However distinguished from them by superior internal cohesion, it will be seen that Guru Nanak’s teachings share with those of the earlier Sants a profound emphasis upon inward spirituality rather than the outward organ

isation of religious life. A vastly greater number of verses are devoted to the praise of the heavenly company of saints and to the mysterious workings of the Divine Guru in the human heart than are allotted to rules for honest everyday existence.

It was, however, important that the original nucleus of the Sikh community established under Guru Nanak’s direction in his later years at Kartarpur (li terally, ‘City of the Creator’) should be maintained and developed, if it were to achieve its purpose of creating the conditions by which the faithful on earth might aspire to the ultimate achievement of the heavenly model so powerfully set before them in Guru Nanak’s hymns. The subsequent successful evolution of Sikhism along its separate way stands in sharp contrast to the amorphous character of the groups stemming from the other reformers of the time, and is to be attributed not only to the coherence of Guru Nanak’s message, but also to his provision for continuing effective leadership after his death.

While Sikhism has from the beginning laid much stress on the irrelevance of caste distinctions, it appears from early lists that most of the early converts were from a Khattri background similar to that of its founder. Certainly, all the Gurus were from various sub-groups of Khat­tris. But the succession was not at first hereditary. Guru Nanak passed over the claims of his son Sri Chand, disqualified by his asceticism, in favour of his disciple Angad (1504-52), who in his turn chose in preference to his own sons his elderly disciple Amar Das (1479-1574), originally a Khattri convert from Vaishnavism. Thereafter the hereditary pattern asserted itself with Guru Amar Das’s selection of his son-in-law Ram Das (1534-81), succeeded in his turn by his youngest son Arjan (1563-1606), the direct ancestor of all the later living Gurus (see Figure 38.1).

Figure 38.1: The Sikh Gurus

1. Nanak (1469-1539)

2. Angad (1504-52)

3. Amar Das (1479-1574)

4. Ram Das (1534—81) I married daughter

I

5. Arjan (1563-1606)

6. Hargobind (1595-1644)

I-------------------------------------------- 1

(son) 9. Tegh Bahadur (1621-75)

. I I

7. Har Rai (1630-61) 10. Gobind Singh (1666-1708)

8. Har Krishan (1656-64)

Although each succession was disputed at the time, the splinter groups founded by disappointed claimants dwindled more or less quickly into insignificance, while the institutions of the main community were developed and strengthened by the Gurus to ensure its cohesion as it grew in numbers, especially in the Punjab. The Guruship itself, conceived as an office passing from one to another successor as one lamp is lit from another (jotijot samauna), provided the central focus for the Sikhs. The collection of Guru Nanak’s hymns was supplemented by the subsequent compositions of the later Gurus, whose spiritual identity was symbolised by their common use of the poetic signature ‘Nanak’.

A network of local communities was established, each having as its centre of congregational worship a temple, corresponding to the modern Sikh^Mrdwara (‘house of the Guru’), to which there might be attached a free kitchen (langar), symbolically open to all, regardless of caste. These local communities were organised into regions, each under the author­ity of the Guru’s appointed representatives, responsible for transmitting his teachings and instructions and for collecting his tithe for remission to his centre.

In the early years, this centre, at which all Sikhs were expected to gather before their Guru on the day of the New Year (Baisakhi), shifted with each accession to the Guruship. Guru Ram Das, however, established his centre on a new site granted him at Amritsar (‘Lake of Nectar’), and it was here that his son Guru Arjan completed in 1604 the construction of a great temple set in a large pool of water. This Harmandir (‘Temple of God’), popularly known as the ‘Golden Temple’, was surely in part intended as a symbol of the importance which Sikhism could now claim, and it has ever since retained its primacy among the religion’s sacred sites.