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Sikhism
Sikh Moral Principles, Seva and Miri-Piri
- 3 things to know
- Paper 4
Overview
Recall questions on nam japna, kirt karna and vand chakna, seva, N K Singh against a martial reading, miri-piri and the sant-sipahi ideal, gurmukh and manmukh, haumai and the five failings, and Sandhu.
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
What does vand chakna look like beyond good intentions?
What does miri-piri mean?
Questions from this subtopic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
Outline the three practices on which a Sikh life is built.
Model answer
Nam japna, remembering Waheguru; kirt karna, earning honestly by one's own effort; and vand chakna, sharing what is earned. Sikhs treat them as inseparable, since devotion without honest work, or earnings kept back from others, would each undo the rest.
- 2
How does kirt karna work out in practice?
Model answer
It rules out living by begging, fraud, exploitation or gambling, and it dignifies ordinary labour by making it part of the religious life. Sikhs contrast this deliberately with traditions in which a holy man is supported by other people's work.
- 3
What does vand chakna look like beyond good intentions?
Model answer
The customary measure is daswandh, setting aside a tenth of income for others, and the visible institution is langar, the free kitchen open to anyone who comes. Sikh charities that cook at disaster sites and run food banks present themselves as the same principle at a larger scale.
- 4
Explain what seva is and the forms it takes.
Model answer
Seva is service given without expectation of return, understood as service offered to Waheguru by serving people. Sikhs distinguish service given with the body, such as cooking and cleaning in the gurdwara, with the mind, such as teaching and study, and with wealth.
- 5
Explain how nam japna, kirt karna, vand chakna and seva express what Sikhs mean by a gurmukh life.
Model answer
A gurmukh is turned toward the Guru rather than the self, and these practices give that orientation a daily form: the mind on Waheguru, the hands at honest work, the earnings opened to others. Sikhs argue this is why the tradition has no monastic ideal, because the spiritual life and the ordinary life are the same life.
- 6
How does N K Singh read Sikh values against a purely martial interpretation of the tradition?
Model answer
She resists reducing the Khalsa and its symbols to militarism, reading the imagery of the 1699 initiation, including its cosmological and feminine dimensions, as the vision of a transformed community. On her account Sikh values are practices of service, remembrance and shared life rather than a warrior code.
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