Sahejdharis: the historical approach

[paapiman]

 

If you start rejecting every source, then no single historical source will remain because ALL of them have things you won't agree with, most have been tampered with. Then where will you write your history from?

​You are right, with regards to tampering of some historical sources, including Sri Suraj Prakash Granth.

The quote from Bhai Desa Singh Rehatnama was regarding amrit and rehat; which is not against Gurmat.

Bhul chuk maaf

[paapiman]

sam lingi kukarm. many people have claimed some taksalis do it in their deras. 

​Is it only a claim or has anything been proven or documented.

Bad apples do exist.

[SikhKhoj]

Has Baba Gurbachan Singhs antaryami dreams of Panj Pyare being Bhagats incarnated been proven or documented?

You keep on with your 'lies', I'll keep on repeating my 'lies'.

[paapiman]

Has Baba Gurbachan Singhs antaryami dreams of Panj Pyare being Bhagats incarnated been proven or documented?

You keep on with your 'lies', I'll keep on repeating my 'lies'.

​They are documented in Gurbani Path Darpan and, are in line with Gurmat.

[SikhKhoj]

Mine are documented on SikhAwareness.com

[paapiman]

Mine are documented on SikhAwareness.com

​Lets stay on topic.

[SikhKhoj]

Paapi, who is this so called scholar who said Bhai Kanhaiya was amritdhari? Or are you lying? Or is it some brahmgyani who dreamt it?

[paapiman]

Paapi, who is this so called scholar who said Bhai Kanhaiya was amritdhari? Or are you lying? Or is it some brahmgyani who dreamt it?

​I talked to a DDT scholar. There is a mention of that in a book too. I will try to find it. In a sakhi (If I remember correctly), someone asks Baba Ghaniyaa Singh jee, why are you wearing a Kirpan. He replies by saying that if someone comes to kill him, he will give him his Kirpan, so that he dies by the holy Kirpan.

Bhul chuk maaf

[Guest]

sam lingi kukarm. many people have claimed some taksalis do it in their deras. 

​I have heard about this rumor before, was there case documented regarding this? or victims have came fwd?

[chatanga1]

Has Baba Gurbachan Singhs antaryami dreams of Panj Pyare being Bhagats incarnated been proven or documented?

​again ?  you been taking lessons from satkirin on repetitive arguments ?

 

[chatanga1]

* Sevapanthi chiefs have always been sahejdharis. You can check their names from Bhai Kanhaiya onwards. They never became 'amritdhari'.

* Sant Gurbakh Daas was the head priest of KesGarh during the early 1700s (source: Mahan Kosh).

​Don't know how i missed this in the first place. But apologies anyway. The Samprdais are not seen as sehajdharis. Sehajdharis are not the same as the Udasi, Sewa or Nirmal Panth. These are Samprdais in their own right as part of the wider Sikh Panth. Sehajdharis are different from these.

[SikhKhoj]

As I said earlier, a perspective is not formed on the basis of one book but several books, so I'll quote some works here, I am not vouching for the general authenticity of the accounts but simply stating that a point is being corraborated by several granths. And no, many Granths supporting a thing doesn't mean its true. But lets see:

Several older works only make 2 type of distinctions between Sikhs, the Amritdharis & the Sahejdharis. The Kesdharis are mentioned but synonymous with amritdharis, which is evident from some sources saying 'a kesdhari who does not take amrit will go to hell/is a bhekhi' (don't remember the source, might be Sau Sakhi). 

The thing is the sects you mention are not really a division, you can be a nirmala sahejdhari but also a nirmala amritdhari, you can be a sevapanthi sahejdhari (like the earlier ones) but also a sevapanthi amritdhari. The broad distinction are the two groups. I base this theory on my study of Sau Sakhi, Chaupa Rehat, Bhagat Ratnavli, Vijay Mukt, etc. Besides that I have not read Bhai Kanhaiyas successors book but apparently it supports the fact that they were not amritdharis. (18th century writing).

[chatanga1]

The thing is the sects you mention

​Are the samprdais sects?

 

The thing is the sects you mention are not really a division, you can be a nirmala sahejdhari but also a nirmala amritdhari, you can be a sevapanthi sahejdhari (like the earlier ones) but also a sevapanthi amritdhari.

​And within these samprdais you would not been as amritdhari or sehajdhari but as a nirmala, or sewa panthi.

The term or status of sehajdhari has nothing to do with the samprdais.

Coming onto kes, sehajdharis were kesadhari, and i know that there is a line that says you shouldnt keep kes without takin pahul, but there are also historical sources that say the moghals forced hindus to shave themselves to distinguish them from the Sikhs.

[SikhKhoj]

Yes, sect it is.

As I said, there are 2 broad distinctions within the Panth. Amrit and sahejdhari. You can belong to some of the sampardas while being sahejdhari and some require amritdhari. I am not saying that certain sampardas = sahejdharis. Just that Sevapanthis were, for the most part of their early history, NOT amritdharis. 

About Mughals, they were not too educated about Sikhs to begin with. Don't Mughal account refers to Guru Arjan Dev as a Hindu? Besides that how does your account deny the existence of sahajdhari sikhs who didn't have kes? Mughals shaved people to differentiate hindus and khalsa, fine. But who says sahajdharis did keep kesh? Sahajdharis had much less problems than amritdharis during those times. Explains how udasis etc were able to take care of Gurdwaras when Amritdharis were busy fighting and living in jungles. 

You still have not explained how early sources mention it is not right to have kes and not be amritdhari? So a sahejdhari with kes would basically not be parvaan, but they were historically.

Bhagat Ratnavli, a spurious source to some, allow sehajdharis to cut kes but at the same time encourages them to maintain outer rehat as much as possible & most importantly making their children take pahul. 

 

Edited June 14, 2015 by SikhKhoj

[kdsingh80]

​Are the samprdais sects?

​And within these samprdais you would not been as amritdhari or sehajdhari but as a nirmala, or sewa panthi.

The term or status of sehajdhari has nothing to do with the samprdais.

Coming onto kes, sehajdharis were kesadhari, and i know that there is a line that says you shouldnt keep kes without takin pahul, but there are also historical sources that say the moghals forced hindus to shave themselves to distinguish them from the Sikhs.

​If sehajdhari were keshadhari then what about this quote

'' dhare kesh pahul bina bhekhi muda sikh mera darshan nai tis papi tyage bhikh ''
jo sikh kesh rakh lenda he amrit nai shakda oh sikh nai behrupiya he te ohnu guru sahib kadi darshan nai den gaye papi da bhgi kehlavvave ga !!!
 

This quote is clearly condemning a sikh who keep kes without amrit means 90% of today's world keshadhari sikhs

[paapiman]

​If sehajdhari were keshadhari then what about this quote

'' dhare kesh pahul bina bhekhi muda sikh mera darshan nai tis papi tyage bhikh ''
jo sikh kesh rakh lenda he amrit nai shakda oh sikh nai behrupiya he te ohnu guru sahib kadi darshan nai den gaye papi da bhgi kehlavvave ga !!!
 

This quote is clearly condemning a sikh who keep kes without amrit means 90% of today's world keshadhari sikhs

​Bro, can you please post the Gurmukhi version of the above verse, with English translation?

Thanks

[chatanga1]

About Mughals, they were not too educated about Sikhs to begin with. Don't Mughal account refers to Guru Arjan Dev as a Hindu?

​Yes but the moghals refered to all non-muslims as hindus. the word hindu did not have the same connotation  as it does now.

     Explains how udasis etc were able to take care of Gurdwaras when Amritdharis were busy fighting and living in jungles. 

 

​the udasis were absent arms and hence able to perform this sewa. the Dal Panth was not.

 

[chatanga1]

 

As I said, there are 2 broad distinctions within the Panth. Amrit and sahejdhari. You can belong to some of the sampardas while being sahejdhari and some require amritdhari.

​as i said earlier this distinction did not apply to the samprdais. it was a distinction for the ordinary Sikh. Once you joined Nirmal/Udasi/Sewa panth you were an Nirmala/Udasi/Sewa Panthi. there was no distinction between any of these members on the basis of being amritdhari or not.

I agree that most of the sewapanthis were not amritdharis but they were still sewa panthis. not to be confused with sehajdharis.

[chatanga1]

​If sehajdhari were keshadhari then what about this quote

​What does the quote prove? The sehajdahris were required at some stage to take amrit and commit formally to Khalsa rehat. Not to spend their whole lives absent rehat and claiming to be sehajdhari.

If anything the quote seems to be exactly the thing to spur on sehajdharis to strengthen their sikhi.

[SikhKhoj]

KdSingh that is the quote I am referring to.

I also do not agree with translating sahaj-dhari as slow adopter. I'll post about this in more detail lateron.

Sahajdharis were encouraged to become amritdhari, if they could not; atleast administer Pahul to their children. But I don't think amritdhari was the final stage for them.

I see where you are coming from regarding amritdhari and sahajdhari & the sampardas. But I still disagree. Take statistics for example. Data can be classed as discrete and continuous, but another way to classify data is nominal, ordinal (both qualitative), quantitative etc.  Data can be nominal, but it is also discrete. Same way quantitative data can be either discrete or continuous. The one does not negate the other.

Amritdhari or sahajdhari is on personal level, not samparda level. Individuals from a certain samparda can keep belonging to the samparda, whether they are amritdhari or not.

[SikhKhoj]

A Sahaj-dhari Sikh may remove his body hair with scissors, but he must not touch
either his beard or (if living as a family man) his pubic hair. [53, 54, 287]

Above is from the Chaupa Singh Rehatnama. Altough it is dated to 1700, it was either written at a later stage altogether or interpolated later. The earliest manuscript dates from 1765 so it is still an old source.

This fact is also corraborated by Vajab Ul Arz section from Bhagat Ratnavli, which again might not have been written by Bhai Mani Singh but still can be safely dated to somewhere in the 18th century.

[SikhKhoj]

Dal, Amardeep and other khojis: can you put your perspectives up here regarding sehajdharis, whether they were ordered to keep kesh too or not etc (from a personal or preferably historical basis).

[Kuttabanda2]

​

Sahajdhari is not bound by outwards rehat. So he can be mona.

Stop with the usual lie that sahajdhari means slow adopter, how would  you explain people like Kanhaiya, Seva Ram and Gurbaksh Das dying as sehajdharis? 

I am not an opponent of Kes, search on this forum and you will see I have been defending Kes and saying Sikhs (most if not all) keep it since Guru Nanaks time. But we can't deny Sahajdharis existence.

If you start rejecting every source, then no single historical source will remain because ALL of them have things you won't agree with, most have been tampered with. Then where will you write your history from?
We have to READ all Puratan Granths, distill the good facts and form our view of history. How else are you supposed to know Gur and Sikh ithaas?
That way, we will read even the most interpolated Granths but take out facts and if they tally with several other sources then accept them after evaluation.

And stop being a phuddu, you call me out for quoting Sau Sakhi but this Paapi is quoting Desa Rehat which says you can drink sharab and what not. Do you give choopay before commenting on topics ? 

I would disagree. Is there any reference whatsoever that Bhai Kanhaiya and the like didn't have Kes?

I' not denying the existence of Sehajdharis, but rather hold the stance that Kes are an integral part of Sikhi and Puraatan Sehajdharis kept Kes at the least. 

Additonally, you make claims of supporting yourself with "Authentic" sources. Yet when it comes to your arguement you become quite acceptant of these un-authentic ones. Yes, I am calling you out for quoting Sau Sakhi because your dumb@ss previously berailed paapiman and me for referring to  Desa Singh's Rehatnama which again, is at the same level in terms of Authenticity as Sau Sakhi.

[SikhKhoj]

 

Look, I have stated earlier on this very topic too that no single Sikh source is fully authentic. But when we pick the topic of Sehajdharis and quote from various sources, from various different times we can generally paint a picture about the concept of sahejdharis in Sikhi. I nowhere said that Sau Sakhi is acceptable, it contains the vilest and dumbest Sakhis BUT on the other hand it has the Mukatnama, Rehatnama and a few other Sakhis that have some value as 18th/19th century documents therefore we can't discard the whole source.

The earliest copy of Rehatnama Chaupa is 1764, so even if I discard the possibility that it might have been written in the Guru Darbar the reality remains that the oldest copy we have is from the mid eighteenth century which is a quite old source. Therefore if it mentions something it can at times be a valuable statement of our panth in the 1760s if not earlier.

anyways, TSingh on this forum earlier stated that sevapanthis were cleanshaven generally if I am not mistaken. He is quite an authority on the topic.

[Kuttabanda2]

 

Look, I have stated earlier on this very topic too that no single Sikh source is fully authentic. But when we pick the topic of Sehajdharis and quote from various sources, from various different times we can generally paint a picture about the concept of sahejdharis in Sikhi. I nowhere said that Sau Sakhi is acceptable, it contains the vilest and dumbest Sakhis BUT on the other hand it has the Mukatnama, Rehatnama and a few other Sakhis that have some value as 18th/19th century documents therefore we can't discard the whole source.

The earliest copy of Rehatnama Chaupa is 1764, so even if I discard the possibility that it might have been written in the Guru Darbar the reality remains that the oldest copy we have is from the mid eighteenth century which is a quite old source. Therefore if it mentions something it can at times be a valuable statement of our panth in the 1760s if not earlier.

anyways, TSingh on this forum earlier stated that sevapanthis were cleanshaven generally if I am not mistaken. He is quite an authority on the topic.

TSingh isn't an authority in the subject. If you make a claim, then there must be solid and concrete evidence to support it. Even If he has a lot of knowledge on the subject, his words aren't the Gospel truth. So unless there is reference to Sewaoanthis to being clean shaven, during the time of the Guru, the claim is just that, a claim, not a fact.

Loka dia gala ehvi mananya ta bohut hi Kabudh gaal hai.