The Evolution Of The Sikh Community

Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion; Early Sikh tradition; The Evolution of the Sikh Community; Who is a Sikh?

Some fourteen million Sikhs worldwide are heirs today to a tradition of faith recalling the devotional spirituality of Guru Nanak, who lived in the Punjab five hundred years ago. The twentieth century has witnessed a heightening of Sikhs' self-awareness as a community with an identity and aspirations distinct from their Hindu as well as their Muslim neighbours. Overseas migration to countries such as Canada has also produced new challenges to Sikhs to think through the question of what the core of their tradition is and what aspects of their heritage are central in times far removed from Guru Nanak's and places distant from the Punjab. Twenty-four authoritative studies by scholars on four continents range across the contemporary Sikh experience in India and overseas. The contributors include experts on history, religion, literature, linguistics, politics, sociology and anthropology.

This is an account of the history and nature of the Sikhs and their religion written from a British nineteenth-century perspective. The book is divided into sections describing the origins of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, the spread of Sikhism, the successive Gurus and so on. The author talks about the Sikhs in India and their relationship with the British and also in later sections their role in the British Commonwealth.

Contributed papers presented at a conference.