Talk:Sikhism/Archive 6

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Temporary protection

I read through the talk page comments and it looks like this is not going to be resolved easily. Pinsi281, I suggest you outline your proposed changes here and get consensus for them. The page is locked for a week, that should give everyone enough time to hammer out appropriate wording and to evaluate sources. Please note that this is not a comment on which version is right or wrong and that the page will be automatically unprotected after a week.--regentspark (comment) 18:06, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

regentspark Okay. Although it is not me who added new content, but fine, here are my thoughts.

The issue is with the 2nd paragraph of lead section. But before I suggest anything, I would like to draw attention to two examples of the kind of changes I have issues with, which are continuously inserted by Sarah Welch to "denigrate" (for lack of a better word) the status of Sikh Gurus.

1. "Guru Nanak considered God as his Guru" : Note the choice of the word "consider" by Sarah Welch. Guru Nanak did not "consider" (implying, in a way, some doubt), he clearly and unambiguously "stated" that his Guru is God and the divine word. One must read between the words that Sarah Welch uses to really understand their motivation and implied meanings.

2. Previously, Sarah Welch had written, "Guru Nanak's Guru was God, states Surjit Gandhi", again as if this is Surjit Gandhi's personal belief. Do we routinely attribute statements to authors on Wikipedia ? Why in this case then ? Precisely to remove this "states Surjit Gandhi", I added more sources that state the same thing.

---

But what happened after my addition of sources? Sarah Welch again went on a tangent and started inserting other material "not reincarnation of God, teacher, not related to God", etc etc. So it is Sarah Welch who should be arguing her case and trying to garner consensus to whether this new addition deserves to go in the lead.

In my opinion, which I have already stated above multiple times, this makes the paragraph unnecessarily complicated. Nowhere in the lead is it mentioned that Guru Nanak called himself called God, which would require this "not incarnation" counter-clarification to be inserted. In the Islam article, do we go on unnecessarily stating that Prophet Muhammad does not claim himself to be God ? Why then in Sikhism ?

If at all she can argue for this to be included, THEN, it is very important to also state that "Guru Nanak and Sikhism reject the entire theory of incarnation of God". (So Guru Nanak is not just saying he is not God, but saying that God does not take any human form at all. This is supported by various sources already presented here.)

My proposal:

1a. Sikhism is based on the teachings of the ten Sikh Gurus (enlightened masters). The first Guru, Guru Nanak had stated that his own Guru was God, the divine preceptor, and had projected himself as God's mouthpiece or God's servant. [10][11] [12][13] Before his death in 1708, Guru Gobind Singh, the last Guru in human form, decreed that the holy scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, would be the final and perpetual Guru of the Sikhs. [14]

(This does away with "Sikhism originated with the birth of Guru Nanak....", just to save space. That part anyway is not contentious. So focus second sentence onwards.

1b. Go back to something similar to pre-dispute version, but get rid of "states Surjit Gandhi", as below. For other changes compared to pre-dispute version, see explanation below ("You would note that ..")

Sikhism originated with the birth of Guru Nanak in 1469, and the ten Sikh Gurus established and advanced the religion over the centuries. Before his death in 1708, Guru Gobind Singh, the last Guru in human form, decreed that the holy scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, would be the final and perpetual Guru of the Sikhs.[10] In Sikh religious philosophy and in Gurbani (the sacred writings of the Sikh Gurus), the word "Guru" is also used for God, the divine preceptor, who was Guru to the first human Guru, Guru Nanak. [11] [12] Admitting no other Guru for himself save God, Nanak claimed that God spoke through him, and referred to himself as the bard of God, or the servant of God. [13] [14]

2. Sikhism originated with the birth of Guru Nanak in 1469, and the ten Sikh Gurus established and advanced the religion over the centuries. Before his death in 1708, Guru Gobind Singh, the last Guru in human form, decreed that the holy scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, would be the final and perpetual Guru of the Sikhs.[10] In Sikh religious philosophy and in Gurbani (the sacred writings of the Sikh Gurus), the word "Guru" is also used for God, the divine preceptor, who was Guru to the first human Guru, Guru Nanak. [11] [12] Admitting no other Guru for himself save God, Nanak stated that God spoke through him, but rejected the theory of incarnation of God [13] [14] [15] and referred to himself as God's mouthpiece or God's servant. [16] [17]

(We can also have a slightly simplified version of 2, by taking out the first sentence, similar to what has been proposed in 1a.)

The pre-dispute consensus version was: Sikhism originated with the birth of Guru Nanak in 1469, and the ten Sikh Gurus established and advanced the religion over the centuries. Before his death in 1708, Guru Gobind Singh, the last Guru in human form, decreed that the holy scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, would be the final and perpetual Guru of the Sikhs.[10] In Sikh religious philosophy, the word Guru also refers to God, and God and Guru are often synonymous in Gurbani (the sacred writings of the Sikh Gurus).[11] Guru Nanak's Guru was God, states Surjit Gandhi, and he projected himself as God's "Bard".[12]

You would note that, in the sentence "the word Guru is also used for God..." I added "the divine preceptor, who was Guru to the first human Guru, Guru Nanak". This is taken directly from the source, and is needed to clarify why the word Guru is used for God.

---

These are my thoughts. On an unrelated final note, I want to state that I am just sick and tired of the manner in which this whole place operates. I do not know about you all, but I have a job to do, a young family to feed, a house to build, etc etc etc. (I am sure you all also have many responsibilities). So there is only a limited amount of time to devote. When that limited amount of time is spent trying to just respond to ridiculous dishonest allegations (coupled with a barrage of WP:xxx, WP:yyy, WP:zzz) thrown at you left right and center from a bunch of pre-established editors just keen on ensuring their own pre-conceived notions and beliefs are protected, it becomes mighty hard to remain engaged and not just lose it. I can only hope better sense prevails, otherwise I would likely just take the exit route here. I would still stick around perhaps, to offer my support to any new editors who come in future so they don't have to bear such hardships. (I must still appreciate Regents Park's close involvement here, as it calmed things down and gave me an opportunity to express my views thoroughly). Pinsi281 (talk) 20:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Pinsi281: I saw your note to @RegentsPark after this temp protection, and now read the above. In both places, you have been selective in presenting the truth and your claims, on "what was added" since February 17th. This diff gives a more complete picture, which also includes parts of what you added. Here is early January version lead before your first wikipedia edit few weeks ago. In January, you insisted adding Surjit Singh Gandhi. Now, like @Js82, you are attacking "a bunch of pre-established editors just keen on ensuring their own pre-conceived notions and beliefs are protected", and you are using this talk as a WP:FORUM with "a house to build...", which you should avoid in future, after reading WP:TPNO. If you want others to assume good faith about your edits, you should respectfully assume the same for others.

I have reviewed your proposal, what is in the main article, and what is in the sources. Your proposals have NPOV issues. The pre-dispute version is from early January 2016 version. Here is an alternate proposal

3a. Keep the summary from new sources since your first edit in the main article;

3b. Return the disputed part of lead to the following early January 2016 version,

Sikhism is based on the spiritual teachings of Guru Nanak, the first Guru,[9] and the ten successive Sikh gurus. After the death of the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib became the literal embodiment of the eternal, impersonal Guru, where the scripture's word serves as the spiritual guide for Sikhs.[10][11]

That will help the lead remain NPOV, short and an overview summary of the main article, as suggested by WP:LEAD guidelines. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:58, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Pre-dispute version is NOT January anything. Pre-dispute version is Feb 17. So STOP LYING. I did not add/insist on adding Surjit Gandhi Reference. Jujhar Pannu did, see [[1]]. So STOP LYING. And STOP QUOTING WP:xxx, WP:yyy, I know them.

I disagree with all your proposals on going back to anything in January. And I do not want to fight with you any more.

I request regentspark to make these two simple changes in the 2nd paragraph of the lead (I justified them above in detail, but here I summarize the justifications again.)

1. Replace "considered" with "stated" in "Guru Nanak considered God as his Guru". He did not consider but unambiguously stated. No source paints this in any doubt.

2a. Either take out "...but maintained that he was a teacher, was not a reincarnation of God or in any way related to God". As I said, this is unnecessary, as nowhere it says Guru Nanak claimed to be God. Islam article's lead, as an example, also does not go to length in trying to explain that Prophet Muhammad emphasized he is not God, but still mentions that Islam was revealed by God to Prophet. We should use the same standard.

2b. If at all any of the stuff in 2a is needed (please ask Sarah Welch to make a convincing argument for its inclusion, in light of the justification I have given for its removal. She does not respond to my requests for justifying such inclusion), please make sure it also says that "Sikhism and Guru Nanak rejects the theory of incarnation of God completely". Here are the sources for that:

"Sikhism rejects out of hand the theory of incarnation of God". "..it must be explicitly stated that the Gurus strongly repudiated the theory of incarnation". "Sikhism does not subscribe to the theory of incarnation". Pinsi281 (talk) 21:51, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

References

@Pinsi281: I suggest you read the @Js82 discussion in this talk page's archive. @Js82 was pushing the same one sided "prophet-revelation-god's mouthpiece" POV. You now mention Islam article, and suggest "We should use the same (Islam) standard." Why? Presenting Guru Nanak and Sikhism in Islam's image is not appropriate, nor should it be presented in Hinduism's image or Buddhism's image. Sikhism needs to be presented in its own beautiful form, based on the consideration of multiple reliable sources.

I have already given my justification for why early January version is better: WP:NPOV presentation of the sources and WP:LEAD. Sikhism had 10 Gurus, all revered, all of whom shaped Sikhism. You allege that the Sikh Gurus repudiated the theory of incarnation. Not true, as sources assert Guru Nanak accepted reincarnation. Avatars (re-incarnations) of Hindu gods and Hindu goddesses are extensively mentioned, with reverence, in the Guru Granth Sahib and other Sikh texts. We can't imply Sikhism "rejects out of hand" or "strongly repudiated" parts of Guru Granth Sahib or other Sikh texts where Vishnu/Krishna/Rama/etc or Durga/Chandi/Devi/etc are celebrated. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:56, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

There is no debate about any January version, so I repeat (hopefully for one last time), please STOP with that. The only points of debate, with respect to the current version, are the two I have listed above, in my request to RegentsPark. For the second one (incarnation of God), please do not do original research. You need to provide directly quoted sentences from the sources where it says, without any measure of doubt, that the Sikh Gurus/Sikhism accept INCARNATION OF GOD (not, reincarnation of human beings, which is different, so STOP bringing that in again and again). The three sources I presented above make it ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that Sikhism rejects completely the notion of incarnation of God. None of your sources say otherwise.

Any why we cannot cite the Islam page. It is a perfectly valid analogy, and citing that as an example does not mean we are presenting Sikhism in light of Islam. It is an identical situation: nowhere does it emphasize on Islam Lead that Prophet Mohammed is not God. Why then keep arguing to have it included on Sikhism page, when it is not even implied anywhere that Guru Nanak called himself God.

I have made my case, and would let Regents Park decide further. I will not respond any further to you, unless I see a real need. I have many other issues to address.

Pinsi281 (talk) 23:59, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Pinsi281: Sikhism does reject "saguni god incarnation" theories, but your wording is inappropriate. Reincarnation of human soul is part of Sikhism/Jainism/Hinduism. Non-incarnating nirguni absolute is not unique to Sikhism, it is a huge part of pre-Sikhism Indic literature. Sikhism rejects not only saguni god incarnation, but also prophethood. See for example, page 104 of HS Singha (2009), The Encyclopedia of Sikhism, Hemkunt Press, ISBN 978-8170103011. Singha writes, "Sikhism does not subscribe to the theory of incarnation or the concept of prophethood. But it has a pivotal concept of Guru. He is not an incarnation of God, not even a prophet. He is an illumined soul." We can't add "mouthpiece" part you want, without also adding NPOV parts, "not a reincarnation of God, not a prophet, not related to God". Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:43, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

We cannot now discuss your further original research on Saguni or Nirguni aspects, or any other topic (NOT A FORUM). For a final time, in simple terms, I would restate the position:

Guru Nanak HIMSELF STATED that his Guru is God/God's word, and he is God's bard or God's mouthpiece. I am not making this up and saying this because I think so. Guru Nanak said this himself. All the sources cited here CLEARLY state that this is exactly what Guru Nanak said. Therefore, this is precisely how it should be stated in the lead section, and it had been before your unnecessary latest edits.

The story should end at that, as nowhere is it being claimed that Guru Nanak is God. If you unnecessarily want to bring in that Guru Nanak is not God's incarnation, please first justify why it should be included ? (there is still no justification). On Islam page lead, nowhere is it unnecessarily inserted that Muhammad is not God or God's incarnation.

If you can still make a convincing argument, then it must also be stated that Guru Nanak and Sikhism rejects the "theory of Incarnation of God" altogether (and not just for Guru Nanak). Three reliable sources state it in absolutely clear terms. Pinsi281 (talk) 04:24, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Time for another SPI? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:30, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

In concreto: "STOP LYING. And STOP QUOTING WP:xxx, WP:yyy, I know them." Same capitals, same text. And remarkable, that a six week old account, that made a bare 42 edits, knows those policies. See also Special:Contributions/2607:FB90:2272:1E63:0:2E:4968:7801. Both editors seem to catch very little sleep, editing at all time-slots over the week Js82 Pinsi281. Actually, now that I think about it: regentspark, I think that I've seen enough here. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:43, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

@JJ: Indeed, @Pinsi281's first edit followed @172.56.39.126, an IP very close to the user @172.56.42.111 involved in harassing with the same "STOP LYING/Your Blatant LIES", and the same @Js82 pitch. Perhaps, with @Js82, @Docxx, @Wollone, @Bastollah, etc edits this article over the last 6 months, this main wiki article on Sikhism needs to be indef/1-year semi-protected after the cool-off week is over. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:48, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Definitely will semi-protect if IPs show up to edit the page. Meanwhile, if any editor believes that there is evidence for an SPI, I (strongly) suggest that they ask for one. --regentspark (comment) 16:14, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan:, @RegentsPark: What can we do about the renewed edit warring by the new editor @Pinsi281, and the likes of @Js82 etc mentioned above. This feels like WP:DUCK. I have returned the lead to simpler, concise January summary, which was akin to the more stable 2015 version. Please review and revise if appropriate. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:39, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

My suggestion is that you file an SPI. The evidence looks reasonable and the longer you wait the harder it will be to get a check user match. About the edit warring, I see that Pinsi281 has been reverted. Let's wait and see if they edit war before protecting the page again. --regentspark (comment) 16:58, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Says Socrates — 'When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.' While I did not expect anything better from others, I must confess I am deeply disappointed and hurt by the approach of regentspark, the supposed arbiter. Without responding to any of my several requests to intervene (following on your own suggestion that I participate in this debate), you have been prompt in responding to and adding fire to misleading allegations and ad hominem attacks. Sarah Welch is unnecessarily reverting to some January version, when Feb 17 is the last stable version (arrived at in consensus with the sources added by Jujhar Pannu). How can this be allowed ? Pinsi281 (talk) 21:26, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Pinsi281, An SPI is useful for both you as well as the other editors on this page. If you're not a sock, it would clear you so everyone can focus on content. Meanwhile, about the content battle, you probably need to take your edits to some sort of dispute resolution since you're obviously not getting consensus here. I suggest you look at WP:DRN to see what your options are. That, for better or for worse, is the way of the wiki. --regentspark (comment) 21:47, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

@Pinsi281: Please don't edit war, and stop the "lying style personal attacks" you made above as we discuss this article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:39, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

@Pinsi281: In your editwarring, you re-inserted text such as "an immense emphasis", "(...drugs, alcohol...) However, the Sahajdhari Sikhs freely indulge in all these.", etc. Please see WP:PEACOCK and WP:V guidelines. I encourage you to discuss your proposed changes here. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:50, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Re-revert

With the edit-summary "No concencus"'I reverted Pinsi281's revert of the lead; it was re-reverted by Pinsi281 with the edit-summary "Says who ? You ? Who made zero posts in any discussion. Despite repeated invitations. Very irresponsible coming from a "Senior" Pro." I suggest he reads the talkpage again. I did participate in the discussions; I also note that there is no concensus for the changes Pinsi281 wants to make, and that he doesn't argue, but shouts. I don't see any sign of a willingness to compromise or reach an agreement; it makes for a very boring and confusing read of this "discussion." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:45, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Pinsi281's argument seems to boil down to the statement that MSW's edits "makes the paragraph unnecessarily complicated." The rest of the argument is a rant against everyone who does not agree with him. Well, I don't agree that those changes make the paragraph "complicated." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:58, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

@JJ: That is what I am struggling with. @Pinsi281's editwarring, personal attacks and WP:TE is making constructive improvement to this article difficult. We went through something similar with @Js82, @Docxx, etc. See this SPI request. I have been digging into Sikhism-related articles, and @Js82-linked IPs have been active not only in this article for the last 3-6 months, but other articles too (see the SPI page for some evidence). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 05:59, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: I am not certain which of my posts seemed like Shouting to you. But I will be careful. While I do not see any effort from you so far in any of your previous posts to do anything constructive, I am encouraged by this post of yours. As I said before, I am not here to fight or impose my views. I have many other issues to address in life, and in the limited time I have here, I would actually prefer to collaborate with all you learned people.

To make a (new) beginning, since you have talked about compromises and agreements, why don't you propose your version of the 2nd paragraph of the lead, and we can go from there. I hope you would kindly take into account the points I have made above. Thank you. Pinsi281 (talk) 07:06, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to add Bhakti sub-section

@Apuldram:, @DeludedFan:, @Joshua Jonathan:, @Kautilya3: I intend to add a summary sub-section about Bhakti movement influences on Sikhism, to this article. The sources and a bit longer summary is here. Please suggest your revisions, improvements and additional sources. Thank you, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:39, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Excellent. I support it. - Kautilya3 (talk) 23:43, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Actually, Sikhism is indeed a kind of Nirguna Bhakti Movement. So, it's the logical conclusion. And, rather than beating around the bush, you can easily show the similarities between Sikhism and the main features of Bhakti movement(s). Sikhism is a movement turned into religion which turned militarized due to circumstances. Ghatus (talk) 02:06, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I fully support the proposal to add a sub-section Bhakti movement influences on Sikhism, presumably in the Philosophy and teachings section. I feel that the proposed text could be improved.
The most likely reader of an article on Sikhism is someone who is not a Sikh, wanting to find out what it's about. The terms need to be explained with links to Wiki articles or to on-line sources where possible. The references so far listed are all to books, inaccessible to the ordinary reader, so no help to someone puzzling over the meaning. For example nirguni and saguni need better explanation. I couldn't fathom what "devotion to divine without attributes" meant.
The contributions by the Bhagats were entered into the holy book by Guru Arjan. Perhaps worth a mention.
I'd like to see a summary of the main thrust of the hymns - difficult, I realise, but is there any value in mentioning whose hymns were incorporated without mentioning what message they conveyed?
However. Well done! It's a great idea. Apuldram (talk) 15:14, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

@Apuldram:, @Kautilya3:, @Ghatus:, @Chrisw80:, @Joshua Jonathan: Thank you for the comments here and the Bhakti movement article's talk page. @Apuldram: Indeed you are right, and helpful as always. The nirguni and saguni terms need better explanation. It is just like the word "monotheism", or one God, of which the meaning of "one" is easy, of "God" isn't. FWIW, nirgun/nirguni/nirguna is from nir+guna, that is no qualities, no shape nor form, just abstract. Saguni is something with qualities, shape and form. A tree or Tulsi plant or sunrise is sagun, a feeling of respect or love or inner peace is nirgun. Murti or a holy book or Shiva linga or yantra is sagun, while meaning and self-realization and what existed before universe was formed is nirgun – so state the Upanishads and other ancient Indian (not just Hindu) texts dated to be from centuries long before the start of Sikhism. We can add an explanation such as this, to this article, but our challenge is how to do so without WP:OR and WP:OR-synthesis?

Constance Elsberg on Bhakti and Sikhism

(...) today the preferred approach among Western academics is to place Sikhism "within the context of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century India, especially the milieu of the medieval sants" and to view it as arising primarily within a Hindu milieu while recognizing some Islamic influences. (...) Bhakti stresses devotion as the route to God (as opposed, for example, to the paths of knowledge [Jnana] or good works [Karma]). In northern India there are two major variations on the Bhakti theme: nirguni and saguni. (Elsberg then explains: nirgun Bhakti = the worship of single divinity without form or attributes; sagun Bhakti = devotion to embodied manifestations such as Vishnu, Shiva)

— Constance Elsberg (2003), Graceful Women, University of Tennessee Press, ISBN 978-1-57233-214-0, pages 27–28

Note for @JJ: Elsberg mentions the link between Advaita and Sikhism, etc, and you are right that both incorporated Bhakti themes. Elsberg's views on Hinduism and Buddhism, however, are sometimes off from the mainstream Hinduism and Buddhism scholarship. She is an interesting read, given our past discussions on your talk page @JJ, and I will consider adding a bit of summary from her publications to this article. (She is a professor, writes on Sikh women and Tantra in Sikhism, if anyone is curious).

In contrast to Elsberg's views, @Jujhar.pannu and the Indian-publisher source @Jujhar.pannu provided, assert Sikhism always included numerous saguni and also nirguni ideas in its theology. The broad consensus among Western scholars is that Sikhism emerged from the nirguni movements, and this is what I have been covering in my summary, and this is partly what @Jujhar.pannu is complaining about. May be we need to explicitly mention that Western scholarship and Sikh-Indian scholarship have differences? I will meditate on this a bit. Meanwhile, I welcome you and others to edit and improve this or the Bhakti movement article, citing sources, that will not trigger WP:OR and WP:RS concerns. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:43, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I think it's an excellent idea "to explicitly mention that Western scholarship and Sikh-Indian scholarship have differences," including a short explanation. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:49, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

@JJ: Thanks. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:49, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Guys, I haven't edited in a while. I created the structure and form to the present Sikhism article. I found it incredibly difficult to work with Jujhar Pannu, but he had some good ideas. On creating a Bhakti subsection, while I have no objection to it, current academic thinking is that it is far too simplistic to think of it as merely an extension of Bhaktism. We've had this issue before where we have people state Sikhism is merely a form of Sufism. Bhaktism at its very core emphasise the need for non-violence or "Ahimsa". Sikhism disagrees with this world view. People who follow Bhaktism are for example vegetarians. Sikhs are not. Bhakti followers believe in Yoga, Sikhs as a general rule do not (however the New Mexico Sikhs do follow it). I think this is an old debate which has been bottomed out. I suggest a subsection under maybe "History" relating to Bhatism. I also then suggest references to Islam, Sufism as well otherwise it would be WP:UNDUE Thanks SH 14:20, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

@Sikh-history: Thanks for joining the discussion. Do you have sources, I mean reliable sources and not websites/blogs/WP:SPS? Particularly for your allegations/wisdom/prejudice that "Bhakti movement was...", "Bhakti followers believe in....", etc. Indeed, we need to acknowledge the Sufi saint bhagat Farid's influence, but along with bhagat Kabir and the Hindu bhagats. We also need to summarize Bhakti movement and Sikhism, without making strange claims on Bhakti movement/ Hinduism/ Buddhism/ Jainism/ Islam/ etc, claims that have been rejected by mainstream scholarship in these respective fields. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:24, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

@Sikh-history: MSW's proposed text doesn't say that Sikhism is an extension of Bhaktism. Instead, it says, While Sikhism incorporated hymns from the Bhakti poet saints, it was not simply an extension of the Bhakti movement and Sikhism disagreed with some of the views of Kabir and Ravidas. Please address your comments to the proposed texts, and provide reliable sources for any further claims/disagreements. - Kautilya3 (talk) 17:44, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch (talk) and Kautilya3 (talk) the Magnus Opus of Sikh Studies and most reliable I would say is

1. Sikhism - Its Philosophy and History - edited by Daljeet Singh/Kharak Singh - Institute of Sikh Studies , Chandigarh , India - It feature the works of stalwarts like Noel Q King, James R Lewis, HR Gupta, Daljeet Singh, Jagjit Singh etc.Section 2 - Sikhism and Earlier Indian Traditions is a must read.
2. The Sikh of the Punjab - J S Grewal - (Cambridge Press) is very good.
3. The Guru Granth Sahib - Canon, Meaning and Authority - Pashaura Singh (Oxford Press) - again very good.

Have a read through the first book and see what you think. The Bhkti section should be changed to Shakti and Bhakti to incorporate the ideas of the 9 and 10th Sikhs Guru. SH 09:59, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Shakti and Bhakti

Take a look at what I've done. If everyones happy lets move on. I hope the sources are reliable and the heading adds to WP:Balance. Thanks SH 12:55, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

@Sikh-history: Will do. I will study the edits you made, today or tomorrow. I am sure others will too. On your three sources above, the 1st one by Daljeet Singh is interesting but represents one side, one highly controversial. McLeod's publications are another side, which you don't mention, but Daljeet Singh text's introduction does. Pashaura Singh is a more peer reviewed and a better source, but the Daljeet Singh text critiques him too. There are many more sources on Sikhism, by established scholars, peer reviewed, as you likely know. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:09, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I would argue it is Mcleod who is controversial. My view has shifted away from Mcleod over the years. He believed in outdated the "Martial Race Theory". Towards the end of his life he acknowledged that a lot of his theories had probably been wrong. Nikki Guninder Kaur, Jagjit Singh dismantled and took apart a lot of his theories. Jagjit Singh in "The Sikh Revolution" is an excellent read. There is nothing controversial about Daljeet Singh, he was a meticulous scholar and his reference material impeccable. Another book that pretty much took apart Mcleod was "Sikh History from Persian Sources" by JS Grewal and Irfan Habib. They went to sources material and discovered that Mcleod wasn't as meticulous as first thought. Also note I know Parshaura Singh, and I know how he thinks. He may have been an underling of Mcleod, but he certainly didn't agree with everything he wrote. SH 17:12, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

@Sikh-history: JS Grewal is a better source to use than Daljeet Singh. Pashaura Singh publications are WP:RS. This article and other Sikhism-related articles need to summarize all significant sides, including McLeod, Pashaura Singh, Louis Fenech, Eleanor Nesbitt, John Hawley, W Owen Cole, Christopher Shackle and many more. You are free to believe "X dismantled Y" and "Z took apart a lot of Y's theories", but we can only summarize various WP:RS. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:59, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

@Sikh-history: I am delighted with the sources you added. Arvind-pal Singh Mandair is another WP:RS. Thanks, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:37, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch (talk) Always a pleasure to work with someone who has knowledge of Sikhism. I see you are well read. Those authors you mentioned are some of my favourites. Are you happy with the way the section looks? Do we have WP:Consensus? With regards to the X dismantled Y , perhaps I was a little harsh on WH Mcleod, an author and writer I respect a lot. I think he introduced professionalism to the study of Sikhism. He in effect forced issues to be researched. I would go as far as to say he in a way created the Chandigarh University Sikhism Research as a Ying to his Yang. Both are valid and credible , but I do still think there are a number of things he got wrong, such as "Caste and Sikhi", Martial Race Theories, Influence of Jats on Sikhism etc etc. Thanks SH 11:13, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

@Sikh-history: The Bhakti-Shakti sub-section looks better, indeed, thanks to your addition. You may want to reword the subtitle to Power and devotion (Shakti and Bhakti), because Bhakti is generally translated as devotion. Bhakti in some pre-Sikhism Indian (Hindu/Buddhist/Jain) manuscripts includes meditation, as one of the stages in levels of Bhakti, but I suggest you check the sources and consider whether meditation or devotion is appropriate here.

On McLeod, bhakti-shakti literature, etc

Indeed, McLeod was an important scholar, influential. His publications are WP:RS for wikipedia articles. I agree McLeod made errors, but who doesn't? Any scholar who thinks he or she was and is 100% correct always, is not a scholar, but a fool. All academic scholars, and non-academic writers, at their best, are reflecting a combination of underlying facts/data, epistemic process they use, one's past wisdom/prejudices, and one's agenda if any. McLeod was wrong sometimes, but right many times. Indian Sikh scholars publish their own wisdom, prejudices, insights and confusion. It is incorrect to allege that nonduality/ duality/ soul/ sunya/ ethics/ bhakti/ shakti/ ahimsa vs theories of just war/ liberation through monastic life/ liberation with grihastha/ jivanmukta/ videhamukta etc is the invention of Sikh gurus. Vedic, post-Vedic Hindu, Buddhist, Jaina scholars discussed this with each other at length and wrote classics and bhasya on these topics. Within the Hindu traditions, both Vedic and Tantric streams of thought developed bhakti-shakti concepts, for example. If you haven't done so, consider the Yoga/Sannyasa/etc Upanishads, the Gita parts of major Puranas (e.g. Devi Gita) for Vedic stream for instance; and the Shakti-sangama Tantra, Mahanirvana Tantra from Kashmir-Shavism school of Hinduism as illustrations of the Tantra thought. All these pre-date Sikhism. Yet, it is true, Sikhism was not mere extension of Bhakti-Shakti ideas. As @Kautilya3 and @Joshua Jonathan have noted elsewhere, the separation and attempts to divide "Indian/Asian traditions into this or that" is a modern construction, one recent scholars have begun deconstructing. Yet, indeed, that does not mean there is no difference (or similarities) between Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc. We just need to summarize different sides, from recent reliable scholarly sources, for this wiki article as faithfully as we can.

Thanks for your addition and collaborative spirit. This and other Sikhism articles need more quality sources, and consider multiple scholars, as you did. Thanks, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:18, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

See response to Sarah Welch assertions on "separation of Indian traditions, Sikhism inventions" here — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scots225 (talk • contribs) 05:16, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch (talk) I'm easy about how you define Shakti and Bhakti - however bear in mind there were elements of Bhakti that the Sikh Guru's rejected. They did, however emphasises "Meditation" to complement "Physical Power", much like the Ying and Yang concepts. SH 07:08, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

@SH: Perhaps we should change the subtitle and add a sentence on meditation, with a WP:RS. For support to Bhakti-as-devotion, see Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair. @Apuldram: Mandair explains Nirguna/Saguna Bhakti well there on pages 32-33; he would be a good source to explain the Nirguni/Saguni part in this section further if desired, or embed a note for further explanation. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 08:41, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

‎Are publications of scholars with PhD / tenured faculty WP:RS for this article?, "Invention" in Sikhism ? ; "Division" of India/Asian traditions ?

Hi Saran Welch, you are mistaken, specifically with respect to Sikhism, when you/your friends allege that "the separation and attempts to divide "Indian/Asian traditions into this or that" is a modern construction". This is what the Sikh Gurus themselves said 500 years ago:

AG quotes etc by User:Scots225

Guru Arjun Dev, the compiler of Guru Granth Sahib, has very clearly and emphatically declared the independent position Of Sikhism vis-a-vis Hinduism or any other religion : " I do not keep the Hindu fast nor the Muslim Ramadan; I serve Him alone who is my refuge I serve the One Master; who is also Allah I have broken With the Hindu and the Muslim, do not worship the Hindu way nor like the Muslim go to Mecca, I serve Him alone and no other, I will not pray to idols nor say the Muslim prayer. I shall put my heart at the feet of the one Supreme Being. For, we are neither Hindus nor Mussalmans." (A.G. 1136) With such an authoritative statement, from the pen of the compiler Guru of the sacred scripture of the Sikhs, it is not understood how non-Sikhs can keep asserting persistently that Sikhism i" sect of Hinduism.

Guru Gobind Singh also made it explicitly clear that Sikhs were neither Hindus nor Muslims, and forbade worship of any of their idols or tombs: nor were they to follow the teachings of their holy books. Only Guru Granth Sahib was to be their Scripture. In a Sawaiya (religious text) composed by him, he states : pae gahe jab re tumre, ankh tare nah in Ram, Rahim, kahin mar ek na manio Simrat, Sastar, Bed Sabhai, Baho bhed kahain, ham ek na janio Sri Aspan kirpa Tumri Kar, main na Kahio, Sab Tohe bakhanio. (Chaupai Sahib) (Lord, ever since I have fallen at your feet, I care not for anyone else, The different paths of Ram, Rahim, Puran and Quran, I do not accept. The Simritis, Shastras, and the Vedas lay down many doctrines, but I recognise not any Of them. O Lord, I have composed these hymns by Your Grace, and it is all what You have taught me.) (Ram here is the Hindu deity Ram of Ayodhya and Rahim refers to Prophet Mohammed of Islam).

So any "scholar" (scholars rarely know what religion and spirituality is btw) who states that Sikhism is distinct from other "Indian traditions" is not presenting a modern construct. He is simply affirming centuries old principles laid down by the Sikh Gurus themselves.

The problem with almost all "pseudo"-scholars who write down books on Sikhism is that they have never really bothered to read the Guru Granth Sahib and understand its real message, and essentially have zero idea of spirituality themselves. They are writing articles after articles and books after books to get their PhDs and their tenures, without ever realizing what the real path of the Sikh Gurus is. So all they can say, as you say, is that the Sikh Gurus did not invent anything. What the Sikh Gurus are really stating is that you can read all the books and texts (including, as above, Vedas, Puranas, Shastars, Quran) in the world you want, do whatever you want to do, you will not attain any measure of (lasting) peace whatsoever. But read and contemplate this baani I am giving you, and see the effect. So, the Baani is the "invention". There is nothing like it, as it is the medium to transport ordinary mortals to divinity. Only those who read it know it, but unfortunately they do not need and get PhDs and tenures, and hence are not WP:RS ! Scots225 (talk) 02:22, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

@Scots225: Welcome to wikipedia. Your enthusiasm is charming, but you must avoid forum-y posts on this talk page, with your

"The problem with almost all 'pseudo'-scholars who write down books on Sikhism is that they have never really bothered to read the Guru Granth Sahib and understand its real message, and essentially have zero idea of spirituality themselves...".

Assume good faith, assume that scholars have read AG 1136-11, but also AG 1136-12, 483-5:483-8, 1158 etc.. In good faith, assume that scholars have read Hindu/Buddhist/Jain texts, far older than Sikhism, that emphasize, "empty rituals are wrong and unnecessary, empty pilgrimage is wrong and unnecessary, all discrimination is wrong, violence is wrong, the liberating god/soul/sunya is within you, god/soul is in everyone, be Sattvic, better suffer than give suffering to others, know yourself, cleanse your heart, cleanse your mind, everyone is you in another form, compassion is primary, love is primary, inner spirituality is primary", etc. Such thoughts and more are everywhere in the Upanishads/Sutras/Sutta/Bhasyas/Bhakti movement literature/etc. Let us get back to this article. The best we can do is to summarize all sides, with WP:NPOV. Again welcome, but let us respect WP:AGF, WP:TPNO and WP:NOTFORUM. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:32, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome. I find it rather strange that you ask me to refrain from forum-y talk, when you are the one who made controversial forum-y claims in the first place. If you do so, please expect some pushback. And since you did response, I must too :). You are exactly right, all the texts you mentioned emphasize whatever you wrote. Nobody denied that, specifically not the Sikh Gurus. Those are the essential "human values", and you really do not need a guide/enlightener to tell you "these are the values you must inculcate". What you do need a enlightener for though, is to transform you into someone who actually possesses those values. And the claim Sikh Gurus make is "Read my Baani, and you would be transformed". ("Amrit Baani Har Har Teri, Sun Sun Hoye Param Gat Meri" : "The Word of Your Bani, Lord, is Ambrosial Nectar. Hearing it again and again, I am elevated to the supreme heights. The burning within me has been extinguished, and my mind has been cooled and soothed, by the Blessed Vision of the True Guru. ||1||", GGS, pg 103). Again, this is the "invention". It is not that hard to grasp. Have a nice day ! Scots225 (talk) 05:28, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

"when you are the one who made controversial forum-y claims in the first place" - never gives uo, does he? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:32, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Sikhism Is Hinduism and Other Controversies

Aah this old chesnut. I would ask people to read the following books to get an idea of whether the Sikhs were already a distinct religion with ideas:

1. Siques Tigers and Thieves
2. Sikh History from Persian Sources

I was left without any doubts that the Sikhs were a distinct group with distinct ideas. The following are good reads too.

1. The Sikh Revolution
2. Dynamics of The Sikh Revolution

I'm a Hindu convert to Sikhism so I can pretty much see the differences without any bias or prejudice for either religion. SH 07:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the resources ! Scots225 (talk) 07:31, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

@Scots225: Never change other people's edits. Read WP:TPO. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 08:57, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Headings and Subheadings

Hi All, I've tried to make the headings and subsections read better. Bearing in mind this article is in English and the headings should be Encyclopaedic.Tell me what you think? I still this we need to look more closely at the Grammar as it's very poor in some sections. Thanks SH 09:04, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

This entire page is littered with grammatical errors, has far too much bias, and reads as if it was written by a college student.

I propose a complete overhaul that has less bias and instead only cites the Guru Granth Sahib for literal teachings. Teachings from individuals Gurus (that did not make it into the Guru Granth Sahib), or the Sikh Rehat Maryada, can be listed under a different section. Perhaps something like "Community Interpretations of Sikhism"?

Some immediate issues I have with this article are:

1. The concept of "god" is different in Sikhism than that of other religions.

This is very biased and quite obviously written by someone who adores Sikhism. Don't get me wrong, I adore it as well, but a Wikipedia page is not supposed to be read from the viewpoint of someone who adores it. There is no standpoint or citation to this sentence. Not to mention "god" is incorrectly written within quotation marks when there is no ambiguity in its use justifying such puncuation.

2. It is known as "Ik Onkar" or "one constant[37]" or the all pervading spirit (which is taken to mean god).[38] It is found in the Gurmukhi script.[39] This "spirit" has no gender in Sikhism (though translations may present it as masculine); it is also "Akaal Purkh" (beyond time and space) and "Nirankar" (without form).

Once again, repeated use of incorrect quotation marks throughout this article is very poor. In the first sentence there is no need for further clarification as to what a Spirit is because it [God] was already defined as the subject of importance from the sentence prior. "It is found in the Gurmukhi script." This sentence is redundant given citations exist. Use of a semicolon is also incorrect as the clause is perfectly able to stand alone.

Going through this entire article for similar errors would take far too long. The fact that these were in one of the first sections is telling enough. I am willing to put in effort to help fix this page as well, if the community is willing to pitch in.

MrSangh (talk) 21:26, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

New contributors to Wikipedia are always welcome, but for someone who, according to his contribution record, began today and has contributed to only two articles, you are unacceptably rude. That does not auger well for working in harmony with other editors. If you have valid points, I recommend you make them politely and patiently and obtain consensus before any major changes. Apart from that: welcome. Apuldram (talk) 21:55, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I made this account because of this page in particular, and others like it concerning Sikhism. I said the page has grammatical errors (it reads like an essay written by a student) and is very biased. There are errors in lots of places and the only way to fix something like this big is with a huge overhaul. The writing is regardless unprofessional, and I did offer suggestions for the first part. Of course until my account is old enough I can't edit this page, so I made a talk post to discuss it. That is all. Apologies however for coming off as rude. I'm not attacking any user, and it's no specific person's fault for the errors on this page. Just because someone wrote it in a way that is improper for Wikipedia doesn't mean the writing itself is bad (it isn't). But it reads like a biased essay, and there's no denying that. I've wrote my case for changes in the parent thread, so accept that for what you will.

MrSangh (talk) 01:05, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

It is interesting that you already know that "until your account is old enough you can't edit this page." I suggest that you go and edit other things until it is old enough. Please make sure that you understand Wikipedia policies I posted on your talk page as you do so. I should also add that I disagree with everything you have said above. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:03, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't quite understand what you mean by that. Why would I not know what Wikipedia's posting guidelines are? I read the rules and terms of use before spending my time writing up this post. I don't have a vendetta or some sort of mission to berate the previous writers of this page. I want to make this page better because I think people deserve better. I consider myself knowledgeable in Sikhism and have studied it for a long time. I also talked about this page with a couple graduate friends (who study Sikhism) of mine and they also agree that some of the things written on this page are purely false. I'm open to discussion on it which is why I made this talk post. If I had no idea what I was doing and made an account for the sake of editing this single page, I wouldn't have read the rules, or made a talk page, or even proposed changes to everyone. I would've waited four days and edited everything instantly without communication. Also I don't understand why you said you disagree with everything I've said because that would be disingenuous. Some of the sections in this page are unneeded. Some are repetitive. Some are unequivocally wrong. If I come off as rude then sure you are welcome to call me out on that, but how do you disagree with absolutely everything I've written?

In #2 from my parent thread, "Ik Onkar" isn't even normally considered another word for God. It might be used interchangeably for the word God in very rare cases, but starting off an article saying that Ik Onkar is God is entirely false -- if you want to discuss pure objectivity of the phrase. Ik Onkar is a symbol for God. It is a phrase used to describe what God is (a single idea that represents all encompassing ideas of God), and what it means for Sikhism. To define God as Ik Onkar is to completely misunderstand the true intention behind a phrase as beautiful and dense as Ik Onkar.

These are the types of changes I want to propose beyond prose and grammar alone. I would also appreciate hearing why you disagree with my entire post.

MrSangh (talk) 02:52, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

@MrSangh: I join @Apuldram and @Kautilya3 in welcoming you. I am afraid you are taking the battleground approach, rather than paying attention to what they are politely suggesting. Your very first edit here to a Sikhism-related article is unsourced, and let us just say what you added there is strange (it made a bad article worse). If you have read wikipedia content policies and rules, that you claim you have, perhaps you would begin by adding WP:RS to that Kaam article. I urge you to not edit this main wikipedia article on Sikhism in the manner you edited Kaam article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:26, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the constructive criticism. Forgive any typos because I'm writing this on my horrible phone. Because of time I couldn't fix the entire article on Kaam, but what was written in it was false and somewhat misleading in implying Sikhi scriptures commanded all such things prior. In fact only certain interpretations of scripture ever mention cheating, extramarital affairs, etc. I did not cite anything because there was no need to cite. I can't cite something that is not even present within the holy text. The first section of that article says all that is said (at least the major points) within the Guru Granth Sahib. Absolutely everything after that are interpretations falsely incorporated as tenants of Sikhism. Those statements are in fact the ones that need citation from scripture if they are to be held as truths. What I wrote was the obvious: everything cited above are only opinions and unwritten quotes by important prophets. Everything not explicitly written in the Guru Granth Sahib is not a tenant of Sikhism, which is the only thing I could have quoted in a sense. But that is fairly obvious to deduce if you know what Guru Maaneyo Granth means, or if you read the super short article on it (which I linked).

If I edited the page on Sikhism, I would obviously include sources. I would also suggest removing everything without a direct source to the actual holy text. A lot of things under the teachings sections are again interpretations of scripture. There is a double standard here implying my form of editing would be false when in fact what I'm suggesting is actually providing proof in the first place. MrSangh (talk) 04:51, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Js82 Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:09, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Huh? I'm a sock puppet? I'm the only one on my own side in this Talk page. If I were a sock puppet I would at least make an account supporting my side, no? Also I have hidden no edits or sources. I barely have eny edits on my page as is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrSangh (talk • contribs) 07:19, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

MrSangh. I completely agree with your point about "Guru Maaneyo Granth". The Guru Granth Sahib is the ultimate resource for Sikhs. So this article on Sikhism should be related more to the Guru Granth sahib ji as a whole. At this point I feel as if this article branches too far off from the simple yet elegant ideology of Sikhism. TrueCognition (talk) 01:59, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to discard Specific Images in the article

There are 5 specific images in the Sikhism article which are; unhistorical, contradictory, and thus not required.

The first image I propose to remove is in the philosophy and teachings section. It is the painting or tapestry of Guru Nanak Dev ji. There are 2 major problems with this image. To begin with, it is not historically accurate. Most if not all of the painting of Guru Nanak Dev Ji were made after his time and marketed as real to produce a profit. The second problem with this image is that it does not follow suit with the teachings of Sikhism. (No idols or pictures of the Gurus)- more on that later.

The second Image I propose to remove is in the Ten gurus and authority section of the article. The Painting of Guru Nanak Dev Ji. As proposed earlier, this is not historically accurate and it is also contradictory to the beliefs and teaching of Sikhism. Another problem with this image is the description under it which states, "A rare Tanjore-style painting from the late 19th century depicting the ten Sikh Gurus with Bhai Bala and Bhai Mardana." The existence of Bhai Bala is heavily debated upon, and we should not include this image as it is biased to one side of the argument.

The third image I propose to alter is in the Dasam Granth section of the article. The picture of the cover page of the Dasam Granth. The image description reads, "The Dasam Granth (above) was composed by Guru Gobind Singh. The major narrative in the text is on Chaubis Avtar (24 Avatars of Hindu god Vishnu), Rudra, Brahma, the Hindu warrior goddess Chandi and a story of Rama in Bachittar Natak.[127]" The Dasam Granth was COMPOSED by GURU GOBIND SINGH While the article adjacent reads, "The Dasam Granth is a scripture of Sikhs which contains texts attributed to the Tenth Guru....the authenticity of the Dasam Granth is amongst the most debated topics within Sikhism" The article and the description directly contradict each other. The article says the authenticity of the Dasam Granth is debated, while the description boldly states the Dasam Granth was composed by the tenth guru. To eliminate this discrepancy, the description of the image must be altered to match the article.

The final two images I propose the remove. The first is in the Growth of Sikhism section. the paintings "Guru Nanak explaining Sikh teachings to Sadhus". The second in the Baptisim and Khalsa section "Guru Gobind Singh and the Panj Pyare". Similar to the first image, these paintings are again not a "real" or historical work of the first and tenth Guru. These images also contradicts the teaching of Sikhism.

Sikhism against stone Idols and paintings. In the Sikh scripture the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, There are verses written against the use of stone idols (Bhagat Kabir). A painting is just a 2-dimensional idol, rather 3. Only one of the descriptions use the word "depicting" to convey that the painting are not historical evidence. So I believe that these images add more confusion to the article than effect. They should be removed and reviewed. TrueCognition (talk) 01:47, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not bound by any religion. Wikipedia is not censored, either. Your issue with the second image could be resolved by changing the caption. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:54, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it is important to first decide how things should be changed, wouldn't be productive if I change something today and soon after someone else changes it back. TrueCognition (talk) 02:20, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

@TrueCognition: Welcome to wikipedia. Please see content policies and guidelines and MOS:IMAGES. I have updated the third image caption for Dasam Granth image. As @Ian.thomson states, there is no censorship and revising caption should suffice in the case of Image 2. Can you provide reliable scholarly publications, with page numbers, that support your comments about pictures, and other issues? Indeed, there are "no pictures inside a Gurdwara, just bani is enough", but we would need an exceptional source for "no pictures of Gurus anywhere". See this source (page 191), for example, which states pictures of Gurus are kept by some Sikhs, by Sikh religious organizations in langar and for education purposes. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:29, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch, I understand the purpose of pictures for educational purposes. But I feel we must include that somewhere in this article. Maybe as a first step use the word "depicting" in the descriptions to convery the illegitimate nature of these paintings. Maybe even a subsection dedicated to the highly controversial topic? I will make these changes as I see fit, but they are debatable. Also Ms Sarah Welch your changes to the Dasam Granth image read "The Dasam Granth (above) is attributed to Guru Gobind Singh." While the article adjacent reads "The Dasam Granth is a scripture of Sikhs which contains texts attributed to the Guru Gobind Singh." The former attributes the whole Dasam granth the the tenth Guru, while the latter suggests that some texts are attributed to the tenth guru. Since the authencity of the Dasam Granth is still a large issue for many Sikhs, I think the latter is the one we must use. Finally, thank you for welcoming me, and for the great links!TrueCognition (talk) 15:33, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Couple of questions

hey guys, couple of questions. Firstly, do I need to have a certain amount of experience to be able to edit the main atricle? and there more talk articles the last time I came here, but now some are gone why is that?TrueCognition (talk) 23:59, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

You are welcome to edit articles. It is a good idea to get experience by reading what other contributors have done before you embark on anything major. I suggest you try small uncontroversial edits and see how you get on.
Contributions on this page are archived from time to time, to prevent the page becoming so large that contributions get lost. You can still read the archived sections by clicking on one of the six archives shown at the top of this page.
Welcome, and happy editing. Apuldram (talk) 10:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Thankyou Apuldram, I understand the archieved part, but I am still having trouble editing the description of some images posted (for example the dasam granth image) :/ maybe some time on google will help TrueCognition (talk) 18:43, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I've amended the image caption. If you check the View history tab at the top of the article page, you will see how I've done that. I don't think that Google will help you. I suggest that reading other people's edits via "View history" is a good way to find out how changes are achieved. Apuldram (talk) 22:49, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

You also might find WP:PIC helpful. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 12:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Apuldram, and Rivertorch. I have a lot of learning to do, learning wikipedia isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I guess some things will just come with experience and and lots of reading. Also, thank you apuldram, that problem with the description had been bugging me for a while :). TrueCognition (talk) 14:51, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

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Allegation by User:RegentsPark that recent edit regarding Amrit-chakkah Sikhs not consuming meat

Hi,

I am merely creating this section because User:RegentsPark made the half-hearted excuse that the edit summary was allegedly not neutral.

However, what User:RegentsPark is conveniently ignoring is the facts regarding society's evolution, and how this evolution has impacted the availability of multiple types of sustenance around the world.

Thus, the previous edit summary was merely stating a fact: that modern-day Sikhs who allege to be Amrith-chakkah, and use the literature's non-explicit mention of meat consumption to justify their lust, are not Amrit-chakkah at all.

It's obvious that Guru Nanak's lack of explicit forbidding regarding meat consumption was related to the conditions of Sikhs at the time, who have often faced difficult circumstances.

• In light of these circumstances, Guru Nanak's phrase could not be more true then as it is today: that Sikhs who quarrel over meat consumption or lack of it, are missing the point.

• There was no need to mention meat consumption as there were likely many situations where no other forms of nourishment were not available, thereby limiting what he could say on the matter as a diet "choice" (which is why his quote is so great).

Clearly feeding/diet were affected by the surrounding environment of the Sikhs, and that environment was much more hostile hundreds of years ago than it is today.

An example of this improved environment is again, my earlier reference to multiple non-meat alternatives for nourishment that were not present in an uncivilised Punjab.

• This salient line is still useful today, as any perceived quarrel over self-declared (meat-eating) Amrit-chakkah Sikhs who believe they are holy when there are many non-meat alternatives that would sufficiently feed them, are using it to justify there behaviour when in reality, there are multiple other options (unlike hundreds of years ago).

More on this point, the added sources are all secondary and all very good. Eleanor Nesbitt has been working with Sikh communities for multiple decades, and much of her work echoes what many legitimate Sikhs have themselves experienced regarding lack of meat-eating for Amrit chakkah.

• This fact is understood by multiple communities and not one "small sect" as the previous version tried to suggest. As shown with the multiple sources, this fact or belief exists in multiple communities regardless of Guru Granth Sahib's lack of explicit mention.

I find it tasteless on User:RegentsPark's behalf to represent the edit as anything but factual and reliably sourced. In fact, it felt like s/he only read the summary and decided to revert instead of logically evaluating what the summary was stating.

Best. 23.28.108.225 (talk) 01:24, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, in a bit of a follow up I want to state I am a meat-eating, vain (hair-shearing), Sikh.

Even so, I feel it is incumbent upon me to protect the culture and ethnoreligious ties that I am indebted to, as they were central my upbringing and eventual acquisition of discipline through the examples set by people from my community.

I did not appreciate or understand what the term "phoolka" style meant when my Surinder pooaji would make our ethnic food, but I do now. Rest in peace Pooajis Surinder and Maninder.

With that stated, I just want to emphasise that Guru Nanak's statement regarding quarrels over meat still holds today, as there are still many Sikhs living in difficult conditions.

• I just want to state that, for those Sikhs living in poverty, Amrit-chakkah should not be on the priority list unless the food can be acquired within existing means. And this brings me to the example I wanted to share

Clearly we can conjure moral dilemma after another, challenging the concept of ahimsa as central to Sikhism and the abstinence of consuming meat.

• For example, there may very well be devout Sikhs in North America living below the poverty line who can only afford 2 dollar Burger King chicken nuggets instead of a 5 dollar vegetarian meal.

• What do they do?

*Eat meat and save money so they can continue to survive (and presumably still thrive mentally)?

*Go hungry (assuming they cannot just "spend more" via credit)?

In the above moral dilemma, it would be hard to fault a devout Sikh for trying to live within their means, whilst ensuring their ability to thrive to sustain (or improve) the living conditions, if they ate the chicken nuggets.

• Again, this is purely hypothetical but I want to stress why Guru Nanak's quote is so poignant and important.

The moral dilemmas one can conjure with respect to the diet, in particular how our living conditions affect our moral decisions surrounding it, are limitless.

It is hoped that the philosophy that is instilled in us as youth can be supplemented with Critical thinking skills provided by Public education so the youngsters are able to thrive.

Best! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.28.108.225 (talk) 04:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

References

@23.28.108.*: Thank you for the contribution, but your post above seconds the concern of RegentsPark. Please see WP:OR, WP:RS and WP:WWIN guidelines for content, and WP:FORUM for the talk page. Further, we can't begin a sidetrack discussion of Kabir in this article. We must also ignore non-RS blogs and websites, but you also added the Nesbitt source which is reliable and scholarly. The article already mentions the kutha meat restrictions, so what specifically would you suggest that we add / emphasize / revise in this article? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 05:34, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: hello. I do not think the sources I provided were WP:OR, or blogs. Given how small our community is, it is hard to find scholarly work that would meet the high barriers that I am sure are imposed for other scholarly articles.

That said, there needs to be clarity with respect to those who undertake the (extremely large) responsibility of Amrit-chakkah.

• That is, while the original structure was "okay" for non-baptised Sikhs, that interpretation is not admissible for Amrit-chakkah as the multiple sources reflect (nor would the Sikh Community accept it).

• The sources I provided also support the original form prior to the edit in the sense of its literal interpretation.

• That is, while neither Guru Nanak or Guru Gobind ever made explicit declarations regarding the consumption of meat, the communal consensus reflects an expectatino of those who undertake baptism: that no meat is to be consumed.

Additionally, about Kabir, yes you are right we can really get into the philosophy which would detract from the main focus regarding consumption of meat.

However, it can be argued rather easily that Kabir's belief in ahimsa is itself the prototypical/personification of what Amrit Chakkah is supposed to be, which is why I provided that source.

• In fact, I am hoping that you can use many of the sources I have given as they all state what Mrs. Nesbitt has stated regarding Amrit chakkah: it is a communal consensus that abstinence from consuming meat is a core tenet of Amrit Chakka, which is embodied by the concept of ahimsa first explicitly stated by Kabir (arguably the prototypical sant-soldier, as he is the one being spoken to throughout the text)— Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.16.187.148 (talk) 19:23, 25 June 2017‎ (UTC)

Long Introduction

I find the introduction, especially the last paragraph referencing the bhakti movement to be too long and detailed. I would appreciate if someone could work on making it a more brief overview and perhaps moving the more specific info to another section. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.70.171.86 (talk) 08:46, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

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Confusing sentence.

Round 1

"After the death of the tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, the Sikh scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, became the literal embodiment of the eternal, impersonal Guru, where the scripture's word serves as the spiritual guide for Sikhs." This seems to say that "Guru Granth Sahib" is the title of a Sikh scripture. I want to make sense of this statement, but am unable to. Could somebody clear this up?77Mike77 (talk) 03:54, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

In other words, most western people think of a "Guru" as a spiritually wise person, not as an inanimate book. Is this article saying that inanimate books are called "Gurus"?77Mike77 (talk) 04:03, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes. And that's not unusual; the Bible and the Quran have the same function. So, maybe your understanding of "most western people" is not accurate? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:17, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Wrong. My question concerned the use of the word "Guru" to refer to a collection of pieces of paper marked with symbols. In common usage, for those familiar with the English language, which apparently excudes you, a "Guru" is a person, not a book. An English-speaking person reading the sentence I quoted would be baffled by it, because (tutorial time for you) the word "Guru" is not commonly understood to refer to pieces of paper. So, to improve the article, I suggest that it conform to standard English. I realize that there are always people who reject making wikipedia into something other than the laughably incoherent gibberish that it is widely derided as, so if you want this article to continue to be incoherent crud, that's fine. You deserve the reputation you have earned, and I don't really care. Sorry for trying to help.77Mike77 (talk) 04:56, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Apologies for the tone of my response, though comments like "for those familiar with the English language, which apparently excudes you" are not very constructive. Nevertheless, the word guru may, for most western people, refer to to a living person, but in the Indian culture it can also refer to objects, like a book as explained here, or to a sacred object like Arunachala. What's more, the Bible and the Quran have the same function in the west: they are not just a bunch of stories, but the embodiment of the sacred, and can guide the faithfull. So, I don't see how we can improve the article by making it "conform to standard English", which would actually mean 'get rid of the facts and relevant info, and reinforce my view of the world'. Being baffled is not a good reason to step over the facts. If that, for you, is "laughably incoherent gibberish" and "incoherent crud," then you may need to do some study, and learn about hermeneutics. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:32, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

@77Mike77: To add to what @Joshua Jonathan writes, yes, the scripture is the eternal Guru in Sikhism. They, and many in Indian traditions, see a Guru as one with guidance, ideas, values, counsel, etc. For this article, we need to rely on WP:RS. See page 133 of The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies. It reads, sixth last line onwards, "It is no wonder that ritual purity is observed in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib. One is actually in the presence of the eternal Guru when one is engaging with the text of the Guru Granth Sahib: to see, to touch and to hear it". Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:37, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch might be onto something constructive, and appreciate her response. I haven't read the text of Guru Granth Sahib. I could not become a Sikh myself, because there is cultural baggage that comes with it (as in all religions), such as wearing turbans, but it seems to me that the spiritual core of Sikhism, stripped of the cultural baggage, is very similar to the teachings of Jesus.77Mike77 (talk) 00:20, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

The knee-jerk response to any constructive suggestion on wikipedia is often to defend the status quo like an agressive dog defending a bone, so I did not react as politely as normal to that response. My objection nevertheless stands. If this article is being written only for Sikhs, who already know the content and the vocabulary, then it is essentially pointless. If, on the other hand, it is being written as part of an English-language encyclopedia, for a readership that includes non-Sikhs, then the sentence I objected to is poorly written, as I originally stated. To the non-Sikh majority of readers, a "guru" is a person, not a book, and said majority would therefore find the quoted sentence to be meaningless, and would likely stop reading at that point. If it is the desire of wikipedia to encourage ignorance about the Sikh religion by driving readers away with sentences that make no sense, then congratulations on your success. If, on the other hand, you would like readers to become more informed about Sikhism, then the sentence I quoted must be changed so as to explicitly state that Guru Granth Sahib is a book, perhaps adding parenthetically that in the language of Sikhs, unlike English, the word "guru" can mean either a person or a book. As it now stands, this is an article designed so that Sikhs can read about themselves, and is of no value to non-Sikhs wishing to learn about the religion. (PS. At no point in Christianity did anyone ever say, "Fred, I'd like you to meet a very wise friend of mine, named The Bible; The Bible, meet Fred," - then Fred and The Bible shake hands. Yet it is written above, "What's more, the Bible and the Quran have the same function in the west." The Bible is not a guru. A book and a person are two different things, in the English language.) 77Mike77 (talk) 02:54, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Maybe you should speak for yourself when you don't understand something, instead of making assertions on behalf of "the majority of the readers". Regarding "the sentence I quoted must be changed so as to explicitly state that Guru Granth Sahib is a book," the sentence in questions says "After the death of the tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, the Sikh scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, became the literal embodiment of the eternal, impersonal Guru, where the scripture's word serves as the spiritual guide for Sikhs." So, you would like to add that a scripture is a book, and repeat that this specific scripture serves as a guru? I'd guess that most readers who understand English will perfectly understand this sentence, both the part on the Guru Granth Sahib being a book, and the part on the Guru Granth Sahib serving as a guru or guide for the Sikhs. And personally, when I don't understand something, I try to find out more, instead of insulting others and commanding them to obey my wishes. See, for example, Kristina Myrvold (2016), Making the Scripture a Person: Reinventing Death Rituals of Guri Grant Sahib in Sikhism, in Kristina Myrvold (2016), The Death of Sacred Texts: Ritual Disposal and Renovation of Texts in World Religions, Routledge. Which, by the way, also gives a lot of info on how other religions treat their sacred scriptures. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:57, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Have a look in the mirror. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I read English perfectly. The fact that you can't understand why the sentence I quoted is poorly written indicates a failing on your part. Your comments are much more insulting than mine, and it is obvious that you are indeed defending the status quo - i.e. the badly written sentence - with the possessiveness of a dog defending a bone from being taken away, and there is no point in trying to reason with a person such as yourself, and I have already found other far superior internet info on Sikhism elsewhere, and don't really care that this article is poorly written. (By the way if the man and his book are both called "guru", then you have man-book-man-book-man-book-...etc., so the tenth guru in the sequence would be the fifth book, and therefore the eleventh guru would be a man, not a book.....unless one of the man-gurus forgot to write a book-guru somewhere along the way. Do the math.77Mike77 (talk) 04:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

@Joshua. I can't get the image to show. Click link. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Blond_infinite_relections.jpg&oldid=764246497 77Mike77 (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2017 (UTC) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/Blond_infinite_relections.jpg

Round 2

I see this has been touched upon before (with much toxicity) but that is a seriously confusing sentence (even for an Asian Buddhist, just to head off any toxicity, yikes). Compounded upon by the fact that 'guru' doesn't have that secondary meaning outside of the Sikh world (wiki:Guru vaguely mentions how 'guru' is conceptualized differently, while wiki:Sikh_Gurus doesn't mention it at all, and Merriam-Webster only defines it as teacher). For the sake of readability (of a major religion..) can we not find a different way to word this?.. How about:

Hopefully that doesn't trip up any of the religion's subtleties, and eventually a more readable version can be put in to place AiSard (talk) 15:30, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

@AiSard. Excellent suggestion for conveying the same information in a readable sentence, although (unsurprisingly) no one acted on it. I'd do it, except that I'm sure that it would soon be reverted to the currently incoherent status quo. Apparently, I was right about it being protected "as is" out of sheer possessiveness, as "toxic" as that may sound.77Mike77 (talk) 00:47, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

• AiSard's wording is definitely clearer than what's there right now. @Joshua Jonathan and Ms Sarah Welch: --regentspark (comment) 12:32, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

• RP: The last clause feels unnecessary. How about, "The Tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, named the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib as his successor, terminating the line of human Gurus and making the scripture the eternal, impersonal spiritual guide for Sikhs"? This seems supported by the cited sources. Allow me to ignore 77Mike77's other comments above. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:06, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

There was an edit conflict when I started to report that there was consensus and I had imlemented the proposal. Since then we have had a modification to the proposal. I support the new version proposed by Ms Sarah Welch. Apuldram (talk) 13:33, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

MSW's change sounds good. --regentspark (comment) 14:05, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

best lead, IMHO

Two socks make a pair

I would like to invite comments on this version of the lead, which I proposed but was reverted. Sikhism is an Indian religion that was founded in the Indian subcontinent. It is predominant in the Indian state of Punjab. An Indian religion, it accepts Karma. Like other Indian religions, it affirms transmigration of soul. Guru Nanak, the founder, was born in the Indian-Pakistan border region. All other Gurus were born in India, in Hindu Indian families, belonging to the Khatri caste of Indian caste system. They praise all the Indian Gods in their writings. Sikhism is based on the medieval Indian Bhakti movement (although it is "not simply an extension of it"). Nanak was a Indian Bhakti saint. Sikhs are the pride of India. Jai Bharat. Jai India. That's Sikhism in a nutshell, folks ! Thanks. Js82 (talk) 17:29, 27 September 2017 (UTC) You're still topic-banned. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:39, 27 September 2017 (UTC) @Joshua Jonathan:, @Js82: "I am not a Hindu, nor am I a Muslim" - Guru Granth Sahib 1138 Categorizing Sikhism as an Indian religion is nothing more than an attempt to further the Indian nationalist agenda. There is no official document from the Sikh Gurus, Sikh nation or Akal Takht to endorse this flawed classification. This is a similar attempt to article 25(B) of the Indian constitution to classify the Sikhs directly or indirectly as a Hindu sect. In the past, Sikhs have responded to this attempt with desecration of Indian constitution copies and with various petitions, including a petition to the U.S. Obama administration in 2014. Sikhism should be considered an Indian religion, but for the same reason it is a Canadian religion, American religion, British religion and etc. because of the citizens practicing Sikhism in those countries, not because of a historically illogical nationalist viewpoint. Guru Nanak founded Sikhism while traveling across the globe, then on what basis are the Sikhism and Indian religions articles confining the origins of Sikhism to a particular modern country/subcontinent? I request that the controversial terms "Indian religion" be removed from the Sikhism article. 195.181.208.48 (talk) 02:22, 29 September 2017 (UTC) See my previous objections against the term "Dharmic religion," which is truly an attempt to incorporate several religions within the Hindu (nationalistic) fold. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:48, 29 September 2017 (UTC) I've made a similar edit for "Hinduism" [[2]] calling it an "indian religion" instead of "religion". Let's see how fast is it reverted and what explanation is given! Casktopicsay 08:18, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Lead sentence

@Joshua Jonathan:, @Apuldram:, @Others: The current version's lead sentence reads strange, with India / Indian repeating. There is no need for monotheism / panentheism / etc in the lead sentence either (see the edit back and forth over it in July and earlier). How about,

"Sikhism (/ˈsikɪzəm/), or Sikhi[3] (Punjabi: ਸਿੱਖੀ Sikkhī, pronounced [ˈsɪkːʰiː]), is a religion founded in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent.[7][8]

Compare with Britannica's lead sentence (we are okay with no Copyvio, fwiw),

Sikhism, Indian religion founded in the Punjab in the late 15th century.

Encyclopedia Britannica article on Sikhism is silent about monotheism / panentheism.

The right place for explaining "Indian religion" classification etc is in the main article. Comments / alternate suggestions welcome. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:00, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

As already mentioned, I've made a similar edit for "Hinduism" [[3]], as it is also an "indian religion" and a "way of life", including Buddhism and Jainism. Also, as most of you debating here about lead summary are also active editors of "hinduism" article, it becomes important to mention this issue here in order to avoid any biased editing on religious topics. Also, note that relying on a single source such as "Britannica" should be avoided. Casktopic_say 17:31, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

In addition to this I would like to clear up that similar to Buddhism and hinduism, Sikhism is also a "way of life" , which should also be mentioned in the lead sentence. I hope you all will come up with some constructive definition. Casktopic_say 17:55, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

References

@Ms Sarah Welch: I agree that the repetition of 'Indian' in the first sentence is redundant. When I click on the link Indian religion I am told "Indian religions ... are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent." i.e. I am told the same as is already covered more fully in the sentence. I support the removal of the link in the lead. If the Indianness of the religion needs to be emphasised, that could be in a later section. Apuldram (talk) 18:14, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Apuldram: Thanks. The issue is not "Indianness of the religion" here, but a scholarly classification. Broadly, religions are classified into seven groups. Middle Eastern and Indian are two of these seven (Daoism, e.g., is neither and is classified as an East Asian religion; etc). They share geography and ideas/concepts/terminology. Casktopic: Tertiary WP:RS are important sources, we can't ignore them. Sikhism's classification as an Indian religion is not a "single source" issue. It is relatively common in scholarly sources. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:49, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Apuldram, I don't understand your objection. A link is provided not simply for a definition, but for additional information that a reader might be interested in. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:19, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Kautilya3: Apart from the phrase "originated in the Indian subcontinent", already discussed, I can't find anything in Indian religions that is relevant to the lead section here, so I still support the proposal by Ms Sarah Welch. I accept your point that a link provides additional information of possible interest to the reader. Indeed, that is why I suggested above that the link could be made in a later section. A suitable location would be the See also section. In fact, it's already there! Apuldram (talk) 13:04, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I suppose one of the mentions of Indian has to go, I guess it is better to remove "Indian religion". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:52, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Indian religion

Sikhism is not an Indian religion! REMOVE — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khlasse (talk • contribs) 09:59, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Sikhs are not Indians. Labeling Sikhism as Indian religion is equivalent to labeling it as Hinduism. Sikhs don't worship idols, don't believe in multiple Hindu Gods, don't wear janeu, don't do Hindu rituals, don't believe in Vedas and other Hindu books, don't hate Muslims, and don't follow Indian caste system. Sikhs believe in One God and submit allegiance to Guru Granth Sahib, Sikh kaum and Khalsa not Hinduism or mother India. Our Bapu (Father) is Guru Gobind Singh not Gandhi. Stop promoting anti-Sikh Keshdhari Hindus concept in different form. This is part of Sikh genocide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khlasse (talk • contribs) 11:18, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Sigh... Who's going to file the SPI?... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Js82?

It seems to me that this edit by Ralston Bibikow is Js82 again. Ever seen a newbie who, in their second edit, link to another user in their edit-summary? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:56, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan:, I know how to use Wikipedia, it is simple coding. What is the problem with addressing Sikhism as philosophy? Sikhism is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language, no? Maybe review subheading and knowledge under subheading Philosophy and teachings.

Ralston Bibikow (talk) 08:46, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Ralston Bibikow: "Beliefs and practices" =/= study. Please review WP:V, WP:RS, WP:WWIN and other content guidelines, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:16, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

NPOV update of this article

This is our mainspace Sikhism article. The current version inappropriately ignores Namdhari, Nirankari and other traditions of Sikhism. It presents a singular viewpoint, but other traditions have been historical different and important to Sikhism. Some of them are significant in contemporary times. I suggest an update for NPOV, with high quality RS. I welcome objections and comments. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:16, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Two of many sources: The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, and The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:21, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies is a reliable source on the topic of Sikhism, yes?

• Please read chapter 24, titled Sikh Philosophy.

I am confused to why you have a problem with the word 'philosophy' in the lead. The term is mentioned in the article, it's sources and the Sikhism sidebar.

Ralston Bibikow (talk) 00:13, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Ralston Bibikow: Have you read the chapter? If you did, did you miss "What exactly does the term 'Sikh philosophy' designate? It is almost never used by Western scholars of Sikh studies, whose preference has been for the cognate term Sikh theology." Nor do mainstream South Asian scholars. We can't introduce fringe phrases in the lead sentence. Yes, what we can do is to summarize Mandair's article on why the term 'Sikh philosophy' is not in vogue, what publications during the Singh Sabha movement might have been been an attempt towards it, why they failed, etc. Namdhari, Nirankari, Udasis, Radhasoamis, etc are, in contrast, are discussed in numerous sources. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:50, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: Take into account that the majority of western and mainstream south Asian scholars of Sikhism are unable to speak, read or write the Sikh language, hence, their primary sources are secondary translations and interpretations. Not the most reliable sources, yes?

'Sikh philosophy', a fringe phrase? The situation is clearly being complicated to avoid the use of 'Sikh philosophy' in the lead. Justice to articles can not be done by being bias.

Ralston Bibikow (talk) 10:23, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Welcome and RS

@Casktopic: A belated welcome given you are a relatively new account, but you seem to know WP:Peacock etc which suggests you are a quick learner and may have reviewed wikipedia content guidelines. You may want to re-review WP:RS and avoid adding questionable sources. I have removed one of them. We should rely on peer reviewed mainstream scholarship. If you have other concerns about what I reverted, let us discuss them. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:03, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch:Thank you (lady?). Yes I've a relatively new account but most of my edits are well supported by sources which may be interpreted as questionable in your personal opinion. Peer review by a small bunch of closely working editor with stubborn attitude and personal intentions won't lead to any constructive editing so lets work together and stop the blame game by calling each other's sources as "questionable". If you think I've added "questionable" sources, you're welcome to get it reviewed through dispute resolution. Good luck! -Casktopic_say 12:16, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Lead Sentence

Since the important word "monotheistic" was removed from lead sentence by deeming it controversial in context of Sikhism, it becomes important to add the term "One God" or "Ik Onkar" (as in Sikhism) in the very first sentence itself to convey a clear and concise information about the "belief" of this religion to the reader. Note that concepts like "one God" & "monotheism" have been mentioned in the lead sentences of "Islam" & "Christianity". If you have objections to this, spew here with your sources. Thanks. -Casktopic_say 13:55, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Casktopic: Look at tertiary sources such as encyclopedia dedicated to religions/religious studies, and Nesbitt's textbook on Sikhism. No monotheism or one God in the lead sentence or para. Sikhism is not Islam, not Christianity, not Hinduism, not Buddhism, etc. There is no need to copy. Rather, the better lead is one that is true to wikipedia content and lead guidelines. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:09, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Partition section

@Kautilya3:, others: Would you or someone please, when you have time, take a look at the Partition section in this article. It should focus on Sikhs and Sikhism, and currently reads like a diffuse cut and paste quote farm from somewhere. A revision plus some additional RS may improve that section. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 04:31, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi Sarah, thanks for pinging. At the moment, I am working on the Radcliffe Line article, where I think a section on the Sikh issues is needed. Perhaps it will give me enough insight into contribute to the section here. Unfortunately, my time is in short supply at this time :-( -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:33, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I got the 2017 print of Brill's Encyclopedia of Sikhism (along with a few others) in mail few days ago, thanks to someone kind and generous! Starting on page 99 of Brill's is a 14-page chapter on Partition from Sikhism point of view. Mentions the Radcliffe Line politics, the tragedy and the traumas. Interesting, if you can get hold of it and have time. Of course, I can scan a few para for Fair Use discussion and send it to you via wikipedia email, if you would like. But, the chapter is worth a full read as it provides the context. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:09, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I added a summary from multiple sources to the section. Please review. I was about to add some photos, but I am not clear if the limited copyrights and fair use principles would allow their use here. I will let RegentsPark, you and others make a call on it. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:16, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Places of pilgrimage

Do we need a section on the following places revered by Sikhs.?

• Golden Temple
• Patna Sahib
• Paonta Sahib (Himachal Pradesh)
• Anandpur Sahib (Punjab)
• Baba Bakala (Punjab)
• Gobindwal Sahib (Punjab)
• Taran Taran (Punjab)
• Sirhind (Punjab)
• HemKund Sahib (Uttarakhand)
• Nanded Sahib (Maharashtra)

ThanksJonathansammy (talk) 19:36, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Harwele edits

@Harwele: Welcome to wikipedia. What are your concerns with the sources? Repeatedly you are replacing what the source supports with your own blog-like version, in some cases such as here even exact quotes with what your personal wisdom / prejudice / opinion is. This is disruptive. Please review wikipedia's content guidelines, for which I left links on your talk page yesterday. If you have specific concerns, please discuss those here on the talk page. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:49, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Incomplete Information

Hello,

Just pointing out that on the history section, the info. regarding the Sikhs' conditions during the Indian Partition period seems incomplete to me because it does not say much about what conditions the Sikhs were going through at the time? What issues were faced by the Sikhs at the time? etc. So those who may know anything about the Sikhs' conditions during the Indian Partition scenario if could please fill the void left by incomplete info. on the matter, thank you. User:Wjkk20 February 15, 2018. —Preceding undated comment added 09:13, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't believe there is anything special to be discussed about the "condition" of Sikhs prior to partition. They were part of the power structure until March 1947 and were economically dominant in most parts of Punjab. In March 1947, the Unionist coalition was brought down by the Muslim League, and that was the beginning of the chaos that ensued.-- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:24, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

What I meant to say was that what were the political issues that the Sikhs were facing at the time? For example, during the 1947 scenario, why did the Sikhs chose to go with either India or Pakistan? Why didn't they choose to go with their own independent identity instead? That's what I meant. The best I know is that and that's from an unverified source that in 1947, before independence, the Indians had offered something very valuable to the Sikhs in exchange for their support for the Indian side. But later, when the Indian side became independent with Sikh support then they betrayed the Sikhs with allegations that the Sikh leaders were not smart people that all the Indians had to do was make one promise to the Sikhs and the Sikhs started going in their direction? The Wikipedians should take a look at this suggestion. Thanks.--Wjkk20 6:23, 15 February 2018

About 5 k's ? Som Subhasish (talk) 05:24, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Pronounciation

It seems that the proper pronunciation of "sikh" is "sick", not "seek" according to a couple of reliable sources.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/09/pronounce-it-for-me-sikh/
http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/commcomm/2012/aug/09/pronounce-sikh-correctly/
I assume then Sikhism should be pronounced "sickism". Psyden (talk) 16:09, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

It is not quite "*ck" (ਕ / क), rather has a h after it, more like "*ckh" (ਖ / ख). That CNN blog, towards the end, states, "If you're living in the United States, you should pronounce Sikh as "sick," adding a hard "H" at the end of the word." It also adds, "If you live in the United Kingdom or a place where British English is spoken, either the "seek" or "sick" pronunciation s OK." I guess we are supposed to follow the British/Indic version in this article per MOS. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:34, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

it is supposed to be "Sikh" with a h sound at the end. I tried to correct the IPA in the lead, but it says it is invalid, please help!-Kattumitt (talk) 19:59, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: for responding to your question. I've removed the mess.--regentspark (comment) 20:24, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Sikhisme festival: Maha Shivarati really?

i don't think that Maha Shivaratri is a festival of sikhs. festivals of sikhs are here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sikh_festivals  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.47.26.220 (talk) 17:56, 28 September 2018 (UTC) 

@139.47.26.220: Welcome to wikipedia. Please read WP:RS and the cited source. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:34, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Quoting primary sources

Bazg1300: I have removed your attempt to add a quote from the primary text here too. For explanation, see. Let us keep the discussion there. Please avoid edit warring about the same content across multiple articles, particularly when it has been challenged. Your cooperation is requested, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:55, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Consistent Inaccuracy

Please consider the submission under the paranymn Cardinal Bellringer, illegally blocked by the recently defrocked McCarrick possibly around 1993 -- Correct usage of a belief is required to claim to be defining the belief; it is not to say that there is not a common practice, with a proscribed tradition that states itself as Sikh, that follows many of the inconsistency as you say, but it is to say that in the placement of records, the wikipedia of the real world, the position of the Muhjal, and the Mugadi, and the witness carried by this the last of the Gukri, that even amoung other nations, as the courts first lines will tell, the belief must follow as it was begun.

this was what I scratched up from a scarred memory,, but translating passages back to diva chalcedeon then progressive leviticate shows complete congruency with the models of passage that support hearth of Ur, Urdiah.

1. there is a message this is the portion of witness-ship --shakti, as unto the fellowship of Ur 2. the dictate is followed by the receivership --righteous prayer, chakti, as with Joseph as a child 3. consistency is held with the dictate within the receivership this is the portion of belief found --bhakti, with which comes our understanding of imperfection given we are following to model the perfect behavior of the greatest divinity, the creator, leading the greater honor of responsibility to always model our best behavior to be modeled by those that will serve the message, and do greater, with our hopes. --kabir/ravidas, which can be used wrong many ways, but often right only in a straight and narrow manner --lutheran/gukri, as with Joseph as a man 4. seek fellowship in the world, that is to find place for the need and use of the witness and witness-ship, while understanding the models of others, some which may supersede your own use of your witness --chakti, sangasay, congregation, as with Nun 5. As in with the language of Mary to Jesus in the witness of the First Wedding & the New Wine, here is where you could address your own as homies, for in congregation and fellowship there has been discipleship, but preparation and diligence needs be encouraged & ensured to see to peaceworks between and within the community & the other parties. --as with Joshua & Caleb 6. fellowship & witness-ship & custodianship of the divines' domain as regulated to discipline must be propagated ONLY through a discipline itself, for even if you are the first witness, and the first receiver, should the path start anew again, you then are never to be the only one to whom such care is shown. --Muhjal of the Red Fort, called near to common ground, also the role of mercy and grace, within good judgement, as in the leadings of Moses & Aaron 7. develop discipleship, as did Christ, by serving to John the Baptist, and by leading also even to the commune of the 12, and to the Great Commission 8. order in heaven and on earth, principalities and principalities --leadership models progress as time and bearing evolve, maintain clean integrity of fellowship, and do not fail to censor the use of false doctrines, like elevating a congregation to a kingdom, nor subvert the future need for a kingdom model, by base means of progression 9. when all means of peace have been shown to scholarship by the most able, begin and complete a witness, of attack for the defense of all the divine touched to humane balance --Dispater Dyso of Revelations 10. The Holy Writ is enough of an authority for all to master

specifically is the usage of forbidden marriage with "muslim" Muslim was a term used ONLY to mean one who has a belief, but does not conform to a stricture to rectify errors in statements of intent or testimony of belief; the term Islamic or Musliman were allowed for believers of the Aslam tradition after the 9th Tower, first called Islam, though a Christian Sect lead by a friardom that left room for sonship of other truths to be absolute, very similar to the term Musselman which didnot fall out from usage until Webster's dictionary, --the 9th Wixon Islam leading room for the Mohamadiin tradition, now known in modern language as Islam.

107.147.136.143 (talk) 03:45, 18 February 2019 (UTC)nf

Self-contradiction

The article's lead states that Sikhism is the fifth largest major world religion, but then the Sikh diaspora subsection states that it is the ninth largest. My instinct would be that there's enough ambiguity in what constitutes "a religion" and "an adherent" that trying to provide a numerical ranking of this sort is futile; however, I am far from an expert on this so leave decision making to those with more knowledge. It should be fixed though, one way or another. Lowercaserho (talk) 00:45, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

This definitely seems to be a rather meaningless and inconsistent ordering. In addition, the quoted source (http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html) doesn't seem to really have such a ranking. Moreover, Wikipedia's entry on 'Organized religions' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_religion) suggests that this type of ordering is meaningless. In the following sentence, the approximate number of adherents, and their rough geographical distribution is noted: this is much more precise, unambiguous, and helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.20.166.252 (talk) 14:34, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

The name of this article should be changed to sikhi.

The name of this article should be Changed to "sikhi" and "sikhism" an english name for sikhi given by English should be kept secondary and the Logo of Khanda should be removed as the modern khanda has been around less than 100 years and instead ੴ should be used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Singhaey (talk • contribs) 11:49, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

The is English wikipedia.77Mike77 (talk) 23:43, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

As this is the English-language Wikpedia, it follows the WP:COMMONNAME (most common name in English-language sources) and WP:USEENGLISH principles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:02, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Source reliability/appropriateness examination and cleanup needed

The article is in bad need of source reliability review. In particular, it is heavily depending on various effectively self-published and religion-promotional sources (especially from Hemkunt Press, Sikhs.org, Sikh Dharma, Gateway to Skihism, The Sikh Review, Sikh Formations, Sikh University, Sikh Publishing, etc.).

Sources from religious publishers [[[WP:PRIMARYSOURCE|are often reasonable as primary sources]] for claims along the lines of "X is a belief among some workshippers", or "Y is often interpreted within the religion as meaning Z". But such material cannot be used for WP:AEIS claims (because it is neither truly secondary nor independent of the subject), especially when it comes to claims of historicity, comparative religion, and other matters that are outside the scope of belief/faith/doctrine. Furthermore, they often cannot be used for sweeping claims about belief across an entire major religion, as they are typically representative of the viewpoint of a particular sect/schism/communion, not all adherents.

There are also some sources used in here that are just outright dubious for inclusion at all, such as self-published "personal monograph" stuff from Xlibris and other "publish your own book" companies. Plus a bunch of maybe-okay-maybe-not material from no-reputation publishers like Bravo Ltd, Black Rabbit Books, Fortress Press, Concept Publishing, Discovery Publishing House, etc. (some of which are probably also self-publishing outfits). Another suspect one is Sussex Academic and its imprint The Alpha Press (no known connection to any academic institution, and their website has a big "To Publish" link on it, actively seeking publishing inquiries), though it looks like most of the authors the Sussex are actual subject-matter experts, so it may qualify under WP:SPS exemptions.

Also publishers and, for periodicals, publication names need to be linked in citations when we have articles on them, so that readers can better assess the potential reliability of these sources. (Linking publishers and such in every citation is one of the exceptions to MOS:LINKING guidelines against duplicate links; each citation is a "thing" unto itself, usually reviewed individually by following the citation link to it then jumping back into the flow of the article after examination.) I've done a bit of this already, and also distinguished between two publishers with similar names (the one cited herein not being notable, but easily confused with one that is).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:30, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Further citation cleanup needed

The article is using a radically confused mixture of citation styles, and needs to be normalized to a single one, per WP:CITEVAR. I've done an hours-long cleanup pass on much of it, but there's a lot left to do (and my personal patience with it has run out). There are various outright errors, like citing specific chapters/contributions by author name in edited volumes of multi-author work, without giving the title of the contribution (|chapter=), and so on.

And there's an outright dead citation ("Macauliffe 1909, p. xxi.") to a work not specified anywhere in the citation data. And there are bare-URL citations. And so on.

Several have excessively long quotations embedded in the citations. These should be trimmed to only what is necessary (if any of it is) for citation clarity purposes; or be integrated into the text of the article as {{Quote}} block quotations, if important for readers; or just be removed.

The biggest problem, though, is that this page is citing the same few major sources over and over and over again by repeating the entire citation information in long form. The article badly needs to be converted to {{Sfn}} shortened footnotes style, with a ==References== section subdivided into ===Citations=== and ===Sources=== structure (two-sectional referencing). While that approach is unhelpfully "bureaucratic" in short articles, it becomes necessary and is very helpful in long ones that repeatedly rely on certain sources again and again, to prevent the references section from bloating to 10× its necessary size.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:40, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Tone, style, etc. cleanup – needed for GA, FA

This article is rife with WP:MOS problems, especially MOS:DOCTCAPS failures, and some MOS:HONORIFICS issues, plus very little MOS:FOREIGN work to properly identify and language-encode various non-English material (see also MOS:SINGLE on providing glosses. Also MOS:TONE, MOS:INITIALS, MOS:DATEVAR, MOS:TITLES, etc. On the first set of problems, WP does not refer to gurus (even a limited set of them) with a capital G, just as we write "the Catholic saints" not "...Saints". A term like guru should not be capitalized in WP except when attached to a name (see MOS:JOBTITLES), as in Guru Gobind Singh. Similarly, WP does not employ honorifics like Sri/Shri, except in cases where independently reliable sources do so near-universally; a good rule of thumb is that if our article is not at a title like Sri Chand, then the term should not appear in front of the person's name (except in directly quoted material). This, too, is how we treat other religions: Saint Patrick, but Mother Teresa (not Saint Teresa of Calcutta, which is a redirect). It is never Wikipedia's intent to bestow honor/worship/deference/reverence on such a figure in Wikipedia's own voice, only use the most common name in independet reliable sources, to match most readers' expectations (WP:RECOGNIZABLE).

While I have done some limited cleanup of issues like this in the course of recent (still incomplete) citation overhauling mentioned above, a lot needs to be done. This is among the WP:Vital articles, yet has been demoted from [{WP:FA|Featured]] status for over a decade, and at this point would almost certainly even fail an Good Article review. Style and tone matters, which often amount to WP:NPOV and other policy matters in disguise, along with questionable-sourcing (WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR) issues mentioned in a thread above, are among the things that will have to be addressed to get this back to GA and then FA quality.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:21, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Lead tweak on -theistic

There seems to be some desire to have the lead including "panentheistic", and this view is supported in the larger text. Would it be reasonable to change the lead to say "Sikhism is usually described as monotheistic^[1] but has also been classified as panentheistic.^[2]", using whatever sources seem best for these views? I don't feel strongly about it either way, I just noticed the "churn" about it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:02, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Some sort of syntax error in the "Sikh people" section

I'm not familiar enough with the coding to fix it myself, but the "Sikh People" section has some sort of error that's preventing it from displaying correctly.

The very start of the section reads like this:

{ |class="sortable wikitable floatright" |+ Sikhs in India[262] ! State/UT !! Percentage |- |Punjab||58% |- |Chandigarh||13.1% |- |Haryana||4.9% |- |Delhi||3.4% |- |Uttarakhand||2.3% |- |Jammu and Kashmir||1.9% |- |Rajasthan||1.3% |- |Himachal Pradesh||1.2% |} Estimates state that Sikhism has some 25 million followers worldwide.

68.118.31.98 (talk) 22:43, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Raj

Proposal to formally include section on depictions of the gurus

First of, I propose that the tapestry titled "Guru Nanak (15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539), founder of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus" should be titled "An artistic depiction of Guru Nanak (15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539), founder of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus".

And the figure titled, "Guru Nanak explaining Sikh teachings to Sadhus" should be titled, An artistic depiction of Guru Nanak explaining Sikh teachings to Sadhus".

There are many depictions of the gurus floating around, however there is no evidence to prove if any are truly accurate. Therefore figure titled should reflect that these depictions of the gurus are indeed depictions and are not ((proven)) to be historically accurate.

I am willing to add a new section on the wiki discussing the issue of depictions of the gurus, however currently I do not have the time. These small changes that I have highlighted above would be a step in the right direction. TrueCognition (talk) 03:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Use of correct name in place of wrong name given to highly respectable place; Sri Harmandar Sahib

Golden temple is a wrong name; it seems promoted to cheat the glory of the Gurudwara having distinct identity and to create a confusion of a temple among the masses. At least responsible and sensible persons should use the correct name Sri Harmandar Sahib in place of wrongly promoted name in English language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.76.142.17 (talk) 19:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Language in definition quote

The boxed quote in the Philosophy and teachings section is currently written as "A Sikh can be defined as any human being who [satisfies these criteria] is a Sikh". This is horrible English. I tried being bold by simply changing to the wording of the source, which is just "Any human being who [satisfies these criteria] is a Sikh", but my edit was reverted without explanation. I do understand that one might want to deviate from the source here, because it may not be an agreed-upon definition, and although placed in a box the passage is not clearly set aside as a quote (which may be the root of the problem). But then something needs to be done. Perhaps something along the lines of "A Sikh was defined by [...] as any human being who [satisfies these critera]", without the final "is a Sikh"? 94.255.172.107 (talk) 08:55, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

---

Isn't EGO said to be one of the "five thieves?" It gives EGO a feeling of power to arbitrarily, without discussion or good cause, revert someone's constructive edit. 2600:8801:BE26:2700:F4F9:DBB9:B928:188B (talk) 13:46, 30 May 2021 (UTC) James.

Bhai Mati Das Statue

The picture of the statue of the execution of Bhai Mati Das is quite gruesome. I think it might be too shocking and distracting to use on a general article. I suggest it be removed or replaced with an alternative. 2b (talk) 15:59, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jsing3.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:21, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Concept of God

I am correcting the statement from "Sikhism is pantheistic" to "Sikhism is a monotheistic religion with pantheistic pantheistic elements." Even the BBC article already footnoted for that line states, "Sikhism is a monotheistic religion." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.179.159.111 (talk) 20:55, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Fifth-largest religion in the world - Disputed

The article states that Sikhism is the most recently founded major organized faith, and stands at fifth-largest worldwide. This fact is contradicted by the very article it links to - List of religious populations. NebulaOblongata (talk) 23:15, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia source/link is not used for support. Its the external reliable cite [4] that support the information.MehmoodS (talk) 23:21, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

• WP link removed as its not source. Additional citations have been included. MehmoodS (talk) 15:11, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

infobox debate

There is a debate going on here that will affect this article. Greenhighwayconstruction (talk) 21:06, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Request of changing all references of 'Sikhism' to Sikhi.

Sikhism was a term coined by the British. Sikhs have never called their religion 'Sikhism', but 'Sikhi'. 'Sikhism' should be changed to 'Sikhi', and it can be mentioned 'Sikhism' is a British term.

Source: https://www.reonline.org.uk/knowledge/sikhism/ Ref: Singh Mandair, A (2013) Sikhism: a Guide for the Perplexed, Bloomsbury, London.

Source 2: https://www.sikhnet.com/news/sikhism-vs-sikhi — Preceding unsigned comment added by TakeThatRisk (talk • contribs) 18:58, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps, but this is the English Wikipedia, and the standard rendering of the name of this religion in English is Sikhism. Chronikhiles (talk) 17:43, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Classification of Sikhism as an "Indian religion"

This seems rather inappropriate, and unorthodox to general religious classifications. Relgions are not often classified by their nation of origin, but rather a core figure or India. Christianity isn't referred to as an Israeli religion, nor is Islam referred to as an Arabian religion. Both are Abrahamic. It may be more appropriate to classify Siki as "Dharmic" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arohan19 (talk • contribs) 20:50, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

'Indian' here is a reference to the subcontinent and not the country. In any case, Wikipedia goes with what the reliable sources say, not what seems right to us as editors personally. MrOllie (talk) 20:58, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The source provided does not classify Sikhi as an Indian religion. If you're going to make that argument please provide a source that backs up your claim. You're laughably bad at understanding basic scholarship.

I'd also ask that you stop stalking my profile. It's very weird and I've seen that other people notice that you do this too. Arohan19 (talk) 23:05, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The citation (which contains a quote) plainly says that it originated on the Indian subcontinent. Did you read it? When a person is consistently making the same mistake on multiple articles (for example, exchanging 'Indian' and 'South Asian' in inaccurate ways, it is normal to use their contribs list to see if it is also happening elsewhere. That is what the public contributions lists are for. - MrOllie (talk) 23:28, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Christianity originated in Israel, maybe you should start changing by changing its classification to Israeli religion? Arohan19 (talk) 23:34, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm really not interested in arguing hypotheticals. MrOllie (talk) 23:38, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The classification Indian religion is subjective and not based on any declaration or general acceptance by the Sikhs. From the beginning, Sikhism has not been bound by political borders. Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism born in modern day Pakistan spread his message across the world, also beyond South Asia. According to Mahan Kosh, the word 'dharm' means righteousness, morality, principle which is used to translate the English word religion in Punjabi. Sikhism is monotheistic while Jainism and Buddhism are atheistic and Hinduism is polytheistic. The fundamental belief system is different for these four religions therefore they cannot be categorised like the Abraham religions. 1forever&ever (talk) 06:43, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Indian religion or not

Pinging user Vif12vf. You just reverted 2 of my edits labelling Sikhism as an Indian religion in the lead, calling it 'nationalistic pov pushing' and gave me a warning for 'disruptive editing'. I am here to defend the fact that my edits were neither disruptive vandalism nor povs.

Sikhism is an Indian religion. Indian religions are religions which originate from the Indian subcontinent. Indian religion page mentions 4 religions. The other 3 being Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. All three of those are described as 'Indian religion' in their leads and so should Sikhism.

Here are two sources conforming Sikhism is an Indian religion.[5][6]. I already added the first source in my edits. Sikhism is an Indian religion and I'd like to revert the page back to that. Gen8Master (talk) 15:01, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

@Gen8Master – Such nomenclature as you suggest is acceptable, per the examples you cite. What is not acceptable however (and my only contention), is using Encyclopædia Britannica as a source. Encyclopedias (including Wikipedia) are not reliable sources. The changes you made are fine but, please deploy a higher quality source – I'm sure there are plenty of historic experts in the field you can draw from.

Happy trails! -- dsprc ^[talk] 23:21, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

It seems everyone agrees on Sikhism being an Indian religion. Just a small correction to the argument above: it is true that WP is not a reliable source, but that doesn't apply to all encyclopedias. There is no policy against using EB as a source. Jeppiz (talk) 23:44, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

@Jeppiz I stand corrected (WP:RSPRIMARY, WP:TERTIARY say they're acceptable). Thank you! -- dsprc ^[talk] 00:03, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Oppose to Sikhism being classified as an Indian religion. The Indian religion classification is subjective. Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism traveled to the Middle East, would that make Sikhism a Middle Eastern religion? He also traveled to Tibet, would that make Sikhism a Chinese religion? The sources provided by Gen8Master aren't reliable to suggest Sikhism is generally considered an Indian religion, in particularly by the Sikhs. It's only someone's opinion. 1forever&ever (talk) 07:59, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

@1forever&ever First: please use correct indentation on talk pages. See: WP:THREAD for more information.

Secondly: the meaningless "oppose" (this isn't a !vote), the weak strawman, and opinion on opinions doesn't matter.

What does matter: OP has reliable sources which back inclusion of this material… whilst no reliable source at all has been provided to support your position – and no evidence to suggest OP's cited sources are unreliable. Further: reliable sources in the aforementioned parent articles also concur with OP.

If ya' got some sources: we can talk about it. Otherwise: Deal with it. -- dsprc ^[talk] 21:36, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Pantheism doesn't apply to Sikhi

Pantheism states that the universe and god are one this is fundenmentally against Sikh principles  2604:3D09:27A:3500:A0A6:B21C:7E37:807B (talk) 23:42, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

We follow the sources cited in the article, which state it has Pantheistic elements. We cannot substitute your personal opinion in place of the sources. MrOllie (talk) 23:46, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I didn't give personal opinion. I gave a quote from the holy book itself 2604:3D09:27A:3500:A0A6:B21C:7E37:807B (talk) 23:47, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

We cannot use your interpretation of a holy book, either. We have secondary citations and we must follow them. MrOllie (talk) 23:54, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

ok 2604:3D09:27A:3500:A0A6:B21C:7E37:807B (talk) 23:56, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Extremely inaccurate information in the regions section

There is a consistent problem with adding blatant misinformation to the ‘region’ section of this article. Currently it states that 90% of Indian Punjab follows Sikhism, when in actuality it is 58%. It further states that areas outside Punjab have Sikh populations above 30%, when this is true virtually no where. ScholIlm (talk) 14:41, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

U dont know about sikhism, sikhism is not defined by khalsa tradition. Sikhism is a philosophy & way of life. There are triple amounts of hindus that follow sikhism than khalsapanthis. Chaitanya kalra (talk) 04:30, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 May 2023

Worship is misspelt in this sentence:

Sikhs cannot wear any token of any other faith, nor participate in idol woshrip (Idolatry) according to the Guru Granth Sahib. Sikhs must not have their head bare or wear caps. They also cannot wear any ornaments piercing through any part of the body.[388] 115.188.218.101 (talk) 07:09, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done-gadfium 09:19, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

That code of conduct is not written or taught by guru granth sahib actually That code of conduct is a part of khalsa tradition which in itself a sect of sikhism. Sikhism is not equal to khalsa tradition. Khalsa is subset of sikhism. There are 15 crore hindus & muslims that follow sikhism defined by guru nanak not by SGPC Chaitanya kalra (talk) 04:32, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Tangential content in Prohibitions section

There's quite some content that is very tangential. Ex: Baba Santa Singh. They belong in the Prohibitions in Sikhism or other related articles and not in this broad general article. I'll be trimming them and move any scholarly sources to further reading section and here for future reference — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 07:22, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Stating the Sarbloh Granth or the Dasam Granth is a Sikh text

This is a highly controversial topic in the Sikh community with not all Sikhs following them for the issue of not knowing if it is authentic or not-I know it states this on the individual wikis of these Granths- but adding (controversial) or (debated) or removing them due to them being controversial not all Sikhs following it and not being able to guarantee the authenticity. Dopplegangman (talk) 16:47, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Prohibitions

It states alcohol as not being allowed to be consumed but the majority of Sikhs I know drink and there is no quote in the SGGS that states you can’t Dopplegangman (talk) 17:00, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Bahai is the most recent world religion.

the Bahai faith began in 1863 and is therefore the worlds mist recent religion. Check out bahai.org 173.212.124.67 (talk) 16:11, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Looking at Major religious groups, Hoahaoism and Caodaism were both founded in the 20th century, making them newer than Sikhism or Bahai and in the same "medium-sized religions" group. —C.Fred (talk) 18:40, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Indian religion

@MrOllie Do you mind explaining why you are edit warring [7]? Happy to discuss this with you. Coconut Distributor (talk) 00:20, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Indic, Indian, or Dharmic religion

Can we come to an agreement here on which term to use in the article? I've been witnessing numerous edits over the past months changing the classification of Sikhism to an "Indian", "Indic", or "Dharmic" religion. I even seen one editor trying to claim Sikhism is an "Abrahamic" religion. Can we attempt to reach a consensus on the talk-page on which descriptor to use? Indian/Indic/Dharmic are terms used for the same group of religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism) but it seems editors cannot agree on which term to use. Please give your argument/opinion on which term to use here. MaplesyrupSushi (talk) 03:35, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

The source that is cited in the article classifies Sikhi as an "Indian religion". Padurina (talk) 19:55, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Householder in Beliefs

Was confused about the term householder and hoped someone could clear it up? Does this suggest that you need to be a good family member / spouse or a good neighbour? Or maybe that if you're your own house that your head should be 'screwed on straight'? Numlk20xx (talk) 07:27, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

In Indian philosophy, it's called the grahastha (meaning a householder), one of the four stages (ashrams) of life. Although technically it refers to a married person as against the bachelor (called the brahmachari), for all practical purposes, it refers to anyone among the general public—the John Q Public—or simply the common man (married or unmarried). It's a pan-Indian concept and can be found in various Indian works such as the Tirukkural. Rasnaboy (talk) 11:57, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Life after death

In Sikhism is there life after death? 2001:E68:5405:3DEE:D554:DDA9:D2D1:5D53 (talk) 13:07, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Disputed

The authorship of some of the prominent Sikh-texts seems to be disputed; but the info-box does not mention the authorship, only the fact of being Sikh-texts; that is not disputed, is it? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 18:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

if you read the source you would see if the authorship is disputed then also the fact that its a Sikh text or not

please don't start edit warring and wait for an answer in the talk column before making edits Dopplegangman (talk) 22:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

please don't start edit warring and wait for an answer in the talk column before making edits Pot, meet kettle. MrOllie (talk) 22:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

why have you reverted the edits where there sourced material

you have done this on multiple occasions

you need to stop edit warring as there is now sourced material

please don't start edit warring and wait for an answer in the talk column before making edits Pot, meet kettle.Pot, meet kettle Dopplegangman (talk) 22:57, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

You're going to get blocked if you don't stop and get agreement before you continue to edit. You are the one who is edit warring on multiple pages against multiple other people. MrOllie (talk) 22:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

agreement with who there is sourced materisl? Dopplegangman (talk) 23:00, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Other Wikipedia editors. You need to get WP:CONSENSUS in favor of your edits. Sourcing is only a part of that. The simple fact that you cited a source does not mean that no one can ever revert you again or that all editors must agree with you by default. MrOllie (talk) 23:03, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

ok could you help me do this as i am new Dopplegangman (talk) 23:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

many Sikhs disputed the fact that it is a Sikh text and authored by guru Gobind Singh so should be added in the Sikh text column source Debating the Dasam Granth if you have anymore sources please add to the wiki Dopplegangman (talk) 22:46, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

That there are some questions about authorship (as there are for almost any scripture from any established religion) is not a reason to put the word 'disputed' into the article as you have been. MrOllie (talk) 23:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

yes but when you place the book there without saying disputed it misleads people Dopplegangman (talk) 23:03, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I followed your link; you do seem to have a point here. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 05:26, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

thank you I understand there are other sources due to the fact there is no evidence to the claim that he authored it that dates back to him so if you find anymore sources please add it Dopplegangman (talk) 10:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Life after death

Someone write about the different interpretation of life after death in Sikhism like going back with god like a droplet of water create a page under philosophy like this Dopplegangman (talk) 13:17, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 January 2024

Please also add that the religion began with the help of the funding from the land owner.. Rai Bular Bhatti inherited the position as zamindar of Talwandi from his father Rai Bhoi.[3]

Although a Muslim by faith, Rai was inspired by Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism and donated half of his land - over 18,500 acres of agricultural land.

Mehta Kalu, the father of Guru Nanak, was an employee of Bhatti. He was among the first few people who viewed Nanak as someone who was specially gifted by God. The land he donated is now under the control of Evacuee Trust Property Board of Pakistan.[4]

Bular's descendants, the Rai family of Bhattis, have continued to play an active role in the area through to the 21st century.[4]

A portrait of Rai Bular was installed in the Central Sikh Museum of the Golden Temple complex under the supervision of the SGPC on 15 October 2022 to commemorate his important place in Sikhism.[5] His descendants from Pakistan whom were invited to attend the event were unable to due to visa clearance issues.[6] 73.241.96.33 (talk) 22:00, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: This text appears to be a straight cut-and-paste from the article on Rai Bular Bhatti. Wikipedia does not cite itself (see WP:WINARS), so an edit request would need to contain the text intended for this article, as well as the actual sources cited. PianoDan (talk) 22:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Classification as an Indian religion

Who classified this who are they to classify it why do we have to classify it why not state it as an Punjabi religion ancient Vedic religion started in Punjab also this is the same as Jainism and some sources also suggest Buddha was a Punjabi prince Dopplegangman (talk) 13:00, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi,

Sikhi is an Indian religion in that it originated from the Indian subcontinent. Likewise, it can also be considered a South Asian religion for the same reason.

Since it was founded in the late 1400s - early 1500s (AD) period, I don't believe it would qualify for the "ancient Vedic religion" term, since the Vedic age was between 1500 BCE and 600 BCE. AnyBurro9312 (talk) 04:56, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Relevance of the Prohibitions section?

Does the Prohibitions section need to be present in this specific article if there already exists a separate Prohibition article for that same purpose? AnyBurro9312 (talk) 05:02, 7 April 2024 (UTC)