Interpreting Sri Guru Granth Sahib in a Hindu Context:

A Few Preliminary Remarks.

Dr. N. Muthu MohanCentre on Studies in Sri Guru Granth Sahib

Guru Nanak Dev University Amritsar

Mail: m_uthumohan@yahoo.co.in

My Project Title in the CSSGGS-GNDU is “Writing Sikh

Philosophy In Its Own Terms”

1. Sikh Terms versus Non-Sikh Terms.

2. Hinduism, Islam and Western Theories: Their Influence upon Sikh Studies and Strategies to overcome them.

“The faith preached by Guru Nanak was nothing new for India, it was basically the old monotheistic creed of the ancient Hindus as propounded in the Vedas and the Upanishads – the Vedanta with its insistence upon jnana or knowledge of One Supreme Reality. And the monotheistic basis was fortified, so to say, to put the matter in simple form by bhakti or faith inculcated in later Puranic Hinduism. The Sikh Panth was nothing but a reformed and simplified Sanatan Dharma of medieval times”Professor Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, President,

Sahitya Akademy

“Sikh Gurus do not claim to teach a new doctrine but only renew the eternal wisdom. Nanak elaborated the views of Vaishnava Saints.”

S. Radhakrishnan, Former President of India.

Two Historical Periods of Sikh-Hindu Encounters

1. 18th and Early 19th Centuries: The Udasis and the Nirmalas.

2. Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries: European Orientalists and the Nationalist Hindu Elite.

The Udasis and the Nirmalas1. Pre-modern Period and its Limitations:

Vedas, Upanishads, Darshanas, Puranas and Shastras understood in a diffused manner

2. Conceptually not very strong and more of ritualistic character.

3. Three Strands of Hinduism that were trying to find parallels in Sikhism: Vedanta, Bhakti and Yoga

4. Ik Omkar and Shabad vs Vedanta Love of the Personal God vs Bhakti Doctrine of Naam vs Meditation on Naam

The European Orientalists1. Modern Making of Hinduism in terms of

European Philosophies and Comparative Religious Studies: Theism, Theology, Pantheism, Monotheism, Spiritualism, Mysticism etc

2. Hinduism Invented by the Westerners in the Image of Christianity: Post-colonialism

3. German Orientalists had a vested Interest in Sanskrit, Vedas, Vedanta and Hinduism: Aryan Racist Supremacy

4. Attempt to replace the antiquity of Jewish Hebrew and Greek Philosophy: Another Renaissance: Who defeated this attempt?

5. Accommodating the Vedas, Upanishads, Vedanta, Bhakti Vedantas into a Whole and proposing it as a Philosophy of Religion: Is it a Caste Model?

The Nationalist Hindu Elite1. Happy with the Global Aryan Theory.

2. Linking the Vedic Hinduism with the Pan-Indian Nationalism.

3. Western Concepts such as Spiritualism, Mysticism, Monotheism, Ultimate Reality, Self etc were inherited by the Hindu Elite and applied as Universal Categories.

4. Brahman/Atman/Maya World: A Paradigm for Religion in General ?

5. Dissolving the historically New and the spatially Different in the Vedic corpus.

6. Legitimizing the Caste and Class interests of (Bengali) Badralok within the Colonial System.

7. It is “Derivative Nationalism”: Subaltern Historians.

The Sikh Articulation as a Hermeneutic Problem

1. Articulating Sikhism in its own Terms in Hindu Context is always a Struggle.

2. Singh Sabha and Gurdwara Reform Movements checked the Udasis and the Nirmalas.

3. The Western Tools too have intruded into the Modern Sikh Readings that needs a Separate Study.

4. The Western Challenge through the Hindu Remaking is the Biggest one.

5. Sikh Hermeneutics resists the Hindu Pressures.

6. Need for Hermeneutic and Epistemological Vigilance.

Thank you