] · [[sufism]]
• Supersets: [[guru-granth-sahib]] · [[guru-nanak]] · [[harmandir-sahib]] · [[langar]]

Sources

1. Pashaura Singh & Louis E. Fenech (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies. Oxford, 2014. Source class: handbook / scholarly survey.
2. Hew McLeod. Sikhism. Penguin, 1997. Source class: book / scholarly introduction.
3. Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh. The Birth of the Khalsa: A Feminist Re-Memory of Sikh [[eating-the-landscape|Identity]]. SUNY Press, 2005. Source class: book / feminist scholarly engagement.
4. Khushwant Singh. A History of the Sikhs (2 vols.). Princeton/Oxford, 1963 (rev. 2004). Source class: book / standard historical survey.
5. [[guru-granth-sahib|Sri Guru Granth Sahib]] (various translations including Manmohan Singh, Pritpal Singh Bindra, Sant Singh Khalsa). Source class: primary scripture.

Lenses still to grow

• [[guru-nanak|Guru Nanak]]‘s life and teaching in detail.
• The [[guru-granth-sahib|Adi Granth]] / [[guru-granth-sahib|Guru Granth Sahib]] as a body of devotional literature in its own right.
• Langar as continuing institutional model for [[0mn1one|the platform]]‘s abundance work.
• The Khalsa and the 5 Ks in detail.
• Sikh contemplative practice — nam simran and kirtan — as a discipline.
• The diaspora communities and their continuing practices.