Duncan Greenlees M.A. (The Gospel of Guru Granth Sahib)

Sikhism is the religion taught through Guru Nanak in the forms of the Ten Gurus and now through the Guru-Granth Sahib and the whole community of disciples. It is a practical way of life, leading man straight to his goal and does not involve itself in verbose theorizing.

A religion, which combines the most passionate mystic devotion and love of God with heroic conduct and social customs, essentially just and reasonable, is certainly worthy of sympathetic study. I trust and believe that a few of my readers at least may be urged to study the Holy book (Guru Granth) itself and then share the fruit of their study with us by giving us a complete, accurate, sympathetic translation of what is, apart from its great religious importance, certainly one of the world’s masterpiece of poetry. Among the world’s Scriptures few, if any, attain so high a literary level or so constant height of inspiration.

The Sikh religion has never been a philosophy of books, of theorists, but as Mehtab Singh says, it is ‘discipline of life’ an ideal of brotherhood inspired by passionate devotion to the highest guided by the example of the Gurus’ own life, and interpreted in the life-history of Guru Khalsa Panth.

To protect the young community of disciples (Sikhs), already subject to persecution, the sixth Guru converted it into a semi-military brotherhood, arming it with outward insignia and sacraments and thus subjecting it to the purifying fires of martyrdom, which instilled the necessary courage and manly resolution in its heart. The Sikh should therefore have a great place in the future of their country, as so pure and spiritual a religion as theirs has already has a great place among the religions of the world.

The Sikh community is not among the largest of the world’s religious groups, there may be about five million baptized Sikhs; and perhaps twice as many more who have preferred to hold their worship secret in their hearts. But their importance in India’s religious life is out of proportion to their numbers; as a strongly martial people, stationed for the most part on the uneasy northwest frontier of the land, they are its guardians, and on their happiness and loyalty must depend largely the safety of the whole of India.