The Sikh Tradition

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The Sikh Tradition

• by Vasudha Narayanan and Willard G. Oxtoby

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• The name Sikh means disciple. Sikhs are
  disciples of the supreme being, the ten Sikh
  Gurus, and the sacred scripture called the Adi
  Granth

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• One of the worlds younger religious traditions,
  Sikhism originated in the Punjab region of
  northwestern India five centuries ago, in the
  period when the founder of the Mughi dynasty, the
  Muslim emperor Babur (1483-1530) , was
  establishing the empire that eventually stretched
  across most of the subcontinent

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Origins

• Guru Nanak
• The Ten Gurus

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Crystallization

• The Sacred Scriptures
• The Khalsa
• Four Notions of Guruship
• God as Guru
• The Teacher as Guru
• The Scripture as Guru
• The Community as Guru

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Practice

• Prayer
• Congregational Worship
• The Annual Festival Cycle
• Life-Cycle Rituals

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Differentiation

• Sikh Reform Movements
• The Nirankaris
• The Namdharis
• The Singh Sabha Movement

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Interaction and Adaptation

• Twentieth-Century India
• The Sikh Diaspora
• Feminine Dimensions of Sikh Faith
• Punjabi Sikh and White Sikhs