Encyclopedia of Indian Religions Series Editor Arvind Sharma
Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair Editor Sikhism With 64 Figures
Editor Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair Department of Asian Languages and Cultures University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI, USA ISBN 978-94-024-0845-4 ISBN 978-94-024-0846-1 (ebook) ISBN 978-94-024-0847-8 (print and electronic bundle) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0846-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955802 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer Science+Business Media B.V. The registered company address is: Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 GX Dordrecht, The Netherlands
Preface Although the Sikh tradition has been practiced actively for about 550 years, sustained academic interest and study of Sikhism is a relatively recent development. For instance, one of the earliest academic journals dedicated to studying Sikhism, The Journal of Sikh Studies, began publication in February 1974. Half a decade later, the spreading international interest in Sikhism can be seen in its infancy in Sikh Studies: Comparative Perspectives on a Changing Tradition (Berkeley, 1979). This international interest coincided with a change in immigration policies in North America that enabled many Sikhs to migrate to places like California, Michigan, and British Columbia in growing numbers. As Sikhs were highly visible but a relatively unknown people, many early studies focused on the nature of Sikhism through two main questions: What is Sikhism? Who are the Sikhs? Almost 40 years after its international recognition as a field of study, Sikh Studies represents a rapidly growing discourse with a respectable number of scholarly publications occurring across many disciplines through books and journals on this subject. Introductory textbooks in religious studies routinely include Sikhism as a distinct religious tradition, and recent years have seen the creation of standalone textbook introductions to Sikhism. However, despite this monumental shift in the body of knowledge on the Sikh tradition, there remains a dearth of reference material that would facilitate informed interdisciplinary engagement with the central aspects of Sikhism. Encyclopedias of religion are nothing new; the Encyclopedia of Islam was first published between 1913 and 1936 following increased interest in Islam and Muslims during the nineteenth century. Coming after the initial growth in interest about Sikhism in the twentieth century, it is therefore fitting that a stand-alone encyclopedic resource be devoted to the Sikh tradition. This particular volume is not the first attempt to produce encyclopedic resources about the Sikh tradition. One of the earliest and important encyclopedic resources is Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha s Gurshabad Ratnakar: Mahan Kosh, first published in 1930. While Mahan Kosh continues to be one of the richest and valuable resources for learning about Sikh tradition, its lexicon, personalities, places, history, and artifacts, its accessibility is limited to those who know modern and classical Punjabi language. Another major encyclopedic work is the four-volume Encyclopedia of Sikhism published by Punjabi University, Patiala, in 1986 under the editorship of Professor Harbans Singh. This important work has helped to bring in-depth knowledge of Sikhs and Sikhism to an v
vi Preface English-speaking audience around a broad number of topics including a wealth of information regarding events, ideas, and personages central to Sikh history. Compared to these pioneering and monumental works, the present volume in its current form is more focussed upon entries that pertain to the conceptual frames and important thinkers needed to engage the Sikh tradition critically. The aim is meant to provide a critical resource to scholars interested in Sikh intellectual history and philosophy, not least because it comprises one section, albeit a distinct and important section, of a very different project, namely, the Encyclopedia of Indian Religions. In its current form, there are approximately 100 entries in this volume written by a wide range of scholars. The entries cover some of the most important topics necessary for understanding the nature of Sikhism. Unlike other encyclopedias, however, we have tried to incorporate more thematically oriented entries which collectively give the reader a better picture of the fluid and everchanging nature of contemporary Sikhism and its relations with the other societies and contexts. In this sense, our aim was, to some extent at least, to release this volume from a general limitation of the encyclopedia genre as a whole, which has been the tendency to fix its subject matter into a past time frame. Fortunately, in this endeavor we are aided by recent advancements in publishing technology which have allowed our publisher, Springer, to make use of digital technology that allows entries to be updated and published on a digital platform as opposed to being restricted to the printed book. Once the volume is published (both in print and static e-version), it is moved to the digital platform where it becomes available for updates and expansion. Needless to say, this helps to evolve not only the form but also the very concept of an encyclopedia in the sense that it can be periodically updated with newly commissioned articles that have not materialized in this current edition. Given that individual entries can also be updated online enabling more upto-date editions of the encyclopedia to be printed much sooner than was previously the case, the benefits to readers and contributing authors of this encyclopedia section are obvious to see. We therefore urge readers as well as our contributors to see this encyclopedia as the first stage in an interactive and evolving organic process of knowledge production, which may involve more contributors in years to come. MI, USA Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair (Editor)
Series Editor Arvind Sharma Formerly of the I.A.S., Arvind Sharma (b.1940) is the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion in the School of Religious Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He has also taught at various universities in Australia and the United States and has published extensively in the fields of comparative religion and Indology. He is currently the general editor of Encyclopedia of Indian Religions (Springer, 2017) and his forthcoming works include Orientalism Two, Our Civilization, and How to Read the Manusmṛti. vii
About the Editor Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair teaches at the University of Michigan where he is Associate Professor of Sikh Studies. He holds doctoral degrees in Philosophy/ Religion and Chemistry. Broadly grounded in South Asian studies his research interests include comparative and continental philosophy, translation studies, postcolonial theory, secularism and the theoretical study of religion and violence. His book publications include Religion and the Specter of the West: Sikhism, India, Postcoloniality and the Politics of Translation (Columbia University Press, 2009); Secularism and Religion-Making (with Markus Dressler, Oxford 2011); Sikhism: A Guide For the Perplexed (Bloomsbury 2013), a major volume of translations Teachings of the Sikh Gurus: Selections from Sikh Scripture (with Christopher Shackle, Routledge 2005). He is founding editor of the journal Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture and Theory published by Routledge. ix
Assistant Editor Harjeet Singh Grewal recently completed his dissertation entitled Janamsākhī: Retracing Networks of Interpretation (2017), at the University of Michigan in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. Harjeet is interested in questions from the Philosophy of Language pertaining to meaning, reference, translation, and textuality. He grounds these in South Asian devotional traditions focussing especially upon Sikhism. His work critically engages devotionalism by interrogating contemporary ideas about devotional archives and notions of textual materiality. Harjeet s interests and writings extend to questions about postsecularism, critical religion, diaspora, and literature. xi
Contributors Pal Ahluwalia Pro Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation), University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK Gurnam Kaur Bal Sri Guru Granth Sahib Studies Department, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab, India Department of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Studies of Punjabi University, Brampton, ON, Canada Himadri Banerjee Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India Balbinder Singh Bhogal Department of Religion, S.K.K. Bindra Chair in Sikh Studies, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA Verne A. Dusenbery Hamline University, Saint Paul, MN, USA Louis E. Fenech Department of History, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA Manjit Singh Gill No5 Chambers, London, UK Rahuldeep Singh Gill California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA Harjeet Singh Grewal Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Michael Hawley Religious Studies, Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB, Canada Religious Studies, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Randeep Hothi Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Prabhjap Singh Jutla Department of the Study of Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, UK Virinder S. Kalra Sociology, SOSS, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Tavleen Kaur University of California, Irvine, CA, USA Gurnam Kaur Bal has retired. xiii
xiv Contributors Nirinjan Khalsa Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Navdeep Mandair Independent Scholar, Coventry, UK Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK Anne Murphy Department of Asian Studies, UBC Asian Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada Michael Nijhawan Department of Sociology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada Davinder Singh Panesar Institute of Mindfulness and Transpersonal Psychology, Barcelona, Spain Susan Prill Department of Religious Studies, Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA, USA Navtej K. Purewal Sociology, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Jasdev Singh Rai Sikh Human Rights Group, British Sikh Consultative Forum, Southall, Middlesex, UK G. S. Sahota Department of Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA Christopher Shackle SOAS, University of London, London, UK Katy Pal Sian Manchester, UK School of Social Sciences, Sociology, University of Harpreet Singh Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA I. J. Singh New York University, New York, NY, USA Pashaura Singh Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh Department of Religious Studies, Colby College, Waterille, ME, USA Jasjit Singh Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Sunit Singh Divinity School, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Hardip Singh Syan SOAS, University of London, Russell Square, London, UK Opinderjit Kaur Takhar Department of Religious Studies, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK Darshan S. Tatla Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab, India