Khalsa Bir-Ras Shastar Vidiya
Institute of Sikh Martial Heritage
info@shastarvidiya.org
info@nihang.com
An Introduction To Sikh Shaster Vidiya
Shaster (weapon) Vidiya (knowledge or science) was
essential military training for the Sikh warrior - the Akali
Nihung Singh Khalsa. The present day descendants of
the Akali Nihungs, the Budha Dal, trace the origins of
Sikh Shaster Vidiya to the founder of the religion, Guru
Nanak himself. According to their oral tradition, Guru
Nanak was summoned to the divine court of God
where, alongside receiving the holy Gur mantra, Vah
Guru, he also received Shaster Vidiya.
Guru Nanak passed this martial knowledge on to his
trusted Sikh, Baba Budha Ji, with the stated intention of
claiming it back in his sixth form. It was the sixth Guru,
Guru Hargobind, who received Shaster Vidiya from
Baba Budha Ji at an early age. Baba Budha Ji also
trained an army of twenty two hundred Sikh warriors
who were the soldiers of the Akal Boongah (the
Immortal Fort, built in 1606), and known as the Akalis
(Immortals).
The Akali army was called the Akal Sena or Akal Fauj
but was informally known as the Budha Dal or army of
Baba Budha Ji. It's primary function was to defend
Sikhism and all who sought the protection of the Sikhs
from the then oppressive Mogul empire which had tor-tured
and executed the fifth Guru, Arjandev. It was his
son, Akali Guru Hargobind with his army of Akalis
engaged the Mogul forces in four battles and gained
four successes.
With successive Gurus after Guru Hargobind, the Akal
Sena was maintained in its original form until time of
the tenth Guru, Akali Gobind Singh Ji. At some time
before creation of the Khalsa in 1699, he altered the
structure of the Akal Sena with the effect that, from
then on, only a high ranking soldier of the Akali Sena
was to be known as an Akali. A low ranking soldier was
designated Nihung, or one who is not attached to life
nor fears death.
He quickly realised that in order to defend Sikhism it
would not be enough just to rely on the Akal Sena so
he decided to make the whole of the Sikh nation (with
exception of certain Sikh groups such as the Udasis,
Sewa Panthis and the Nirmalas) into a martial nation.
Thus, in 1699, the Akali Nihung Singh Khalsa came
into being.
After Guru Gobind Singh, it was a successful Khalsa,
led by the Akali Nihung Singhs,
who fought a life and death
struggle for nearly a hundred
years against both the Mogul
Empire and the invading
Afghans hordes. They forged
out independent kingdoms in
the far-reaching region of the Punjab in the late 18th
century.
Even when the great Sikh kingdom of Maharaja Ranjit
Singh fell to the British Empire in the hard-fought Anglo
Sikh wars (1845-46 and 1848-49), the majority of
Sikhs, to this day, know it was not their ancestors' mar-tial
prowess which let them down. The historic evi-dence
strongly points to the fact that they actually won
on the fields of battle but lost the wars due to betrayal
of their treacherous Dogra Generals.
Following the annexation of the Punjab in 1849 and the
establishment of the British Raj, the traditional Sikh
martial traditions and practitioners suffered greatly. In
order that the British authorities could establish their
Raj in the Punjab, they adopted several severe meas-
ures, the most significant of which was the effective
disarmament of the whole of the Sikh population. Even
every-day tools and farming implements which could
be used as weapons were banned. A few, such as the
Akali Nihungs , who refused to surrender their weapons
were hunted down and killed or driven into hiding by
the British authorities. It was at this critical juncture that
the traditional martial knowledge, Shaster Vidiya, previ-ously
maintained to a high standard by the Sikhs,
almost ceased to exist in the Punjab.
In 1857, the Indian Mutiny erupted. By that time, the
British had significantly crushed all resistance to their
Raj in the Punjab. Sikhs who had collaborated with the
British had been fully established as the leaders of the
"new" Sikh nation. Thus, in 1857, the Sikhs on whole
greatly assisted the British in crushing the mutiny.
As a consequence of the martial assistance provided
by the Sikhs, restrictions on martial practices were
relaxed in the Punjab but tightened in North Eastern
provinces of India where the
mutiny had been strongest.
However, the Shaster Vidiya
which re-emerged after 1857 in
the Punjab had changed. This
new form of Shaster Vidiya was
a product of the changing times which had also seen
the general Sikh populace of that period begin to
accommodate the British Raj by divorcing itself from
the sanatni boh-Panthi (traditional pluralistic) Sikhism of
the pre-British period. There was a stark contrast
between this pluralistic Sikhism (consisting in the main
of Udassis, Seva Panthis, Nirmalas and Akali Nihung
Singhs) and the British Raj-accommodating Sikhism,
or Angrej Sikhi, which was later developed and encour-aged
by the Tat Khalsa Singh Sabhias.
The new Shaster Vidiya was no longer the lethal art
designed to produce soldiers to defend the Sikh nation.
Instead, during the 1860s, it had evolved into an inof-fensive
and ritualistic martial art popularly known as
Gatka (derived from the name of the main weapon
used, the sword training stick). Gatka was mainly practised in the barracks of the British Indian army and was
diligently taken up by Sikh and other Indian soldiers.
Later, as Sikh colleges opened in the Punjab during the
1880s, European rules of fencing began to be applied
to Gatka. This innovation led to two forms of Gatka
developing, namely rasmi (ritualistic) and khel (sport)
Gatka.
After first speaking of the great
Shaster Vidiya of the past, the
historian, Giani Gian Singh,
lamented the state of the
Vidiya in the 1890s:
"There was talk of such a science of archery and stick
fighting only a few years ago in the Punjab that hearing
about it, the English-educated young (Sikh) men will
consider it astonishing… In sincerity, I believe that the
young men of today might just consider these skills and
Shaster Vidiya generally an impossibility because they
have not even seen those bows, never mind having
strung them. Similarly, many sciences and skills have
declined after attaining their heights. Before 1857, many
quivers full of arrows, matchlocks, flintlock guns, swords,
lances, spears, sang (long metal lance), katars (punch
daggers), peshkabj(Afghan armour-piercing dagger), pis-tols,
shields and other weapons, armour and many
types of chain mail were found in every house. All the
people in theirhomes both learnt and taught Shaster
Vidiya and became complete soldiers.
"Now no one even speaks of these skills and the sons of
brave warriors are becoming engrossed in making
money. Even to those of us who have employed Shaster
Vidiya, it is becoming as if it were a dream. In another
fifty years or so this Vidiya will have dried up and people
will say it was but all lies."
('Twarikh Guru Khalsa' , Vol.1 , pgs 36-37)
Apart from putting the date of the decline of Shashter
Vidiya a decade or so after the annexation of the
Punjab (so as not to offend the British-backed patron,
the king of Patiala), all that Giani Gian Singh writes is
correct. The main ingredient that Gatka lacked (which
made Shaster Vidiya a true battlefield art) was chatka
(to kill with a single decisive cut, shot, blow or wrench-
ing motion).
A veteran of the Anglo-Sikh wars, Akali Nihung Baba
Sawan Singh Bangroo of the Budha Dal, has been
credited to have single-handily kept alive the original
traditions and principles of chatka. To distinguish his
Vidiya from the then popular sport and ritualised forms
of Gatka, he termed his Shashter
Vidiya, Chatka Gatka, which he
passed on to his select shigirds
(students).
This Chatka Gatka (also known as
Chatka Vidiya) is not merely an amalgamation of
ancient Indian or Sikh fighting techniques and strata-gems.
It is a complete military scientific system which
traces it's origins back to Sat Yuga (the first of the clas-sical
Indian ages or eras) through it's khat-ang pentra
(the six forms of battle strategy). It took years of dedi-cation
to master under the tutelage of a good Ustad
(teacher).
Chatka Vidiya is composed of the following three ele-ments
(shown in order of importance and priority):
1. Bbeck-abbeck dee katha - The paradoxical philosophy
which grants mokhsh (salvation).
2. Ithaasak shatria maryada - Historical martial traditions
which harness martial spirit and give the context to battle
(before fighting it is important to know what to fight for).
3. Dao pech - Traditional Sikh martial techniques com-prising
both platha-baji (unarmed combat) and ayudh
vidiya (hand-to-hand weapon combat).
As mentioned above, Giani Gian Singh had predicted
that Shashter Vidiya would become extinct by the
1940s. His prediction has almost come true. At present,
the ritualistic and sport forms of Gatka flourish (in a
manner of speaking) within the Sikh community, both in
India and in the diaspora. Being dismissive of Shaster
Vidiya/Chatka Gatka, some have begun to refurbish
their Gatka repertoire with techniques from other mar-tial
arts, including Japanese, Chinese, Filipino systems,
in an attempt to create an effective fighting art. This
will ultimately only serve to undermine the uniqueness
of Shaster Vidiya and associated Khalsa warrior tradi-tions
(e.g. the study and worship of the knowledge
contained in the Dasam Gur Granth and Sarbloh Gur
Granth of Guru Gobind Singh, which teach the princi-ples
of Shaster Vidiya).
The original Chatka form of Shashter Vidiya, the mili-tary
system to which Giani Gian Singh referred to, is
now almost extinct and its knowledge is known to pos-sibly
only a handful of Akali Nihung Singhs and even
fewer Udassis. However, with the sanction of the 13th
Jathedar of the Budha Dal, Akali Nihung Baba Santa
Singh, a resurgence of this traditional Sikh combat sys-tem
has recently begun in England.
Chatka Gatka Ustad Nihung Nidar Singh Das Shironmi
Akali Nihung Singh Khalsa Panth Budha Dal
(Taken from a Adobe Acrobat File named Education of a Sikh Warrior)
If you can tell me a way to add a adobe file to the message board I will.
