1 APPENDIX D.
2 SIKHS AND SINGHS.
3 (Compiled from the Census Report of the Punjab for 1881.)
4 Sikhism has assumed two very different forms at different periods
5 of its history, in the tolerant Quietist doctrines of Nanak, and the
6 military propaganda of Govind Singh. The admission of all castes
7 to equality by Guru Govind disgusted many of the higher classes,
8 who refused to accept his teachings though they remained faithful
9 to the tenets of Baba Nanak, and thus a schism arose in the faith.
10 In strictness the followers of both are Sikhs, a word said to be
11 derived from the same root as the common Sanskrit word Sewak
12 and meaning nothing more than a disciple ; but while the followers
13 of the first Gurus, or Nanaki Sikhs, are Sikhs, they are not Singhs,
14 which is the title by which the followers of Govind, or Govindi
15 Sikhs, are distinguished. In common practice, however, it is the
16 latter only who are called Sikhs, it is they only who are ordinarily
17 regarded as such by the unlearned, and who are commonly referred
18 to when the word is used. The vast majority of those who profess
19 only the tenets of Nanak call themselves Hindus, and will have
20 returned themselves as such for the purposes of the Census Report,
21 though the more educated of them would explain that they are at
22 the same time Sikhs, though not Singhs. The Nanaki Sikhs are
23 distinguished by no outward sign, have no peculiar customs or
24 observances, and though they reverence the Oranth, and above
25 all the memory of their Guru, have but little to distinguish them
26 from anyother Hindu sect, except a slight laxity in the matter
27 ]of_ caste ^observances: They "have a form of baptism knownas
28 Charam Ohdwal, but it is seldom made use of. A large proportion
29 of the Hindus of the frontier belong to this sect, and it is probable
30 that a large number of the people of Sindh who have returned
31 themselves as Sikhs are really nothing more than Nanaki Sikhs.