50 Fun Facts About Sikhism

In what year was Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, born?

He was born to Hindu Khatri parents in a village now called Nankana Sahib, and died in 1539.

In which region of the Indian subcontinent did Sikhism originate at the end of the 15th century?

Millions of Sikhs lived west of the 1947 partition boundary and most moved into India amid terrible violence.

Roughly how many Sikhs are there worldwide?

More than nine in ten live in India, with sizeable diaspora communities in North America and Britain.

Before his death in 1708, Guru Gobind Singh named what as his successor, ending the line of human gurus?

The tenth guru named it his successor before his death in 1708, closing the line of human gurus.

How many human gurus does Sikhism recognise?

They led the faith for some 240 years until 1708, each building on the teachings of the last.

What Sikh phrase, opening the scripture, expresses the oneness of God as 'One Creator'?

God is described as shapeless, timeless and beyond time and death, and has no gender in a literal sense.

What is the Sikh word for God?

Metaphorically God is presented as masculine and God's creative power as feminine.

What does the word 'Sikh' mean?

The word Sikhism itself was coined under British rule; many adherents prefer the endonym Sikhi, the 'path of learning'.

What is a langar?

Every gurdwara offers one, and the kitchen is run by volunteers; the Golden Temple feeds well over 100,000 visitors a day.

What does the word gurdwara, the name for a Sikh place of worship, mean?

Family practice includes reading from the scripture at home and attending the gurdwara, where the langar is served.

The five Ks are articles of faith worn by initiated Sikhs. Which K is uncut hair?

The others are the comb, the steel bracelet, the blade and the special undergarment; most religious Sikh men wear a turban over their hair.

Which of the five Ks is a small wooden comb?

The kara is the circular steel or iron bracelet and the kachera the special undergarment.

What is a kirpan?

Traditionally a full-sized talwar of about 76 cm, it shrank to a dagger under 19th-century British colonial laws.

What is the collective name for Sikhs who have been fully initiated through the amrit ceremony?

The word means 'pure and sovereign'; sweetened water is stirred with a double-edged sword and drunk by the initiate.

In which year did Guru Gobind Singh initiate the Panj Piare on Vaisakhi, founding the Khalsa?

He baptised the Panj Piare, the five beloved ones, who then baptised him in turn.

What does the surname Singh, given to initiated Sikh men, mean?

A newborn's first name is chosen from the first letter on a page of the scripture opened at random.

What does the name Kaur, given to Sikh women, mean?

Both names were originally titles conferred on initiation and did away with caste-revealing surnames.

Which script, standardised by the second guru, Guru Angad, is used for the Sikh scriptures?

It descends from the older Landa scripts of the region; the scripture's language is Sant Bhasha, related to Hindi and the local tongue.

Which fifth guru compiled the first edition of the Sikh scripture, the Adi Granth, in 1604?

It included the writings of the first five gurus plus thirteen Hindu and two Sufi saints; he was tortured to death by the Mughal emperor two years later.

How many pages, or angs, does the Guru Granth Sahib have?

Its 5,894 hymns are arranged mainly by the 31 musical ragas in which they are meant to be sung.

Which Mughal emperor had the fifth guru tortured and killed in 1606 for refusing to convert to Islam?

His martyrdom is seen as a watershed; his eleven-year-old son then began arming the Sikhs.

Which sixth guru carried two swords representing spiritual and temporal power, the doctrine of Miri Piri?

He also created the Akal Takht, the 'throne of the timeless one', which sits opposite the Golden Temple's sanctum.

Which guru was beheaded in Delhi in 1675 on Aurangzeb's orders after resisting forced conversions of Kashmiri Pandits?

His head was carried secretly to Anandpur for cremation; his son Gobind Rai went on to found the order of initiated Sikhs a generation later.

What is the name of the holy pool that surrounds the Golden Temple's sanctum?

The guru Ram Das completed the pool in 1577, and the holy city grew up around it.

Which Sikh ruler overlaid the Golden Temple's sanctum with gold leaf in 1830, giving it its popular name?

He had rebuilt it in marble and copper in 1809 after Mughal and Afghan armies had repeatedly destroyed earlier versions.

How many entrances does the Golden Temple have, symbolising that all castes and faiths are welcome?

The square plan is ringed by a circumambulation path around the pool; well over 100,000 people visit each day.

What was the name of the 1984 Indian Army assault on militants inside the Golden Temple complex?

Ordered by Indira Gandhi, it killed thousands and destroyed the Akal Takht; the complex was rebuilt afterwards.

What is the Akal Takht?

Created by the sixth guru, it is one of the Panj Takht and its leader is appointed by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.

What is the Nishan Sahib?

It is triangular, saffron or navy blue, and carries the Khanda emblem in its centre.

What are the 'Five Thieves' (panj chor) that Sikhism teaches lead people away from God?

The world is held to be in Kali Yuga, an age of darkness, because of attachment to maya, worldly illusion.

What is the Sikh wedding ceremony called?

It is performed in front of the Guru Granth Sahib and gained official recognition in 1909 during the Singh Sabha Movement.

Which Sikh festival of martial arts and mock battles, started by Guru Gobind Singh, follows Holi?

It draws more than 100,000 Sikhs to Anandpur Sahib each year for horsemanship, archery and military exercises.

Which of Guru Nanak's disciples did he choose as his successor in 1539, passing over his own sons?

The choice was made at Kartarpur on the Ravi; Nanak's son Sri Chand led his own commune, the Udasi Sikhs.

How old was Guru Amar Das when he became the third guru in 1552?

A reformer, he discouraged veiling of women and sati and set up the manji system of religious districts.

The city founded by Guru Ram Das as Ramdaspur grew into which holy city?

He was Guru Amar Das's son-in-law and moved there after hostility from the third guru's sons.

What was Guru Nanak's childhood friend and lifelong musical companion Mardana's religion?

The two sang devotional songs together, and Nanak's first followers came from both Hindu and Muslim backgrounds.

In which modern country is Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak?

The traditional biographies say Nanak made long journeys across the subcontinent and beyond, accompanied by his musician friend.

Which country has the largest share of Sikhs in its population, at about 2.1%?

In British Columbia Sikhs are 5.9% of the population, third among all administrative divisions worldwide after two Indian territories.

What was the capital of Ranjit Singh's Sikh Empire?

The empire covered almost 200,000 square miles and agreed the Sutlej River as its frontier with the British.

The last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Duleep Singh, controversially converted to which religion in 1853?

His conversion and a wave of missionary activity helped spark the Singh Sabha revival movement in the 1870s.

What is the Dasam Granth?

It lacks the authority of the Guru Granth Sahib but supplies parts of the daily prayers, including Jaap Sahib and Benti Chaupai.

What does the Sikh ideal of the sant-sipahi describe?

The concept grew from the sixth guru's Miri Piri and the ninth's pairing of Shakti and Bhakti into Gobind Singh's order of saint-soldiers.

Which practice, the repetition and remembrance of the divine name, is central to Sikh devotion?

It can be sung communally as kirtan or done silently; the Bhakti movement shaped it but Sikhism was never a mere branch of Bhakti.

Which Sikh sect, founded by Guru Nanak's son Sri Chand, rebuilt Sikh shrines but kept idols inside them?

The 19th-century Namdhari and Nirankari movements later sought to purge such practices and return to what they saw as pure Sikhism.

In what year did the SGPC adopt the controversial Nanakshahi calendar for Sikh festivals?

Festivals had traditionally followed the lunar Bikrami calendar, and the new one is still not universally accepted.

The Guru Granth Sahib is composed to be recited in how many ragas of classical Indian music?

The whole scripture is written as poetry and rhyme; singing it is called Shabad Kirtan.

Sikh teaching names egotism as the root of the five evil impulses. What is the Punjabi term for it?

The gurus taught that constant remembrance of the divine name and selfless service (sēvā) overcome it.

Who led the Khalsa after the tenth guru's death, ending the Zamindari system where he ruled?

He organised a civilian rebellion and abolished or halted the Zamindari system in the areas he controlled.

The Nihang order's Tarna Dal is its army of youth. What is its army of veterans called?

The Akali Nihangs regard the Dasam and Sarbloh Granths as extensions of the Guru Granth Sahib.

Which Canadian province has the country's largest Sikh share, about 5.9% of its population?

Canada as a whole has the world's highest Sikh proportion at 2.1%, with 771,790 Sikhs recorded.