Tempo:
RITES OF INITIATION INTO SIKHISM
APP. XI
.{I5
ber is of some religious repute. Some sugar and water are stirred together in a vessel of any kind, commonly with a two-edged dagger, but any iron weapon will answer. The noviciate stands with his hands joiped in an attitude of humility or supplication, and he repeats after the elder or minister the main articles of his faith. Some of the water is sprinkled on his face and person; he drinks the remainder, and exclaims. Hail Guru! and the ceremony concludes with an injunction that he be true to God and to his duty as a Sikh. For details of particular modes followed, see Forster (Travels, i. 307), Malcolm (Sketch, p. 182), and Prinsep's edition of Murray's Life of Ranjit Singh (p. 217), where an Indian compiler is quoted.
The original practice of using the water in which the feet of a Sikh had been washed was soon abandoned, and the subsequent custom of touching the water with the toe seems now almost wholly forgotten. The first rule was perhaps instituted to denote the humbleness of spirit of the disciples, or both it and the second practice may have originated in that feeling of the Hindus which attaches virtue to water in which the thumb of a Brahman has been dipped. It seems in every way probable that Gobind substituted the dagger for the foot or the toe, thus giving further preeminence to his emblematic iron.
Women are not usually, but they are sometimes, form as professors of the Sikh faith. In mingling the sugar and water for women, a one-edged, and not a two-edged, dagger is used. initiated in
APPENDIX XII
THE EXCLAMATION WAH GURU AND THE EXPRESSION DEG, TEGH, FATH The proper exclamation of community of faith of the Sikhs as a sect is simply, 'Wah Guru !' that is, O Guru or Hail Guru The lengthened exclamations !
!
of 'Wah
Guru ki Fath
!' and 'Wah Guru ka Khalsa !' Virtue or power of the Guru or Hail Guru and Victory and Hail to the state or church of the Guru !) are not authoritative, although the former has become customary, and its use, as completing the idea embraced in 'Deg' and 'Tegh' (see ante. Appendix IX) naturally arose out of the notions diffused by Gobind,
(Hail
!
!
!
!
!
!
APP. XI
.{I5
ber is of some religious repute. Some sugar and water are stirred together in a vessel of any kind, commonly with a two-edged dagger, but any iron weapon will answer. The noviciate stands with his hands joiped in an attitude of humility or supplication, and he repeats after the elder or minister the main articles of his faith. Some of the water is sprinkled on his face and person; he drinks the remainder, and exclaims. Hail Guru! and the ceremony concludes with an injunction that he be true to God and to his duty as a Sikh. For details of particular modes followed, see Forster (Travels, i. 307), Malcolm (Sketch, p. 182), and Prinsep's edition of Murray's Life of Ranjit Singh (p. 217), where an Indian compiler is quoted.
The original practice of using the water in which the feet of a Sikh had been washed was soon abandoned, and the subsequent custom of touching the water with the toe seems now almost wholly forgotten. The first rule was perhaps instituted to denote the humbleness of spirit of the disciples, or both it and the second practice may have originated in that feeling of the Hindus which attaches virtue to water in which the thumb of a Brahman has been dipped. It seems in every way probable that Gobind substituted the dagger for the foot or the toe, thus giving further preeminence to his emblematic iron.
Women are not usually, but they are sometimes, form as professors of the Sikh faith. In mingling the sugar and water for women, a one-edged, and not a two-edged, dagger is used. initiated in
APPENDIX XII
THE EXCLAMATION WAH GURU AND THE EXPRESSION DEG, TEGH, FATH The proper exclamation of community of faith of the Sikhs as a sect is simply, 'Wah Guru !' that is, O Guru or Hail Guru The lengthened exclamations !
!
of 'Wah
Guru ki Fath
!' and 'Wah Guru ka Khalsa !' Virtue or power of the Guru or Hail Guru and Victory and Hail to the state or church of the Guru !) are not authoritative, although the former has become customary, and its use, as completing the idea embraced in 'Deg' and 'Tegh' (see ante. Appendix IX) naturally arose out of the notions diffused by Gobind,
(Hail
!
!
!
!
!
!
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