History of the Sikhs and Their Religion (Set of 3 Volumes)

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The History of the Sikhs is saga of suffering and sacrifice. Sn Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, declared the equality of man, "there is no Hindu no Musalman". For preaching his philosophy, he traveled through many countries, when traveling.

was time consuming and difficult. Sri Guru Arjun Dev and Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur, fifth and the ninth Gurus, sacrificed their lives for the freedom of conscience. Sn Guru Gobind Singh the tenth and the last apostle Guru of the Sikhs, sacrificed his four sons, and himself fought to his last breath against tyranny. The non-Sikh writers have seldom done justice in their accounts. The contemporary Muslim writers gave highly bigoted account of their noble deeds. The Western scholars, not familiar with the spirit of the movement, depict history from an entirely different angle. How the Sikh history has been distorted, has been given in detail in the Preface of the First Edition (of this book).

It was, therefore, a dire necessity to present the history of the Sikhs based on reliable resources in the right perspective. There is also another factor, the Sikhs have spread almost to every nook and corner of the world. Consequently, there is a growing interest in the history and culture of the Sikhs. Keeping in view this long-felt need, the Dharam Parchar Committee, SGPC Amritsar sponsored this project for re-writing history of the Sikhs at the instance of Dr Kharak Singh, who has been one of the founders of the Institute of Sikh Studies, Chandigarh.

The first volume of this book was published in 2004, which was very well received. It was soon exhausted-thanks to the readers. Subsequently, the book was sent to the Screening Committee of experts (Ghokh Committee of SGPC, Amritsar) for publication of its second edition. The Experts Committee returned the book with certain suggestions, which have been thoroughly discussed by the History Project Committee of the Institute of Sikh Studies. Ulimately, S Gajindar Singh, Editor of Abstracts of Sikh Studies (Institute of Sikh Studies' quarterly Journal), and himself an author of books in English, was requested to go through the entire typed script and make amends in light of the suggestions made by the Experts Committee as well as the discussion of the History Project Committee. He has done the job meticulously for which he deserves our thanks.

I am grateful to all the contributors who have contributed the chapters in this volume. Thanks are due to the President, Institute of the Sikh Studies for his very valuable cooperation and continued interest in this project

As has been significantly pointed out by EH. Carr in his lecture What is History, that history has to be reinterpreted in every age. He says, "Ultimately history we cannot have in this generation but we can show the point that we have reached on the road from one point to the other." Historical research involves interpretation or reinterpretation, elucidation, illustration and explanation of facts in a new significant way or discovery of new source material and its integration with the already known facts of history. Historiography seeks to re-examine life in its entirety. "Historical imagination, historical architecture or span put the object of study in proper perspective, while historical reflecuon demands correct interpretation of historical forces working in different situations"

It is difficult to reconstruct the history of medieval Punjab especially that of the Guru period (1469-1708 CE). The land of Five Rivers where the Gurus gave their sermons had been the gateway of India in the northwest. Since the times immemorial, it has also been the destination of various migrating tribes. Thus it became a meeting point of various cultures and civilizations. The Aryans first settled in this region, and the Rig Veda was compiled here. Subsequently different denominations like Buddhism, Jainism, Sarvism, cult of Siddhas, etc., appeared. But the most important in its impact was the advent of Islam, with an entirely different culture and civilization that clashed with the indigenous values. Before the advent of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji, the founder of Sikhism, Islam had the dominant influence. All these religious denominations have been mentioned in Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture. For proper understanding of the history of the Sikhs, the Gurus and their faith, one has to understand all these cults and creeds.

Another great difficulty in the study of this period is the paucity of contemporary source material. Perhaps the only independent work which is contemporary is the Dabistan discovered by Sir William Jones, the founder of Asiatic Society, Calcutta. Besides this, we get stray references in the contemporary Persian sources like Akbar Nama, Tuzaki Jebangiri, Abkami-Alamgiri, etc. Similarly, some contemporary references area available in Gurmukhi-Punjabi literature. Sri Guru Granth Sahib provides significant information relating to Babar's invasion, and socio-religious life of the people. Similarly, Varun of Bhai Gurdas, a Gurmukhi source, refers to some important events of the Gurus' lives. For life history of the ninth and tenth Guru we have to depend on Bachittar Natak and Sainapat's Gursobba which are contemporary works. Mostly, we have to depend on the tradition for reconstructing lives of the Gurus. Perhaps no religious prophet has left any written record of his life. The major sources of information are the legends preserved in the hearts of the people on which lives of the prophets are constructed. It will not, therefore, be out of place to emphasize the historical significance of tradition as source of history.

In religious historiography, tradition plays a very significant role. Tradition implies "handing down of opinion, beliefs and practices to posterity unwritten." Legend's connotation is "story handed down from generation to generation and popularly believed to have historical basis. A powerful tradition tends to be a legend in the course of time. Therefore, the role of both tradition & legend in historiography is similar and significant. In the Anatic Researches, John Malcolm has significantly remarked: "In every research into general history of mankind, it is of utmost essential importance to know what a nation has to say of itself, and knowledge obtained from such sources has a value independent of its historical utility."

The traditions of the Sikhs constitute what they have to say about themselves. The Sikh traditions, therefore, have to be taken into account for writing history of the Sikh Gurus According to Jan Vasina, the author of Oral Tradition, "the study of tradition occupies a special place in the various kinds of historical sources. The tradition can be divided into the following categories narratives, legends, proverbs, historical lays, etc. In pre-literate ages people had a highly developed power of memory, and handed down their tradition in a suitable form for transmission by use of proverbs. But tradition becomes most reliable when it is corroborated by some other evidence. In recent years, particularly in the study of history of African societies, the ethno-historians and anthropologists with historical interest, have demonstrated convincingly how tradition can be recorded, collected, checked and utilized for historical purposes.