The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I (of IV)

R >> R.V. Russell >> The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I (of IV)

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42

"Sikhism was founded by Baba Nanak, a Khatri of the Punjab, who lived
in the fifteenth century. But Nanak was not more than a religious
reformer like Kabir, Ramanand, and the other Vaishnava apostles. He
preached the unity of God, the abolition of idols, and the disregard
of caste distinctions. [390] His doctrine and life were eminently
gentle and unaggressive. He was succeeded by nine _gurus_, the last
and most famous of whom, Govind Singh, died in 1708.

"The names of the _gurus_ were as follows:

1. Baba Nanak 1469-1538-9
2. Angad 1539-1552
3. Amar Das 1552-1574
4. Ram Das 1574-1581
5. Arjun 1581-1606
6. Har Govind 1606-1645
7. Har Rai 1645-1661
8. Har Kishen 1661-1664
9. Teg Bahadur 1664-1675
10. Govind Singh 1675-1708

2. The earlier Gurus.

"Under the second Guru Angad an intolerant and ascetic spirit began
to spring up among the followers of the new tenets; and had it not
been for the good sense and firmness displayed by his successor,
Amar Das, who excommunicated the Udasis and recalled his followers
to the mildness and tolerance of Nanak, Sikhism would probably have
merely added one more to the countless orders of ascetics or devotees
which are wholly unrepresented in the life of the people. The fourth
_guru_, Ram Das, founded Amritsar; but it was his successor, Arjun,
that first organised his following. He gave them a written rule of
faith in the Granth or Sikh scripture which he compiled, he provided
a common rallying-point in the city of Amritsar which he made their
religious centre, and he reduced their voluntary contributions to
a systematic levy which accustomed them to discipline and paved the
way for further organisation. He was a great trader, he utilised the
services and money of his disciples in mercantile transactions which
extended far beyond the confines of India, and he thus accumulated
wealth for his Church.

"Unfortunately he was unable wholly to abstain from politics; and
having become a political partisan of the rebel prince Khusru, he was
summoned to Delhi and there imprisoned, and the treatment he received
while in confinement hastened, if it did not cause, his death. And
thus began that Muhammadan persecution which was so mightily to
change the spirit of the new faith. This was the first turning-point
in Sikh history; and the effects of the persecution were immediately
apparent. Arjun was a priest and a merchant; his successor, Har Govind,
was a warrior. He abandoned the gentle and spiritual teaching of
Nanak for the use of arms and the love of adventure. He encouraged
his followers to eat flesh, as giving them strength and daring; he
substituted zeal in the cause for saintliness of life as the price
of salvation; and he developed the organised discipline which Arjun
had initiated. He was, however, a military adventurer rather than an
enthusiastic zealot, and fought either for or against the Muhammadan
empire as the hope of immediate gain dictated. His policy was followed
by his two successors; and under Teg Bahadur the Sikhs degenerated
into little better than a band of plundering marauders, whose internal
factions aided to make them disturbers of the public peace. Moreover,
Teg Bahadur was a bigot, while the fanatical Aurangzeb had mounted
the throne of Delhi. Him therefore Aurangzeb captured and executed
as an infidel, a robber and a rebel, while he cruelly persecuted his
followers in common with all who did not accept Islam.

3. Guru Govind Singh.

"Teg Bahadur was succeeded by the last and greatest _guru_, his son
Govind Singh; and it was under him that what had sprung into existence
as a quietist sect of a purely religious nature, and had become a
military society of by no means high character, developed into the
political organisation which was to rule the whole of north-western
India, and to furnish the British arms their stoutest and most worthy
opponents. For some years after his father's execution Govind Singh
lived in retirement, and brooded over his personal wrongs and over
the persecutions of the Musalman fanatic which bathed the country in
blood. His soul was filled with the longing for revenge; but he felt
the necessity for a larger following and a stronger organisation, and,
following the example of his Muhammadan enemies, he used his religion
as the basis of political power. Emerging from his retirement he
preached the Khalsa, the pure, the elect, the liberated. He openly
attacked all distinctions of caste, and taught the equality of all
men who would join him; and instituting a ceremony of initiation,
he proclaimed it as the _pahul_ or 'gate' by which all might enter
the society, while he gave to its members the _prasad_ or communion
as a sacrament of union in which the four castes should eat of one
dish. The higher castes murmured and many of them left him, for he
taught that the Brahman's thread must be broken; but the lower orders
rejoiced and flocked in numbers to his standard. These he inspired
with military ardour, with the hope of social freedom and of national
independence, and with abhorrence of the hated Muhammadan. He gave
them outward signs of their faith in the unshorn hair, the short
drawers, and the blue dress; he marked the military nature of their
calling by the title of Singh or 'lion,' by the wearing of steel,
and by the initiation by sprinkling of water with a two-edged dagger;
and he gave them a feeling of personal superiority in their abstinence
from the unclean tobacco.

"The Muhammadans promptly responded to the challenge, for the
danger was too serious to be neglected; the Sikh army was dispersed,
and Govind's mother, wife and children were murdered at Sirhind by
Aurangzeb's orders. The death of the emperor brought a temporary lull,
and a year later Govind himself was assassinated while fighting the
Marathas as an ally of Aurangzeb's successor. He did not live to see
his ends accomplished, but he had roused the dormant spirit of the
people, and the fire which he lit was only damped for a while. His
chosen disciple Banda succeeded him in the leadership, though never
recognised as _guru_. The internal commotions which followed upon the
death of the emperor, Bahadur Shah, and the attacks of the Marathas
weakened the power of Delhi, and for a time Banda carried all before
him; but he was eventually conquered and captured in A.D. 1716, and a
period of persecution followed so sanguinary and so terrible that for
a generation nothing more was heard of the Sikhs. How the troubles of
the Delhi empire thickened, how the Sikhs again rose to prominence,
how they disputed the possession of the Punjab with the Mughals, the
Marathas and the Durani, and were at length completely successful, how
they divided into societies under their several chiefs and portioned
out the Province among them, and how the genius of Ranjit Singh
raised him to supremacy and extended his rule beyond the limits of
the Punjab, are matters of political and not of religious history. No
formal alteration has been made in the Sikh religion since Govind Singh
gave it its military shape; and though changes have taken place, they
have been merely the natural result of time and external influences.

4. Sikh initiation and rules.

"The word Sikh is said to be derived from the common Hindu term
Sewak and to mean simply a disciple; it may be applied therefore
to the followers of Nanak who held aloof from Govind Singh, but in
practice it is perhaps understood to mean only the latter, while
the Nanakpanthis are considered as Hindus. A true Sikh always takes
the termination Singh to his name on initiation, and hence they
are sometimes known as Singhs in distinction to the Nanakpanthis. A
man is also not born a Sikh, but must always be initiated, and the
_pahul_ or rite of baptism cannot take place until he is old enough
to understand it, the earliest age being seven, while it is often
postponed till manhood. Five Sikhs must be present at the ceremony,
when the novice repeats the articles of the faith and drinks sugar
and water stirred up with a two-edged dagger. At the initiation of
women a one-edged dagger is used, but this is seldom done. Thus most
of the wives of Sikhs have never been initiated, nor is it necessary
that their children should become Sikhs when they grow up. The faith
is unattractive to women owing to the simplicity of its ritual and the
absence of the feasts and ceremonies so abundant in Hinduism; formerly
the Sikhs were accustomed to capture their wives in forays, and hence
perhaps it was considered of no consequence that the husband and
wife should be of different faith. The distinguishing marks of a true
Sikh are the five _Kakkas_ or _K's_ which he is bound to carry about
his person: the _Kes_ or uncut hair and unshaven beard; the _Kachh_
or short drawers ending above the knee; the _Kasa_ or iron bangle;
the _Khanda_ or steel knife; and the _Kanga_ or comb. The other rules
of conduct laid down by Guru Govind Singh for his followers were to
dress in blue clothes and especially eschew red or saffron-coloured
garments and caps of all sorts, to observe personal cleanliness,
especially in the hair, and practise ablutions, to eat the flesh of
such animals only as had been killed by _jatka_ or decapitation,
to abstain from tobacco in all its forms, never to blow out flame
nor extinguish it with drinking-water, to eat with the head covered,
pray and recite passages of the Granth morning and evening and before
all meals, reverence the cow, abstain from the worship of saints and
idols and avoid mosques and temples, and worship the one God only,
neglecting Brahmans and Mullas, and their scriptures, teaching, rites
and religious symbols. Caste distinctions he positively condemned
and instituted the _prasad_ or communion, in which cakes of flour,
butter and sugar are made and consecrated with certain ceremonies while
the communicants sit round in prayer, and then distributed equally
to all the faithful present, to whatever caste they may belong. The
above rules, so far as they enjoin ceremonial observances, are still
very generally obeyed. But the daily reading and recital of the
Granth is discontinued, for the Sikhs are the most uneducated class
in the Punjab, and an occasional visit to the Sikh temple where the
Granth is read aloud is all that the villager thinks necessary. Blue
clothes have been discontinued save by the fanatical Akali sect, as
have been very generally the short drawers or Kachh. The prohibition
of tobacco has had the unfortunate effect of inducing the Sikhs to
take to hemp and opium, both of which are far more injurious than
tobacco. The precepts which forbid the Sikh to venerate Brahmans
or to associate himself with Hindu worship are entirely neglected;
and in the matter of the worship of local saints and deities, and
of the employment of and reverence for Brahmans, there is little,
while in current superstitions and superstitious practices there is
no difference between the Sikh villager and his Hindu brother." [391]

5. Character of the Nanakpanthis and Sikh sects.

It seems thus clear that if it had not been for the political and
military development of the Sikh movement, it would in time have lost
most of its distinctive features and have come to be considered as a
Hindu sect of the same character, if somewhat more distinctive than
those of the Nanakpanthis and Kabirpanthis. But this development and
the founding of the Sikh State of Lahore created a breach between the
Sikhs and ordinary Hindus wider than that caused by their religious
differences, as was sufficiently demonstrated during the Mutiny. In
their origin both the Sikh and Nanakpanthi sects appear to have
been mainly a revolt against the caste system, the supremacy of
Brahmans and the degrading mass of superstitions and reverence of
idols and spirit-worship which the Brahmans encouraged for their own
profit. But while Nanak, influenced by the observation of Islamic
monotheism, attempted to introduce a pure religion only, the aim
of Govind was perhaps political, and he saw in the caste system an
obstacle to the national movement which he desired to excite against
the Muhammadans. So far as the abolition of caste was concerned,
both reformers have, as has been seen, largely failed, the two sects
now recognising caste, while their members revere Brahmans like
ordinary Hindus.

6. The Akalis.

The Akalis or Nihangs are a fanatical order of Sikh ascetics. The
following extract is taken from Sir E. Maclagan's account of them:
[392]

"The Akalis came into prominence very early by their stout resistance
to the innovations introduced by the Bairagi Banda after the death of
Guru Govind; but they do not appear to have had much influence during
the following century until the days of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. They
constituted at once the most unruly and the bravest portion of the
very unruly and brave Sikh army. Their headquarters were at Amritsar,
where they constituted themselves the guardians of the faith and
assumed the right to convoke synods. They levied offerings by force
and were the terror of the Sikh chiefs. Their good qualities were,
however, well appreciated by the Maharaja, and when there were
specially fierce foes to meet, such as the Pathans beyond the Indus,
the Akalis were always to the front.

"The Akali is distinguished very conspicuously by his dark-blue and
checked dress, his peaked turban, often surmounted with steel quoits,
and by the fact of his strutting about like Ali Baba's prince with
his 'thorax and abdomen festooned with curious cutlery.' He is most
particular in retaining the five _Kakkas_, and in preserving every
outward form prescribed by Guru Govind Singh. Some of the Akalis wear
a yellow turban underneath the blue one, leaving a yellow band across
the forehead. The yellow turban is worn by many Sikhs at the Basant
Panchmi, and the Akalis are fond of wearing it at all times. There
is a couplet by Bhai Gurdas which says:

Siah, Sufed, Surkh, Zardae,
Jo pahne, sot Gurbhai;

or, 'Those that wear black (the Akalis), white (the Nirmalas), red (the
Udasis) or yellow, are all members of the brotherhood of the Sikhs.'

"The Akalis do not, it is true, drink spirits or eat meat as other
Sikhs do, but they are immoderate in the consumption of _bhang_. They
are in other respects such purists that they will avoid Hindu rites
even in their marriage ceremonies.

"The Akali is full of memories of the glorious day of the Khalsa;
and he is nothing if he is not a soldier, a soldier of the Guru. He
dreams of armies, and he thinks in lakhs. If he wishes to imply that
five Akalis are present, he will say that 'five lakhs are before you';
or if he would explain he is alone, he will say that he is with 'one
and a quarter lakhs of the Khalsa.' You ask him how he is, and he
replies that 'The army is well'; you inquire where he has come from,
and he says, 'The troops marched from Lahore.' The name Akali means
'immortal.' When Sikhism was politically dominant, the Akalis were
accustomed to extort alms by accusing the principal chiefs of crimes,
imposing fines upon them, and in the event of their refusing to pay,
preventing them from performing their ablutions or going through any
of the religious ceremonies at Amritsar."

7. The Sikh Council or Guru-Mata. Their communal meal.

The following account was given by Sir J. Malcolm of the Guru-Mata
or great Council of the Sikhs and their religious meal: [393] "When a
Guru-Mata or great national Council is called on the occasion of any
danger to the country, all the Sikh chiefs assemble at Amritsar. The
assembly is convened by the Akalis; and when the chiefs meet upon this
solemn occasion it is concluded that all private animosities cease,
and that every man sacrifices his personal feelings at the shrine of
the general good.

"When the chiefs and principal leaders are seated, the Adi-Granth
and Dasama Padshah Ka Granth [394] are placed before them. They all
bend their heads before the Scriptures and exclaim, '_Wah Guruji ka
Khalsa! wah Guruji ka Fateh!_' [395] A great quantity of cakes made of
wheat, butter and sugar are then placed before the volumes of their
sacred writings and covered with a cloth. These holy cakes, which
are in commemoration of the injunction of Nanak to eat and to give to
others to eat next receive the salutation of the assembly, who then
rise, while the Akalis pray aloud and the musicians play. The Akalis,
when the prayers are finished, desire the Council to be seated. They
sit down, and the cakes are uncovered and eaten by all classes of
the Sikhs, those distinctions of tribe and caste which are on other
occasions kept up being now laid aside in token of their general and
complete union in one cause. The Akalis proclaim the Guru-Mata, and
prayers are again said aloud. The chiefs after this sit closer and
say to each other, 'The sacred Granth is between us, let us swear by
our Scriptures to forget all internal disputes and to be united.' This
moment of religious fervour is taken to reconcile all animosities. They
then proceed to consider the danger with which they are threatened,
to devise the best plans for averting it and to choose the generals who
are to lead their armies against the common enemy." The first Guru-Mata
was assembled by Guru Govind, and the latest was called in 1805, when
the British Army pursued Holkar into the Punjab. The Sikh Army was
known as Dal Khalsa, or the Army of God, _khalsa_ being an Arabic word
meaning one's own. [396] At the height of the Sikh power the followers
of this religion only numbered a small fraction of the population of
the Punjab, and its strength is now declining. In 1911 the Sikhs were
only three millions in the Punjab population of twenty-four millions.

Smarta Sect

_Smarta Sect_.--This is an orthodox Hindu sect, the members of which
are largely Brahmans. The name is derived from Smriti or tradition,
a name given to the Hindu sacred writings, with the exception of the
Vedas, which last are regarded as a divine revelation. Members of
the sect worship the five deities, Siva, Vishnu, Suraj or the sun,
Ganpati and Sakti, the divine principle of female energy corresponding
to Siva. They say that their sect was founded by Shankar Acharya, the
great Sivite reformer and opponent of Buddhism, but this appears to
be incorrect. Shankar Acharya himself is said to have believed in one
unseen God, who was the first cause and sole ruler of the universe;
but he countenanced for the sake of the weaker brethren the worship
of orthodox Hindu deities and of their idols.

Swami-Narayan Sect

1. The founder.

_Swami-Narayan Sect._ [397]--This, one of the most modern Vaishnava
sects, was founded by Sahajanand Swami, a Sarwaria Brahman, born
near Ajodhia in the United Provinces in A.D. 1780. At an early age he
became a religious mendicant, and wandered all over India, visiting
the principal shrines. When twenty years old he was made a Sadhu of
the Ramanandi order, and soon nominated as his successor by the head
of the order. He preached with great success in Gujarat, and though
his tenets do not seem to have differed much from the Ramanandi creed,
his personal influence was such that his followers founded a new sect
and called it after him. He proclaimed the worship of one sole deity,
Krishna or Narayana, whom he identified with the sun, and apparently
his followers held, and he inclined to believe himself, that he was a
fresh incarnation of Vishnu. It is said that he displayed miraculous
powers before his disciples, entrancing whomsoever he cast his eyes
upon, and causing them in this mesmeric state (Samadhi) to imagine
they saw Sahajanand as Krishna with yellow robes, weapons of war,
and other characteristics of the God, and to behold him seated as
chief in an assembly of divine beings.

2. Tenets of the sect.

His creed prohibited the destruction of animal life; the use of animal
food and intoxicating liquors or drugs on any occasion; promiscuous
intercourse with the other sex; suicide, theft and robbery, and false
accusations. Much good was done, the Collector testified, by his
preaching among the wild Kolis of Gujarat; [398] his morality was said
to be far better than any which could be learned from the Shastras;
he condemned theft and bloodshed; and those villages and Districts
which had received him, from being among the worst, were now among
the best and most orderly in the Province of Bombay. His success
was great among the lower castes, as the Kolis, Bhils and Kathis. He
was regarded by his disciples as the surety of sinners, his position
in this respect resembling that of the Founder of Christianity. To
Bishop Heber he said that while he permitted members of different
castes to eat separately here below, in the future life there would
be no distinction of castes. [399] His rules for the conduct of the
sexes towards each other were especially severe. No Sadhu of the
Swami-Narayan sect might ever touch a woman, even the accidental
touching of any woman other than a mother having to be expiated by a
whole-day fast. Similarly, should a widow-disciple touch even a boy
who was not her son, she had to undergo the same penalty. There were
separate passages for women in their large temples, and separate
reading and preaching halls for women, attended by wives of the
Acharyas or heads of the sect. These could apparently be married,
but other members of the priestly order must remain single; while
the lay followers lived among their fellows, pursuing their ordinary
lives and avocations. The strictness of the Swami on sexual matters
was directed against the licentious practices of the Maharaj or
Vallabhacharya order. He boldly denounced the irregularities they
had introduced into their forms of worship, and exposed the vices
which characterised the lives of their clergy. This attitude, as
well as the prohibition of the worship of idols, earned for him the
hostility of the Peshwa and the Maratha Brahmans, and he was subjected
to a considerable degree of persecution; his followers were taught
the Christian doctrine of suffering injury without retaliation, and
the devotees of hostile sects took advantage of this to beat them
unmercifully, some being even put to death.

3. Meeting with Bishop Heber.

In order to protect the Swami, his followers constituted from
themselves an armed guard, as shown by Bishop Heber's account of
their meeting: "About eleven o'clock I had the expected visit from
Swami-Narayan. He came in a somewhat different guise from all which
I expected, having with him near 200 horsemen, mostly well-armed
with matchlocks and swords, and several of them with coats of mail
and spears. Besides them he had a large rabble on foot with bows and
arrows, and when I considered that I had myself an escort of more than
fifty horses and fifty muskets and bayonets, I could not help smiling,
though my sensations were in some degree painful and humiliating,
at the idea of two religious teachers meeting at the head of little
armies, and filling the city which was the scene of their interview
with the rattling of gunners, the clash of shields and the tramp
of the war-horse. Had our troops been opposed to each other, mine,
though less numerous, would have been doubtless far more effective
from the superiority of arms and discipline. But in moral grandeur
what a difference was there between his troop and mine. Mine neither
knew me nor cared for me; they escorted me faithfully and would have
defended me bravely, because they were ordered by their superiors to do
so. The guards of Swami-Narayan were his own disciples and enthusiastic
admirers, men who had voluntarily repaired to hear his lessons, who
now took a pride in doing him honour, and would cheerfully fight to
the last drop of blood rather than suffer a fringe of his garment to
be handled roughly.... The holy man himself was a middle-aged, thin
and plain-looking person, about my own age, with a mild expression of
countenance, but nothing about him indicative of any extraordinary
talent. I seated him on a chair at my right hand and offered two
more to the Thakur and his son, of which, however, they did not avail
themselves without first placing their hands under the feet of their
spiritual guide and then pressing them reverently to their foreheads."

4. Meeting with Governor of Bombay.

Owing, apparently, to the high moral character of his preaching and
his success in reducing to order and tranquillity the turbulent Kolis
and Bhils who accepted his doctrines, Swami-Narayan enjoyed a large
measure of esteem and regard from the officers of Government. This
will be evidenced from the following account of his meeting with the
Governor of Bombay: [400] "On the receipt of the above two letters,
Swami-Narayan Maharaj proceeded to Rajkote to visit the Right
Honourable the Governor, and on the 26th February 1830 was escorted
as a mark of honourable reception by a party of troops and military
foot-soldiers to the Political Agent's bungalow, when His Excellency
the Governor, the Secretary, Mr. Thomas Williamson, six other European
gentlemen, and the Political Agent, Mr. Blane, having come out of
the bungalow to meet the Swami-Narayan, His Excellency conducted the
Swami, hand in hand, to a hall in the bungalow and made him sit on
a chair. His Excellency afterwards with pleasure enquired about the
principles of his religion, which were communicated accordingly. His
Excellency also made a present to Swami-Narayan of a pair of shawls
and other piece-goods. Swami-Narayan was asked by the Governor whether
he and his disciples have had any harm under British rule; and His
Excellency was informed in reply that there was nothing of the sort,
but that on the contrary every protection was given them by all the
officers in authority. His Excellency then asked for a code of the
religion of Swami-Narayan, and the book called the Shiksapatri was
presented to him accordingly. Thus after a visit extending to an hour
Swami-Narayan asked permission to depart, when he was sent back with
the same honours with which he had been received, all the European
officers accompanying him out of the door from the bungalow."