Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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form or the other. The Buddhist monks alone could escape being
swallowed by the caste society, because they had made a complete
break with the caste order both ideologically and organisationally.
Accordingly, in the medieval period, the chances of success of any
anti movement were in direct proportion to the separate identity it
established outside the caste society both at the ideological and the
organisational levels. And the foremost prerequisite for this purpose
was a clear perception of this aim, a determined will and a consistent
effort to pursue it.
The separate identity of the Sikh Panth and the Sikh Movement
is such a patent fact of history that it is hardly quesitoned. This by
itself is a clear indication of the fact that the Sikh Gurus had a definite
aim of giving their message a distinct and new organizational form.
Otherwise, it is hard to explain why the Sikh movement should not
have met the same fate as that of Lingayats and the followers of Kabir
and Chaitanya. The Sikh Gurus realized, which the others did not,
that, in order to give battle to the caste order, it was imperative to
build a social system and organise peple outside the caste-society. This
process of establishing a separate society (the Sikh Panth) started with
Guru Nanak himself.
Guru Nanak began his career as a teacher of men with the
significant utterance that ‘there is no Hindu and no Mussalman’. The
Guru thereby wanted to emphasise the eternal unity and brotherhood
of man. For the Guru everybody was primarily a man and not a Hindu
or a Mussalman. The same Janamsakhi, which gives the above story
proceeds to say: ‘Then Guru Baba Nanak gave all his earthly belongings
and went to join the company of faqirs (i.e. Muslim recluses)… Then
people asked him, “Nanak, earlier you were something else i.e. Hindu,
now you have become different. There is the one path of the Hindus,
and the other that of Mussalmans; which path do you follow?” Then
Guru Baba Nanak said, “There is no Hindu, no Mussalman; which of
these paths can I follow? I follow God’s path. God is neither Hindu
nor Mussalman. I follow God’s right path.” 17
Guru Nanak’s reply clearly indicates his complete break with
his Hindu past. Guru Nanak clarified unambiguously that he was
rejecting both the Hindu and the Muslim paths and instead