Kapur Singh's works and research papers on Sikhism
BY DR TRILOCHAN SINGH
Kapur Singh’s position on the basic doctrines of Sikhism can be stated in his own words thus :
1. Sikhism is a social religion, non-ethnical, oecumenical grounded in a political society, directed and committed to propagation and establishing of a plural world society, tolerant, open, progressive and free in character. Thus Sikhism and the Sikhs form a unique religion and a unique society, which and who can be clearly distinguished from the other religions and political societies of the world.
2. Guru Nanak was not a mere saint, for, a saint is one who manifests in his life the true essence of an already established creed. Guru Nanak is emphatic that “I can think of no one entitled to claim my allegiance as a matter of right.” (bia sijhai ko nahi bahe dosafa pae — Asa). He was not a Bhagta proper, for, he repudiated the basic tenets of the medieval Bhakti movement of India, namely the doctrine of avatarvad and devotional worship of one form of the already manifest Vishnu through utter and unreserved devotion, although he accorded a high place to integration of trained emotions in the life of a religious person.
3. In particular, Guru Nanak is the first prophet born in India in the sense of one who claims that the religion he preaches is a revealed religion. A revealed religion is one which is imparted through a chosen individual as a consequence of his encounter with God. It is not the result of a mystical experience of a facet of reality acquired by an individual through discipline or innate propensity. It is not an impersonal empathy with some eternal truths that are seen by individuals but which, in their origin and formulation, are wholly and utterly unmade-made apurushya, such as Vedas are. The religious truths, which Guru Nanak preaches have been revealed to him, so Guru Nanak claims through a direct and face to face encounter with God, at some level of consciousness about which our psychological insights are still almost purblind. “I preach just as the Word is revealed to me”. “Jaisi mai avai khasam ki bani taisa kari gian ve Lallo”.
4. The Sikhs are a living people knit into a political organization, the Khalsa, and they have no intention of going under simply because those others view the current situation and realities otherwise. The Sikhs shall make the greatest mistake of their life if they accept the position of becoming mere camp followers of those who make the division of indivisible India a possibility, and those who proclaim that a nation can be artificially manufactured out of half-baked themes extracted from the 19th century history of Western Europe.
A nation does not spring forth from the earth as a mushroom after rain. It must struggle as a banyan tree against wintery winds and dry spells. A nation is not produced out of the corpses of living and pulsating organism and a nation is not built through intellectual arrogance and spinney. The Khalsa cannot lend itself to be used in a self-defeating process of this kind. The Khalsa shall never accept or submit to the position that technology, with its attitudes and values, is a sufficient culture or that present preoccupation with industrial production and economic goals can satisfy all human dimensions of life and can replace religion as the supreme concern of man. The Khalsa shall uphold the banner of peace and mutual understanding among men, so that the entire mankind may progress and prosper.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t0QAkxLITghv0gYKdragEt6jnpnS6j8Ia4TpXyaeM5wXbuZW67J1zmr69J3F0PgPMvV3A5mAfY4cee0OcrMjon4V-Wa8GnXfJ4KQSp6WwcbJ5fac2I0G2ru6NzJU2_8OFRNbQ7_PzD-Ci9Tl1OPXc=s0-d)