Authenticity of Kartarpuri Bir - Global Sikh Studies

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systems in the country and abroad. As against the world being
a place of suffering and Mithya (illusory), for the Gurus it was
a real and meaningful place, a place for spiritual growth. For,
by despising the world one got not to God. At one stroke, the
Guru discarded ascetism and monastism that were also a
feature of Sufism and Catholic Christianity. Instead of
ritualism, meditational, and Yogic practices, the way to God
was purely through performing righteous deeds and the service
of man. Instead of remaining a part of the hierarchical caste
society both Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh organised
a new society completely dissociating itself from the old
system and the caste ideology. And, as Jagjit Singh has
explained in his book, The Sikh Revolution, it was the only
way to escape, to a large extent, the degrading stranglehold
of the caste system. Further, apart from sanctifying the
householder’s life, the equality of man and woman was
recognised. This was something entirely opposed practically
to all the religious systems of the world in which celibacy
was recommended, or woman was considered an impediment
in the religious path, or given a secondary place in the
conduct of religious life and institutions. Lastly, in contrast
with every other religious system, excepting Islam, the Gurus
positively sanctioned entry into the political field and the
judicious use of force in order to help the weak and the
oppressed and resist and defeat the tyrant. It is also
significant to note that whereas Indian Sufism was the
principal representative and a living growth of the religious
life of Islam, it never considered it its religious duty to
condemn, much less to oppose, the oppression practised by
the Islamic rulers. In those times it was left to the Sikh Gurus
to do so as a religious duty. As explained already, all these
radical and revolutionary changes in the religious life of
man were due entirely to the basic difference between the
religious perceptions of the two categories of religious systems,
For the