DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0184
172 The Sikh Sect.
The gate of salvation is narrow, not wider than the tenth part of
a mustard-seed.
If I make the seven oceans ink, if I make the trees my pen, if I make
the earth my paper, the glory of God (Hari) cannot be written.,
Hope should be placed on God (Ram), hope in others is useless.
What thou art doing to-morrow do now ; what thou art doing now do
at once. Afterwards nothing will be done when death descends on
thy head.
It will be sufficiently evident from these passages that
Sikhism was a great religious reform, and yet in its essence
very little better than either Vaishnavism or Brahmanism.
The Granth declares the Oneness of the Deity, but when we
sound the depths of its inner doctrines we find that this unity
is based on a substratum of pantheistic ideas. There is but
One God, but He manifests Himself everywhere and is every-
thing. From various passages of the Granth it is clear that
the Vaishnava names Hari, Krishna, Rama, and Govinda are
accepted by the Sikhs as names of the Supreme. They are
even willing to regard the different divine personalities repre-
sented by these names as manifestations of the one Supreme
Being. The point on which they pride themselves is the
prohibition of image-worship. Yet they make an idol of
their own sacred book, worshipping it as truly as the Hindus
do their idols, dressing it, decorating it, fanning it, putting it
to bed at night, and treating it much in the same manner as
the idols of Krishna are treated.
We have seen that one great distinguishing feature of their
system is that war is made an essential part of religion. To
indicate their belief in this doctrine they worship the military
weapons of their Gurus. In other respects they conform to
the customs of the Hindus. They even surpass the ordinary
Hindu in some of his most inveterate superstitions; as, for
example, in ascribing divine sanctity to the cow. The killing
of a cow is, with Sikhs, the most heinous of crimes1, meriting
1 At one time in the Panjab it was infinitely more criminal to kill
a cow than to kill a daughter.
The gate of salvation is narrow, not wider than the tenth part of
a mustard-seed.
If I make the seven oceans ink, if I make the trees my pen, if I make
the earth my paper, the glory of God (Hari) cannot be written.,
Hope should be placed on God (Ram), hope in others is useless.
What thou art doing to-morrow do now ; what thou art doing now do
at once. Afterwards nothing will be done when death descends on
thy head.
It will be sufficiently evident from these passages that
Sikhism was a great religious reform, and yet in its essence
very little better than either Vaishnavism or Brahmanism.
The Granth declares the Oneness of the Deity, but when we
sound the depths of its inner doctrines we find that this unity
is based on a substratum of pantheistic ideas. There is but
One God, but He manifests Himself everywhere and is every-
thing. From various passages of the Granth it is clear that
the Vaishnava names Hari, Krishna, Rama, and Govinda are
accepted by the Sikhs as names of the Supreme. They are
even willing to regard the different divine personalities repre-
sented by these names as manifestations of the one Supreme
Being. The point on which they pride themselves is the
prohibition of image-worship. Yet they make an idol of
their own sacred book, worshipping it as truly as the Hindus
do their idols, dressing it, decorating it, fanning it, putting it
to bed at night, and treating it much in the same manner as
the idols of Krishna are treated.
We have seen that one great distinguishing feature of their
system is that war is made an essential part of religion. To
indicate their belief in this doctrine they worship the military
weapons of their Gurus. In other respects they conform to
the customs of the Hindus. They even surpass the ordinary
Hindu in some of his most inveterate superstitions; as, for
example, in ascribing divine sanctity to the cow. The killing
of a cow is, with Sikhs, the most heinous of crimes1, meriting
1 At one time in the Panjab it was infinitely more criminal to kill
a cow than to kill a daughter.