Martyrdom and the Sikh Tradition

Bibliographic Data

ID3963609
AuthorsLouis E Fenech (corresponding author)
Year1997
Volume117
Issue4
Pages623
Publication date1997-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Oriental Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0279 • E-ISSN: 2169-2289
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/606445
OpenAlexW1992714726
LanguageEN
Citations received11

The majority of histories dealing with the Sikh people underscore a Sikh inclination for martyrdom or sahidi, as well as a deep reverence for the Sikh martyr or sahid. Indeed, such profound esteem is featured in the contemporary Sikh prayer, ardas. Similarly, many Sikh histories present the sahid and sahidi ideally, as concepts which have always been understood as they are understood today, concepts encountered and elaborated in the very hymns of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh tradition. This study interrogates such conclusions by first examining the sources dealing with the putative first martyrdom in Sikhism, and then asking whether there existed within the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Sikh tradition a conceptual system which could accommodate fearless resistance to despotic authority and an agonizing death. Finally, the study examines references to martyrs in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Sikh literature. This paper locates the origins of the Sikh concept of martyrdom not in the period of the first nine Gurus (1469-1675 c.E.) but in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, as a consequence of the social, religious, and political environment. It is this period, moreover, that shapes the definitions of both martyr and martyrdom that we find in the early to late nineteenth century, ones far more inclusive than contemporary definitions of these terms allow

Ancient history · Art · History · Philosophy · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Religious studies · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · South Asian Studies and Diaspora