Have you read this article before: The Beginning of Sikhism

-

The first date in Sikhism is 1469 A.D. This was the year in which the founder of the faith Guru Nanak Dev ji was born. The age which gave birth to Guru Nanak Dev ji is very significant in the religious history of mankind. At this time, man’s mind was awakened to new ideas.
In India, this was the period of the Bhakti movement. The cult of Bhakti was popularised in Northern India by Ramanand, who followed the teaching of Ramanuja, the South India Saint and philosopher. The Bhakti faith was popularised in the Indo-Gangetic plains by Ramanand’s disciple Kabir & Ravidas, in Maharashtra by Parmanand, Tukaram & Nam Dev, in Rajasthan by Mira Bai, in Bengal by Chaitanya, in Telengana by Vallabha Swami and in Sindh by Sadhana.
All of these saints and Bhakats preached a simple religion of love of God. Their emphasis was on inner piety. They disapproved of mere externals and ceremonial worship. They regarded all men as equal and made no distinctions among them on grounds of religion or caste.
What Bhakti did in Hinduism, Sufism did in Islam. Sufi mystics came from Persia and Arabia. Some of them settled in India. Among them were men of deep learning and insight. Around them grew centers of new religious culture the more important of the Sufi seat were in Lahore, Multan, Pakpattan, Sirhind, Samana, Delhi, Ajmer and Gulbarga (Deccan).
By the beginning of the 15th century, there were over a dozen orders of Sufis in northern India. Of these, four, the Chishti, the Qadiri, the Suhrawardi and the Naqshbandi were the most important.
These Muslim Saints also believed in personal piety. Their doctrine was that the religious goal could be achieved only by loving God. They did not accept the authority of the Ulama, the law-givers of Muslim religion. The Sufis had a broad and tolerant outlook. Nor did they divide the Hindu from the Muslim. They lived simply and piously.
Bhakti and Sufism ushered a new religious atmosphere into the country. In this atmosphere, faith was valued more than form. Orthodoxy was discouraged. Hinduism and Islam did not wholly exclude each other. Their followers began to observe common points in the two systems. Although conflicts and prejudices still existed, yet a liberal influence had entered the India life.
Into this changing world, Guru Nanak Dev ji was born. He declared to mankind a message of love and faith. He preached this message far and wide. By Guru Nanak Dev ji’s teachings, the process of change was quickened.
Like the Bhaktas and the Sufis, Guru Nanak Dev ji proclaimed love of God as the basis of religion. Like the Bhaktas, he denounced caste and ritualism. Like the Sufis, he emphasised submission to God’s will as the final means to realization. Like both, he rejoiced in singing praises of the Almighty and indicated the way reconciliation between the Hindus and Muslims.
Spiritual quest was the sole aim of the Bhaktas and Sufis. But Guru Nanak Dev ji took notice of ills and errors of society. He said that it is the duty of a true religion to remedy all these ills and errors.
However, there were also some differences of doctrine. Guru Nanak Dev ji did not believe, as did some Bhaktas and Sufis, that man could in his mystical progress attain equality with God.
Guru Nanak Dev ji’s entire view was based on the concept of unity of God. He raised song in praise of One Supreme Being. Image – making and idolatry were forbidden.
Moral conduct was given sovereignty over everything else. Equality and justice were precious values. Selfless service was an inescapable duty of man.
In this simple teaching, he laid the seed of major religious faith which came to be known as Sikhism.

to read in punjabi: https://ieltsacademicreading.blogspot.com/2020/08/have-you-read-this-article-before.html
to read in hindi: https://ieltsacademicreading.blogspot.com/2020/08/blog-post_95.html






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

fire and life

-
Image
A spark, a flint:  How fire leapt to life The control of fire was the first and perhaps greatest of   humanity’s steps towards a life-enhancing technology To early man, fire was a divine gift randomly delivered in the form of lightning, forest fire or burning lava. Unable to make flame for themselves, the earliest peoples probabh stored fire by keeping slow burning logs alight or by carrying charcoal in pots. How and where man learnt how to produce flame at will is unknown. It was probably a secondary invention, accidentally made during tool-making operations with wood or stone. Studies of primitive societies suggest that the earliest method of making fire was through friction. European peasants would insert a wooden drill in a round hole and rotate it briskly between their palms this process could be speeded up by wrapping a cord around the drill and pulling on each end. The Ancient Greeks used lenses or concave mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays and burnin...
Read more

for society ...what is related????

-
Image
          Many countries aim to improve their living standard by economic development, but  some important social values are lost  as a result . Do you think the advantages of economic development outweigh the disadvantages?          In many countries women to no feel the need to get married. Some people believe that this is because women  are able to  earn their own income and therefore do not require the financial security that marriage can bring. To what extent do you agree?         Most societies have its homeless people. Some people think  that  the best way to help them is to give them money. To what extent do you agree?           More developing countries are given  aid from international organizations to help them in their development plans. Some people argue that financial aid is important but others suggest that practical aid and advice a...
Read more

do u see thiss Zoo conservation ???

-
Image
Zoo  conservation  programmes One of London Zoo’s recent advertisements caused me some irritation, so patently did it distort reality. Headlined “Without zoos you might as well tell these animals to get stuffed”, it was bordered with illustrations of several endangered species and went on to extol the myth that without zoos like London Zoo these animals “will almost certainly  disappear forever”. With the zoo world’s rather mediocre record on conservation, one might be forgiven for being slightly sceptical about such an advertisement . Zoos were originally created as places of entertainment, and their suggested involvement with conservation didn’t seriously arise until about 30 years ago, when the Zoological Society of London held the first formal international meeting on the subject. Eight years later, a series of world conferences took place, entitled “The Breeding of Endangered Species”, and from this point onwards conservation became the zoo community’s b...
Read more