The Sikh symbols, popularly referred to as the Five K’s are an indispensable part of the discipline of the Order of the Khalsa, which represents the Sikh ideal of individual and social life.
These symbols are : the Keshas (which implies not desecrating God-given hair of the body, and wearing it unshorn), the Kada (a steel bracelet to be worn on the right wrist), the Kangha (a comb to be worn in the hair of the head), Kirpan (a small or large sword) and Kachha (a pair of drawers).
There is ample authority in Sikh literature and tradition in support of the view that the Keshas is the most important and sacred of all the symbols. For the shaving or trimming of hair is a bajjar kureht or a grave aberration which renders a Sikh patit, which means “polluted” or “fallen” one.
Conditioned as Sikhs are by their religious training, to rationally, even in matters religious, they have often questioned themselves as to why these symbols should have been so strictly enjoined. The result of this questioning has been the emergence of quite a body of literature explaining social and metaphysical significance of the symbols.
Social significance of the Symbols
The social significance of the symbols arises from the Sikh spiritual ideal which comprehends the secular as well as the spiritual good - eh lok sukhiye parlok suhele, Nanak har prabh ape mele (comfortable in this world and easy in the hereafter, the Lord God Himself will accept you in His grace). Since the very day Guru Nanak enunciated the basic doctrines of Sikhism, great merit has been ascribed to congregation or association with men of spiritual discipline, sadh sangat.
As history has amply demonstrated through the centuries, spirituality crumbled under pressure of force, the ideal sadh sangat,or the association of the disciplined, would be able to combat force with force. But the force that the spiritual fraternity would employ must be superior to the force of aggression in three respects: (i) it will be physically superior, (ii) it will be better organized on a moral basis and (iii) it will be restrained by a consciously accepted discipline from operating beyond the limits of subserving the spiritual aim.
For all good organizations, an outward visible form is needed. That the community of the outward form bestows upon a group of individuals greater strength by promoting among them a sense of unity, is universally recognized. The advantage of a common uniform is dramatically demonstrated in the field of sports such as baseball, hockey and football, where the issue, to a very great extent, hangs on co-coordinated team action. The various wings of defence forces have their own uniforms because their uniforms promote their organizational efficiency. Within the wings of the defence forces, the various constituents wear distinguishing insignias.
The Sikh symbols constitute the uniform of the Khalsa fraternity, which is wedded to the idea of struggle for the attainment of goodness and justice, for the promotion of the spiritual aim of the inflow of the individual self into the Universal Spirit. This outward uniform does, as a matter of fact, promote social cohesion and thus yields considerable organizational advantages. This in itself is an invulnerable argument in its favor.
This argument is sought to be met, in some quarters, by the argument that no force is needed now to defend our right to pursue the spiritual idea, which is our supreme aim. Why do we not abandon the symbols, the organizational paraphernalia, now? There will be other arguments - for instance, the importance of symbols as individual discipline - to meet this argument. But it can be met even on the organizational or social plane also.
The argument that symbols are no longer necessary in a peaceful society because, in such society, the organizational strength itself is rendered redundant is based on an unrealistic hypothesis: that social condition remain static. Since social conditions never remain static, the potential of the organizational strength has to be maintained to match the change in circumstances. Woe befalls a country which, having emerged from a war into conditions of peace, disbands its army and allows the quality of its fighting forces to deteriorate. Similarly, a society of individuals pursuing certain spiritual aims, and maintaining an organization for the defence of one’s right to pursue these aims, fares badly if it dispenses with that organization because, divesting itself of the potential for its defence, it prepares itself, - Chamberlain-like - to make compromises affecting the spiritual ideals themselves.
It must clearly be understood that the concepts of ‘force’ and ‘self-defence’, when used in relation to an association for spiritual ends, have a much broader connotation. The term “Force”, when used in relation to such association might mean subtle forces such as the power of wealth, or high office and power of fashion in thought and form. Self defence would include self-defence against subtle forces wielded by an ignorant man which may command the subtle forces like wealth, social power and even of semantic reasoning, but may lack the essence of spiritual faith.
Such conflicts between the enlightened minority and the ignorant but powerful majority continue forever, even in the apparently tranquil environs of physical peace. In such circumstances, too, the association needs to be organized to keep itself intact and its spirit alive. The social necessity of the symbols thus in not confined to periods of national struggle, but is perennial. Association of like-minded people gives to an individual courage not to abandon his good beliefs in the face of temptation, discrimination or derision. The outwards uniform of such association nurses this courage.
Some kind of metaphysical significance has been ascribed to the Sikh symbols since very early times. A comprehensive and co-ordinated metaphysical rationale of the symbols has come from S. Kapur Singh in his Parasar-Prasna:
‘The metaphysical significance of the Keshas , it has been stipulated, arises from the Sikh spiritual ideal of “growing into Divine,” to approximate in virtue to the concept of the Divine self. Deep in man’s racial subconscious, there dwells an anthropomorphic image of God. The Jewish religion and Islam have an anthropomorphic conception of God. The Vedas speak of this Divine Body - the Purusa. The Keshas are a part of this image. So wearing of unshorn bodily hair would amount to an attempt to approximate to the form as much as to the virtue of the Divine Self, to that fullness of form and virtue from which an integrated, mature human personally must grow.’
Closely connected with this idea is the argument of transcendental aesthetics, the beauty of the human form, or the “form that God made in his own image”. Guru Arjun described the features of that primal or cosmic man in such lines as “Sohne nak jin lamde vala” (who has beautiful nose and long hair) and “sabat surat dastar sira” (untrimmed body with a turban on head).
Further, the Keshas connote a repudiation of renunciation of the world as a path to salvation. Religions like Buddhism prescribe destruction of the flesh. As the Keshas , being a fast-growing appendix of the human body, dramatically symbolizes life’s impulse to grow. The Buddhist initiate shaves himself, because his philosophy is that salvation can be attained through the negation of flesh or life force, the chief characteristic of which is growth.
To sum up, in Kapur Singh’s memorable words : “The reason why the Guru forbade shingle and shaving are grounded in metaphysical postulates of transcendental aesthetics, in the basic aims and objects of the Khalsa Brotherhood which seeks to show human beings a path to liberation and self-realization through organized social and political activity, in contradistinction to the renunciation of the world and non-co-operation with the generative impulse of the universe, and thirdly and lastly, in the cultivation of a nature and integrated personality which deliberately outgrows personal vanity and boyishness and accepts the principle of growth and aging as fundamental to religious discipline.”
The Kirpan
The Kirpan (both small of large curved sword) is symbolic of three things: cutting of avidya or nescience, to separate the transient individual self from the immortal universal self, preference for open combat as against secret attack for which straight pointed blade is employed (this stands for high ethical principles of straight-forwardness) and declaration of sovereignty over one-self, which non-acceptance of restriction on wearing of arms implies. Such assertion of sovereignty over one-self may be symbolically done by the wearing of a small Kirpan . For, after all, its wearing constitutes a discipline for the wearer and a reminder to him of certain philosophical concepts.
The Kanga
The Kanga or the comb implies that the Khalsa is to wear his hair cleanly washed and combed and not matted, which latter is associated with renunciation of the world.
The Kada
The chief characteristic of the Kada or the round iron bangle to be worn on the right wrist is its roundness. The Kada is a cakra, and the cakra, in the ancient religious lore, is accepted as the symbol of dharma. Hence the expressions dharmachakra and cokravarti raja, the monarch who discharges his duties of government with diligence. The Kada thus keeps a Sikh reminded of his double duty: to strive for attainment of spiritual aspirations and to be a useful citizen.
The Kachha
The fifth symbol, which is a kind of shorts, or drawers, reaching down to the knees, is essentially, symbolic of civilization. It implies self-consciousness and self-control, which arises from a sense of duty to others.
The foregoing paragraphs are by no means an exhaustive, or even a full treatment of the subject of the metaphysical rationale of the symbols. They are just an attempt to show that such a rationale has a deeper-meaning. As, however, the main thesis of this article is that the symbols are value-based, as being a discipline, a training in loyalty and a test of the genuineness of man’s professing the faith, the above treatment had to be brief.
As already stated, the Keshas is by far the most important of the five symbols. It is more important for two reasons: (1) the classical tradition and literature accord to it a stamp of essentiality; and (2) the Keshas is a symbol the maintenance of which involves considerable inconvenience and, therefore places exacting demand on a Sikh’s loyalty to his faith. In this view of the matter, it is not a mere formality such as the painting of the forehead by certain Hindu ascetic orders, or even the maintenance of other symbols by all Sikhs. This, incidentally, should answer the common objection from certain quarters that take account of Guru Nanak’s known opposition to mere form and ritual, that the Sikhs insistence on symbols is a negation of their conceptual fundamentals. The Keshas , which is the principal target of this objection, is not a form; it is a discipline which calls for constant training in loyalty.
A discussion of Keshas would, therefore impliedly comprehend the treatment of all other symbols also and would rule out the necessity of referring individually to rest of symbols.
Symbols, symbolic of challenge to adherent’s loyalty
The requirement that the members of Khalsa Brotherhood must wear long, untrimmed hair is the extension, in time, of the challenge that Guru Gobind Singh threw to the Sikhs on the day of Baisakhi of 1699 A.D. when he demanded of the congregation that it yield men willing to be be-headed by the Guru. The form of this challenge, the aim of which was to test the Sikhs’ loyalty to their faith, as embodied in the person of the Guru, was new; the challenge itself was old, dating back to Guru Nanak. Guru Gobind Singh hinted to this fact, when after the five Sikhs had offered themselves to be slain by the Guru, expressed satisfaction over the fact that even as Guru Nanak had found only one Sikh, he had found five.
Guru Nanak’s challenge
The challenge that Guru Nanak had thrown to the Sikhs bore interesting likeness to Guru Gobind Singh’s challenge. so fantastic did these challenges appear that almost all Sikhs, on these two different occasions, began to think secretly that the Guru had lost sanity.
One morning, after the conclusion of the religious service, Guru Nanak suddenly rushed out. The mystified, curious congregation followed him in a mob. The Guru stopped, turned around and rudely bade the pursuers to go away and leave him alone. The “prudent” ones among the crowd thought that it may not be safe to go further, and stayed back to disperse to their homes or vocations. Some still followed. A little further up, the Guru turned round again, profusely abused the pursuers, and bade them not to follow. This behavior constituted such a startled departure from Guru Nanak’s kindly demeanor that most of the followers thought that the aging saint had lost all reason. Thinking that it was not judicious to provoke him further, they retired from the pursuit.
They were not wrong, after all, for the next time Guru Nanak turned around and bade his pursuers not to follow, he threw brickbats on the faithful few who still followed. The whole lot, excepting Bhai Lehna (who became the second Guru, Angad), now thought that those who had left off earlier were among more prudent and followed their example, some few of them, as their injured limbs testified, too belatedly. Lehna was not deterred in his pursuit by the volley of the missiles; not even by the fisticuffs that followed. Then, as suddenly as Guru Nanak had taken to angry force, he softened. A celestial glow showed on his sweet, reasonable face. He embraced Lehna, and then, in a sweet lyrical voice said, “you are the chosen of the Lord; you are a part of my being.” Guru Nanak had found one Sikh from a crowd of “Sikhs.”
Guru Nanak’s challenge Guru Amar Das’s test
A different though, in principle, similar, test was employed by Guru Amar Das for the selection of a successor. The choice had to be made from among half a dozen men of outstanding spiritual attainment, including Bhai Jetha, later Guru Ram Das, the Guru’s own sons and some Sikhs. Did all of them come up to the most rigorous standards of faith? if all of them did not, which one of them did? Guru Amar Das collected them together and expressed the wish that they build small earthen plinths to serve as seats for him. The best of these was to be retained, the others were to be demolished. This building of meditational platforms did not require any special skill. Each one of the chosen men began building with great devotion. However, the Guru approved none of them and wanted these to be demolished and rebuilt. His bidding was done by all. The second attempt did not yield any more satisfying results. He wanted a further attempt to be made.
Some of the men, commissioned for the job, politely excused themselves, saying they felt they could not do better. Others continued. A third, a fourth, a fifth attempt; but the Guru continued to be as relentlessly fastidious as ever, and the aspirants to the Guru’s pleasure fell off one by one. Impatient of the Guru’s “whimsicality”. Most of them did not make any secret of their impatience. Of all men, Bhai Jetha alone greeted the Guru’s dissatisfaction with patience and uncomplaining resignation. He always offered to try again. When the platform built by Bhai Jetha was at last accepted, it was not for its architectural excellence, it was accepted because it was a monument to loyalty-loyalty without which nothing can be achieved in life. The more of it a man can muster, the greater will be his achievement in life.
The Virtue of Loyalty
You need loyalty in every activity of life, for attaining whatever ideal you set to yourself. You want scholarship? Plunge yourself loyally into study. You want academic distinction? Burn the midnight oil. You want to be a distinguished sportsman? Practice the game loyally. If you need steadfast devotion for every attainment in life, you also need it for attaining religious or spiritual merit.
Loyalty as habit of mind
Now, loyalty to a particular object or objective is a virtue; but loyalty as a habit of mind is a much nobler virtue. To be noble parent is very good; but to be a loyal follower is infinitely nobler. Since the aim of the true religion was to mould human beings ("Truth is the highest of all that is good, higher still is truthful living” - Guru Nanak); it inevitably had to inculcate in its adherents a habit of loyalty that could be applied in all sphere of life.
How to cultivate loyalty
Psychological research tells us that we can improve our faculties even without, and sometimes much better, by not keeping ourselves reminded of the conscious objectives, for attaining which greater keenness of our faculties is needed.
“Ah! This piteous use of the faculty of mental concentration in life! The more I try to concentrate my attention, the more distracted I am.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. Take some mental exercises. Take a knife and a visiting card. Try to balance the visiting card on the edge of the knife. Or play chess, or tennis. When you play tennis, you uninterruptedly keep your attention concentrated on the tennis ball. So, as you play tennis, you are taking an exercise in mental concentration. This strengthens your faculty of mental concentration.”
An Exercise in Loyalty
Yes, Kesh is an exercise in loyalty, to promote the growth of this faculty. And a very effective one at that, as the whole history of the world has very few incidents of the dare devil valour shown by the small band of Sikhs who rode through masses of Durrani guards to take a dip into the sacred pool of the Golden Temple, or by small bands of Sikhs who harassed the retiring columns of Ahmad Shah Abdali’s terror-inspiring hordes. There are few incidents in the history of the world of a people arising from the embers of their near-complete destruction the way the Sikhs did after the Ghallughara - the Great Carnage of 1761. And these feats of valour were shown by men who had lain helplessly beneath the heels of marauding invaders and foreign rulers for a thousand years.
Marvels wrought by habit of loyalty
Such indeed was the potency of the habit of loyalty which the new philosophy of life had inculcated in the Sikhs - and the Keshas had reinforced! Its power and influence shows up in Sikhs even today.
If the Sikh today rank as the best farmer, a dogged soldier, a dedicated administrator, a sure man at the machine, truck driver of unbounded stamina, and, on the whole, an untiring worker in every field of activity, it is on account of the habit of loyalty which he has imbibed through the discipline of Keshas through generations.
The logic of the Keshas
The logic of this discipline is simple. When a harried Sikh foremans, who has been tending furnaces the whole day considers the plight of his sweating head, still prefers to regard the Keshas as a sacred heritage, he has steeled his habit of loyalty. When a Sikh is discriminated against on account of his hair and beard, and resolves to put up with discrimination rather than lose the Keshas , he has given extra fillip to his habit of loyalty.
But why must we resort to physical inconvenience or taboos for training in virtue? The answer is that nothing in life is achieved without inconvenience or self-denial. Proficiency in any vocation is attained by self-discipline, and discipline is nothing but a system of inconveniences and taboos. In fact, all civilized life is based upon inconvenient curbs and taboos. If the organized societies of today abolished all the taboos which their members voluntarily accept, law of the jungle would come to prevail. Thus taboos are the essential concomitant of civilization, which latter will be readily admitted to be a higher state of human existence. They are equally essential for the proper development of individual human personality. It has been observed by leading historians that communities which have practiced sexual continence have advanced much more than those which have not. It is a matter of experience that, between two man of equal parts, the one capable of greater self-denial achieves much more than the other.
These are facts of life capable of verification and they obtain irrespective of what the protagonists of “abolish the taboos” school might say. The more you exercise a healthy limb, the stronger it becomes, provided that the exercise is taken within reasonable limits. The more you cultivate a habit of mind in an enlightened way, the firmer it grows.
It must be similar basic postulates such stipulations that made Guru Gobind Singh enjoin that the Keshas would not be cut or shaved. Guru Gobind Singh was doubtless a divinely inspired psychiatrist and had deep knowledge of the working of human mind. He performed a miracle of psychiatry on the eve of Baisakhi in 1699, when he planted a new view of life in the psyche of not one individual subject but in the mind of a mass of men by a deep understanding of their emotions. On that day he made people suddenly realize that those who did not value physical existence in this world much, were capable of earning great honor which was a much more valuable possession. So effective was the psychiatric treatment that it, in due course, reversed the currents of the history of India and made waves of conquests move from Punjab to the Khyber instead of the Khyber to the Punjab and further south as of old.
Nothing that this profound master of the working of the human mind enjoined could be without a solemn purpose. He regarded equivocation to be a great weakness and declared at a very early age that his Sikhs would be distinguishable in a crowd of a hundred thousand men and that none of them will be able to deny his faith. Not without a purpose did he declare :
So long as the Khalsa stays distinct,
I shall give it all power and glory.
Thus, the Keshas , in particular, and other symbols in general are a discipline, a constant training in loyalty. Loyalty, as a habit of mind, is essential for achieving anything worthwhile in life.
If Sikhism, in its consummated form, the Khalsa, which embodies the noblest spiritual aspirations of mankind, is to attain fulfillment, the formal concomitant of its philosophy of life - the Keshas - should continue to be cherished as vital as the philosophy itself. For what the armed forces are to state, so is formal discipline to the philosophy of life: the latter in either case cannot subsist and effectively influence the minds of men without the former. If the Sikhs want for themselves and for their dear one, happiness during the worldly human existence, and inflow into infinite of the spirit after this life, they have to continue burnishing their spirit with the prescribed formal discipline. And that is, in essence, the justification of the symbols.
II
Dr. Dharam Singh mourns Prof. Kulraj Singh
In Prof. Kulraj Singh’s death, the Sikh community mourns the loss of a sound thinker and dedicated worker. Intellectuals mourn at the disappearance of a vociferous reader and litterateur, and the family and friends feel orphaned having lost a loving father-figure.
Prof. Kulraj Singh was pious in personal life, and lived the Sikh spirituo-ethical values in the real sense of the term. Whatever the occasion, one always encountered him in a peaceful and calm frame of mind, with a soft smile ever playing on his lips and a mysterious, divine effulgence brightening his beautiful oval face. He died in harness, working vigorously - more vigorously than perhaps his old frame could bear - for making preparations for the World Sikh Conference scheduled for September 1995.
Prof. Kulraj Singh was a multi-splendored personality equally at ease amongst intellectuals, bureaucrats and politicians. He taught English literature and served as a senior bureaucrat. But study of Sikh religion and philosophy, and serving the Panthic cause, were always his first love. He was not only well conversant with the Sikh doctrines and tradition but he actually lived them. He was an excellent teacher, eloquent orator, an honest officer and, above all, a true, committed Sikh.
Born on 13 October 1923 in Peshawar (now in Pakistan) Kulraj Singh completed his schooling from Peshawar (1940) and graduated from the Edwards College, Peshawar, in 1944, securing first position among students from the North-West Frontier Province. Thereafter he joined Government College, Lahore, from where he took, in 1946, his Master’s in English literature. Although he did not study for any more degrees yet reading and writing remained a passion with him throughout his life. He was a voracious reader of books on English literature and Sikh philosophy, and an occasional contributor to different newspapers and magazines.
Prof. Kulraj Singh received, immediately after he passed his M.A., an offer of Lecturership from his alma-mater, the Edwards College, and he started his career as Lecturer in English in 1946. However, the communal disturbances on the eve of partition of the country in 1947 compelled the family to migrate to East Punjab in India. Here he taught English language and literature first at Government Brijindra College, Faridkot, and then at Government Mohindra College, Patiala. Although he relinquished his teaching career in favour of Indian Revenue Service (IRS) which he joined in 1952, the honorific of Professor remained stuck with his name as did his love for letters. As an I.R.S. officer, he served in far-off places like Bombay, Calcutta and finally retired, in 1981, from Patiala as Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax. The human touch he gave to his otherwise prosaic profession was evidenced by the large number of friends and admirers who came to Patiala from as far-off places as Calcutta and Bombay to condole with the family his sudden demise.
Earlier, during his student life Kulraj Singh had given enough evidence of his comprehension of and commitment to the Sikh ethos. He was among the founder members of the All-India Sikh Students Federation, founded with the aim of inculcating the values of the Sikh faith among the Sikh youth, and of training young recruits to refurbish the ranks of Akali Dal, the premier political party of the Sikhs. Kulraj Singh was never found wanting in his enthusiasm for active participation in any Sikh cause. Betterment of the Sikh Panth was ever the uppermost in his mind, and he was always willing to make any personal sacrifice for this purpose. As his family and friends put in their advice against over-exertion, while working as convenor of the World Sikh Meet, he used to reiterate, in his own mild manner, his resolve to make even the supreme sacrifice, if need be, for a Panthic cause.
Retirement from government service did not mean for Kulraj Singh superannuation from active participation in social and religious life of the community. He was one of the founder members of the Sikh Cultural Centre, Calcutta, the parent body publishing The Sikh Review, the premier journal of the Sikhs. After retirement he became even more active and vigorous in furthering the cause. His contribution to The Sikh Review as one of its patrons/advisers has been too well known to deserve reiteration here. He also acted as guest-editor for several special numbers of it.
Another close association Kulraj Singh developed during his stay in Calcutta had been with Sardar Manjit Singh Calcutta presently secretary of the SGPC. His pious personal life and commitment to the Panthic cause brought him closer to the Sikh leadership. He remained associated with several projects undertaken by the S.G.P.C. and recently translated into English for publication by the S.G.P.C., the Sikh code of conduct (Rahit Maryada). After the death of Principal Satbir Singh in 1994, he was also made convenor of the recently held World Sikh conference. He was deeply involved in preparations for the Conference when the end came suddenly on 6 August 1995 at his Patiala residence.
The best homage that we can pay Prof. Kulraj Singh is to offer ourselves to God in the service of Panth as diligently and vigorously as did Prof. Kulraj Singh. This will also be the best way to pray for eternal peace of the noble, departed soul as well as the best source of solace to his widow and members of the aggrieved family.
