IB World Religions 7.4.1. Where the Doctrines Came From: the Ten Gurus and the Mool Mantra Notes

7.4.1. Where the Doctrines Came From: The Ten Gurus and the Mool Mantra

The ten human Gurus

1. Sikhs hold that their doctrine entered the world through ten human Gurus, beginning with Guru Nanak, born in 1469, and ending with Guru Gobind Singh, who died in 1708. What those ten taught is the source of Sikh belief.
2. The tradition glosses Guru as the one who takes away darkness, meaning spiritual ignorance, and brings light, meaning spiritual understanding. It is a description of a function rather than a mark of rank.
3. The Gurus did not hold the office by inheritance. Sikhs hold that God chose each of them, and that the living Guru named the successor he judged fit.
4. The line runs Guru Nanak, Guru Angad, Guru Amar Das, Guru Ram Das, Guru Arjan, Guru Hargobind, Guru Har Rai, Guru Har Krishan, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh.
5. Their circumstances differed sharply. Guru Har Krishan became Guru as a small child and died at eight, while Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur were executed by Mughal authority.
6. Sikhs do not read those differences as producing different teachings. The doctrinal content is held to be one, whatever the century or the political pressure a particular Guru faced.
7. The office itself is the gurgaddi, the Guru's seat. Installation in it, rather than birth or scholarship, is what made a person Guru.

The passing of the light

1. Sikhs hold that one divine light, jot, passed from each Guru to the next. The bodies were ten, while the light within them was one.
2. The doctrine shows in how the Gurus signed their work. All ten used the name Nanak, so a hymn composed by the fifth Guru speaks in the first Guru's voice.
3. Bhai Gurdas gives the standard image for it. The light passed to Guru Angad as one lamp is lit from another, and the flame is not divided by being handed on.
4. The practical result is that Sikhs do not rank the Gurus against each other. None is treated as greater or lesser, and none is held to correct another.
5. That is also why their words could be gathered into a single volume without contradiction. The Guru Granth Sahib arranges hymns by musical measure rather than by author, and Sikhs find no difficulty in the mixing.
6. The light is not held to be the Gurus' private possession. Sikhs teach that jot is present in every living being, and that the Gurus differed in having realised it rather than in having been given something others lack.
7. Doctrine therefore rests on one source. Sikhs describe the ten Gurus as a single voice speaking across two centuries.

Doctrine as revealed word

1. Sikhs locate doctrine in the Gurus' words rather than in later theology. There is no Sikh council, creed or body of jurists with authority to add to what the ten said.
2. Those words are held to be given rather than composed. Guru Nanak says within the scripture that he speaks only what the Lord sends, and Sikhs take the statement at face value.
3. This is why doctrine and scripture sit so close together in Sikhism. Asking what Sikhs believe is in practice asking what the Guru Granth Sahib says.
4. Doctrine arrives as poetry set to music rather than as a list of propositions. Sikhs hold the form to be part of the revelation, so meaning is carried by sound as well as by sense.
5. Because the source is the Gurus' words, disagreements are settled by returning to the text. A custom with no warrant in the scripture has weak standing however long it has been kept.
6. The hymns of the bhagats and Pirs in the volume carry the same doctrinal weight. Sikhs draw belief from a hymn of Kabir as readily as from one of Guru Arjan's.
7. Doctrine also has a stated limit. Sikhs hold God to be nirguna, without attributes and beyond full description, so the Gurus' words point towards God rather than contain God.

The Mool Mantra

1. The Mool Mantra, the seed mantra, is the opening statement of the Guru Granth Sahib. Sikhs treat it as the root from which the rest of their doctrine grows.
2. It opens with Ik Onkar, that God is one, written as the numeral one followed by the syllable Onkar. Sikhs note that a numeral cannot be translated away or quietly made plural.
3. The phrases that follow describe God in sequence. God is sat nam, truth by name, karta purakh, the creator being, nirbhau, without fear, and nirvair, without hatred.
4. The description continues with akal murat, beyond time, ajuni, never born, and saibhang, self existent. Each phrase denies a limit that human beings live under.
5. It closes with gur prasad, by the Guru's grace. Sikhs read the ending as saying that everything just described is reached by grace rather than by argument.
6. The mantra is doctrine in compressed form. In a few words it rules out idols, incarnations and rival gods, and it grounds human equality in a single creator.
7. Sikhs describe it as a summary of the whole scripture. Everything the Gurus say afterwards is read as unfolding what these opening lines assert.

The Mool Mantra as summary

1. The Mool Mantra opens the scripture and then opens Japji Sahib, the first composition inside it. Readers meet it again at the head of many later sections of the volume.
2. That repetition is deliberate. Anyone beginning a new raag section is returned to the same statement about God before hearing anything else.
3. Sikhs use it to test other claims. A teaching implying that God is born, or has an image, or favours one people is measured against these lines and set aside.
4. It also settles the question of access to God. Because God is one, without fear and without hatred, Sikhs hold that no caste, sex or nation stands nearer to God than any other.
5. That grounds the equality practised in Sikh institutions. The shared meal of the langar and the open gurdwara are argued from the doctrine of one creator rather than from social reform.
6. Shorter forms are in common use. Many Sikhs recite from Ik Onkar through to gur prasad, while others treat the mantra as running only as far as saibhang.
7. It is also the first thing taught. A child, or an adult new to the faith, normally learns the Mool Mantra before anything else in the scripture.

Doctrine in daily practice

1. Sikhs do not keep doctrine apart from conduct. The Gurus taught that belief shows itself in kirat karna, honest work, vand chakna, sharing what is earned, and nam japna, remembrance of God's name.
2. Doctrine is renewed daily by recitation. Prescribed prayers are said in the morning, in the evening and before sleep, so the Mool Mantra is heard every day rather than studied occasionally.
3. Households keep the teaching present at home as well. Many Sikh families own a gutka, a small prayer book, and some set aside a room for the Guru Granth Sahib itself.
4. The gurdwara turns the doctrine of one creator into a physical arrangement. Everyone sits at the same level on the floor, below the scripture, whatever their standing outside the building.
5. Sewa, unpaid service, follows straight from the doctrine. Sikhs sweep floors, cook, wash dishes and serve in the langar, and no task is treated as beneath anyone.
6. The teaching is also carried by story. The Gurus' lives, told in the Janam Sakhis and retold at gurpurbs, supply the doctrine with examples and not only with statements.
7. Sikhs describe the outcome as a religion without a separate religious class. Doctrine received from the Gurus is applied by ordinary people in ordinary work, with no priesthood standing in between.