Tempo:
— SIKH DEVOTION TO STEEL
APP Xni
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becomes the dogma admitting the soul to be increate indeed, but enveloped in the understanding, which again is designed for our use in human affairs, or until our bliss is perfect. It is this external or inferior spirit, so to speak, which must devote its energies to the service and contemplation of steel, while the increate soul contemplates God. [Compare also the mediaeval ceremony of 'watching his arms' regularly undergone by the candidate for knighthood. Ed.]
The import of the term Sachcha Padshah, or True King, seems to be explained in the same way. A spiritual king, or Guru, rules the eternal soul, or guides it to salvation, while a temporal monarch controls our finite faculties only, or puts restraints upon the play of our passions and the enjoyment of our senses. The Muhammadans have the same idea and a corresponding term, viz. Malik Hakiki.
APPENDIX XIV DISTINCTIVE USAGES OF THE SIKHS These and many other distinctions of Sikhs may be seen in the Rehet and Tankha Namas of Gobind, forming part of Appendix XX of this volume.
Unshorn locks and a blue dress, as the characterdo not appear as direct injunctions any extant writing attributed to Gobind, and they seem chiefly to have derived their distinction as marks from custom or usage, while the propriety of wearing a blue dress is now regarded as less obligatory than formerly. Both usages appear to have originated in a spirit of opposition to Hinduism, for many Brahmanical devotees keep their heads carefully shaved, and all Hindus are shaven when initiated into their religious istics of a believer,
in
duties or responsibilities, or on the death of a near relative. It is also curious, with regard to colour, that many religious, or indeed simply respectable Hindus,
have still an aversion to blue, so much so indeed that a Rajput farmer will demur about sowing his fields with indigo.
The Muhammadans,
again, prefer blue of the Hindus arose during the Musalman conquest, as Krishna himself, among others, is described as blue clothed. Thus the Sikh author, Bhai Gurdas Bhalla, says of Nanak, 'Again he went to Mecca, blue clothing he had like Krishna'. dresses,
and perhaps the dislike
APP Xni
7
31
becomes the dogma admitting the soul to be increate indeed, but enveloped in the understanding, which again is designed for our use in human affairs, or until our bliss is perfect. It is this external or inferior spirit, so to speak, which must devote its energies to the service and contemplation of steel, while the increate soul contemplates God. [Compare also the mediaeval ceremony of 'watching his arms' regularly undergone by the candidate for knighthood. Ed.]
The import of the term Sachcha Padshah, or True King, seems to be explained in the same way. A spiritual king, or Guru, rules the eternal soul, or guides it to salvation, while a temporal monarch controls our finite faculties only, or puts restraints upon the play of our passions and the enjoyment of our senses. The Muhammadans have the same idea and a corresponding term, viz. Malik Hakiki.
APPENDIX XIV DISTINCTIVE USAGES OF THE SIKHS These and many other distinctions of Sikhs may be seen in the Rehet and Tankha Namas of Gobind, forming part of Appendix XX of this volume.
Unshorn locks and a blue dress, as the characterdo not appear as direct injunctions any extant writing attributed to Gobind, and they seem chiefly to have derived their distinction as marks from custom or usage, while the propriety of wearing a blue dress is now regarded as less obligatory than formerly. Both usages appear to have originated in a spirit of opposition to Hinduism, for many Brahmanical devotees keep their heads carefully shaved, and all Hindus are shaven when initiated into their religious istics of a believer,
in
duties or responsibilities, or on the death of a near relative. It is also curious, with regard to colour, that many religious, or indeed simply respectable Hindus,
have still an aversion to blue, so much so indeed that a Rajput farmer will demur about sowing his fields with indigo.
The Muhammadans,
again, prefer blue of the Hindus arose during the Musalman conquest, as Krishna himself, among others, is described as blue clothed. Thus the Sikh author, Bhai Gurdas Bhalla, says of Nanak, 'Again he went to Mecca, blue clothing he had like Krishna'. dresses,
and perhaps the dislike
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