With the loss of political independence, the differences between the Sikhs and other Hindus tended to decrease. This was natural, for nearly all their strictly religious tenets can be paralleled in Hinduism. Guru Govind waged no war against polytheism but wished to found a religious commonwealth equally independent of Hindu castes and Mohammedan sultans. For some time his ordinances were successful in creating a tribe, almost a nation. With the collapse of the Sikh state, the old hatred of Mohammedanism remained, but the Sikhs differed from normal Hindus hardly more than such sects as the Lingâyats, and, as happened with decadent Buddhism, the unobtrusive pressure of Hindu beliefs and observances tended to obliterate those differences. The Census of India,[678] 1901, enumerated three degrees of Sikhism. The first comprises a few zealots called Akâlis who observe all the precepts of Govind. The second class are the Guru Govind Sikhs, who observe the Guru's main commands, especially the prohibition to smoke and cut the hair. Lastly, there are a considerable number who profess a respect for the Guru but follow Hindu beliefs and usages wholly or in part. Sikhism indeed reproduces on a small scale the changeableness and complexity of Hinduism, and includes associations called Sabhâ, whose members aim at restoring or maintaining what they consider to be the true faith. In 1901 there was a tendency for Sikhs to give up their peculiarities and describe themselves as ordinary Hindus, but in the next decade a change of sentiment among these waverers caused the Sikh community as registered to increase by thirty-seven per cent. and a period of religious zeal is reported.[679]
FOOTNOTES:
[651] It is exemplified by the curious word an-had limitless, being the Indian negative prefix added to the arabic word had used in the Sikh Granth and by Caran Das as a name of God.
[652] See especially G.H. Westcott, Kabir and the Kabir Panth, and Macauliffe, Sikh Religion, vol. vi. pp. 122-316. Also Wilson, Essays on the religion of the Hindus, vol. I. pp. 68-98. Garcin de Tassy, Histoire de la Littérature Hindoue, II. pp. 120-134. Bhandarkar, Vaishṇ. and Śaivism, pp. 67-73.
[653] The name Kabir seems to me decisive.
[654] Dadu who died about 1603 is said to have been fifth in spiritual descent from Kabir.
[655] From a hymn in which the spiritual life is represented as a ride. Macauliffe, VI. p. 156.
[656] But Hari is sometimes used by Kabir, especially in the hymns incorporated in the Granth, as a name of God.
[657] Though Kabir writes as a poet rather than as a philosopher he evidently leaned to the doctrine of illusion (vivartavâda) rather than to the doctrine of manifestation or development (Pariṇâmavâda). He regards Mâyâ as something evil, a trick, a thief, a force which leads men captive, but which disappears with the knowledge of God. "The illusion vanished when I recognized him" (XXXIX.).
[658] He even uses the word nirvâṇa.