Tempo:
HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
38
CHAP. II
Nanak combined the excellences of preceding reand he avoided the more grave errors into
1469-1539.
The excel-
fornners,
lences of
which they had fallen. Instead of the circumscribed divinity, the anthropomorphous God of Ramanand and Kabir, he loftily invokes the Lord as the one. the sole,
Nanak's doctrine.
The godhead.
Muhammadans and Hindus equally called on to
worship
God in truth.
the timeless being; the creator, the self-existent, the incomprehensible, and the everlasting. He likens the Deity to Truth, which was before the world began, which is, and which shall endure for ever, as the ultimate idea or cause of all we know or behold.^ He addresses equally the Mulla and the Pandit, the Dervish and the Sannyasi, and tells them to remember that Lord of Lords who has seen come and go numberHe tells less Muhammads, and Vishnus, and Sivas.^ them that virtues and charities, heroic acts and gathered wisdom, are nought of themselves, that the only knowledge which availeth is the knowledge of God;^ and then, as if to rebuke those vain men who saw eternal life in their own act of faith, he declares that they only can find the Lord on whom the Lord 1 See the Adi-Granth in, for instance, the portion called Goivree Rag, and the prefatory Jup, or prayer of admonition and remembrance. Cf. also Wilkins, Asiatic Researches, i. 289.
&c.
'Akalpurik', or the Timeless Being, is the ordinary Sikh appellation of God, corresponding idiomatically with the Almighty', in English. Yet Gobind, in the second Granth (Hazara Shabd portion), apostrophizes Time itself as the only true God, for God was the first and the last, the being without end, &c. Milton assigns to time a casual or limited use only, and
Shakespeare
makes it finite:
'For time, though in eternity applied To motion, measures all things durable By present, past, and future.' Paradise Lost, v. 'But thought's the slave of life, and life, tinie's fool; And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.' I Henry IV, v. iv. the modern philosophizing schools of India, viz. a division of the Sankhyas, the Puraniks, and the Saivas, make Kal, or time,, one of the twenty-seven, or thirty, or thirtysix component essences or phenomena of the universe of matter and mind, and thus give it distinct functions, or a separate
Three
of
existence. 2 A passage of Nanak's in the supplement to the AdiGranth, after saying that there have been multitudes of prophets, teachers, and holy men, concludes thus: The Lord of Lords is the One God, the Almighty God him-
self;
Oh Nanak! his qualities are beyond comprehension.' 3 See the Adi-Granth, towards the end of the portion called Asa.
38
CHAP. II
Nanak combined the excellences of preceding reand he avoided the more grave errors into
1469-1539.
The excel-
fornners,
lences of
which they had fallen. Instead of the circumscribed divinity, the anthropomorphous God of Ramanand and Kabir, he loftily invokes the Lord as the one. the sole,
Nanak's doctrine.
The godhead.
Muhammadans and Hindus equally called on to
worship
God in truth.
the timeless being; the creator, the self-existent, the incomprehensible, and the everlasting. He likens the Deity to Truth, which was before the world began, which is, and which shall endure for ever, as the ultimate idea or cause of all we know or behold.^ He addresses equally the Mulla and the Pandit, the Dervish and the Sannyasi, and tells them to remember that Lord of Lords who has seen come and go numberHe tells less Muhammads, and Vishnus, and Sivas.^ them that virtues and charities, heroic acts and gathered wisdom, are nought of themselves, that the only knowledge which availeth is the knowledge of God;^ and then, as if to rebuke those vain men who saw eternal life in their own act of faith, he declares that they only can find the Lord on whom the Lord 1 See the Adi-Granth in, for instance, the portion called Goivree Rag, and the prefatory Jup, or prayer of admonition and remembrance. Cf. also Wilkins, Asiatic Researches, i. 289.
&c.
'Akalpurik', or the Timeless Being, is the ordinary Sikh appellation of God, corresponding idiomatically with the Almighty', in English. Yet Gobind, in the second Granth (Hazara Shabd portion), apostrophizes Time itself as the only true God, for God was the first and the last, the being without end, &c. Milton assigns to time a casual or limited use only, and
Shakespeare
makes it finite:
'For time, though in eternity applied To motion, measures all things durable By present, past, and future.' Paradise Lost, v. 'But thought's the slave of life, and life, tinie's fool; And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.' I Henry IV, v. iv. the modern philosophizing schools of India, viz. a division of the Sankhyas, the Puraniks, and the Saivas, make Kal, or time,, one of the twenty-seven, or thirty, or thirtysix component essences or phenomena of the universe of matter and mind, and thus give it distinct functions, or a separate
Three
of
existence. 2 A passage of Nanak's in the supplement to the AdiGranth, after saying that there have been multitudes of prophets, teachers, and holy men, concludes thus: The Lord of Lords is the One God, the Almighty God him-
self;
Oh Nanak! his qualities are beyond comprehension.' 3 See the Adi-Granth, towards the end of the portion called Asa.
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