Days become months, months become years. How do we mea sure the passage of time? Innumerable systems have been de vised by man, although much of the world uniformly follows the Gregorian calendar with which we are all familiar.
However, the present Gregorian year 1993 would be 2050 Bikrami or 1915 Shaka (both Hindu calendars), hut 1413 Hijn by Muslim reckoning. The Jews call it the year 5753 dating from creation in their view, the Chinese 4691 and so on. The Panchangam South Indian system counts the years from one to 60 and cycles back to one again. There are many more calendars. For many like the Jews and the Muslims, the calendars rooted in some event of their cultural and religious history, and serves to remind them of it, Yet, life for the ordinary Muslim or Jew is governed by the Gregorian way of reckoning the passage of time, and often that is the only calendar that he knows. We were not surprised to discover that many New York Chinese know 1993 as the year of the rooster, but not that it is 4691; many New York Muslims, Jews or Hindus are equally unaware of their own calendar systems.
The Bikrami and Shaka are the best known of the Indian calendars, the Bikrami system is still used in a limited way in northern India. It is interesting however, that no Indian system is widely used anywhere not even in India except in Hindu religious practice, Most Hindus would be unaware and uncaring of the reason or significance of either the Shaka or the Bikrami calendars. Clearly either of the Indian systems have no meaning for a Sikh. When Sikhism arose Islam held sway in India, and the Hindu calendars were little used except by the Brahmins; they had no place in the daily lives of the people.
Hindu astrologers and Brahmins are lied to the archaic system; their forecasting depends upon it. Without it they would not know when to marry or travel, fast or feast, which day of the week or month is sacred and which is not, or when to hold religious services to propitiate their many gods and goddesses.
The irony is that the predominantly Hindu Indian society, dominated by Brahminical thinking, functions in a somewhat schizoid fashion. The daily lives of the people are governed by the Gregorian calendar; in matters of marriage, birth, life, death and religion, one of the Indian calendars lakes over a calendar that nobody remembers or can figure out except the Brahmin.
Sikhs however, were freed by their Gurus from slavery to a system which has been discarded by the world and serves no purpose in the daily lives of anyone including Indians. The Sikh scriptures are full of hymns and exhortations which reject that any day of the week, month or year is sacred. Such superstitious nonsense has no place in Sikhism. As we say this we are aware that there have been sporadic attempts by some Sikhs to craft a new calendar based on the birth of Guru Nanak (Nanakshahi) or the creation of the Khalsa, but these efforts were limited in their application.
Yet the Sikhs arc a product of the ancient civilization of India which remains Brahmin dominated, It is disappointing but not surprising that Sikhs too are shackled to a useless system of reckoning of the years.
When Gur Nanak and Guru Arjan composed their hymns for each month of the year (Bara Mah), the poetry of the changes in seasons was a melaph or for the transformations in life, and not because there was anything sacred about any particular month, Yet we Sikhs tend to interpret gurbani most narrowly. How often does one hear that tomorrow is “sangrand” or “massiya” and a keertan must be performed’? What is sangrand but the first of a month? We ask what calendar do we live by? Ifyou must start the month with a Keertan and that is nice do it on the first of a month that you know and understand, not one that you cannot even name, The idea is to govern our lives by an awareness of the infinite within us. We can’t possibly govern our lives by using a system that we neither know nor understand and which has no relevance to our lives. We live by a calendar from January to December, let our sangt and be the first of those 12 months.
What we suggest might appear to be trivial hairsplitting but it has other ramifications. Lf we discard the baggage of an unworkable calendar, we will not have to await the arrival of calendars (jantris) from India. We will not have to jockey around with the dates of our holy days from year to year, as it is, if asked when Guru Arjan’s martyrdom day in 1994 is, one would have to await the publication and arrival of the Bikrami calendar from India. Can you imagine a more ridiculous spectacle than celebrating Guru Gobind Singh’s birthday cither twice in one year or not at all, and that is what happens now.
Let us emphasize our plea with a clear example of’ far reaching importance, On June 5, 1984, the Indian army attacked the Golden Temple and 40 other gurdwaras across the Punjab. Thousands of innocent men, women and children were killed. Why did the government pick that day for the attack? Because it was the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan and the gurdwaras across the country were overflowing with innocent pilgrims, that year the two events martyrdom day and the attack coincided neatly. But we adhere to the Bikrami calendar for figuring out the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan and that can move the day by as much as a week in any given year May 25 in 1993, June 5 in 1984. We also persist in marking the attack on the Golden Temple on June 5th every year by the Gregorian calendar. This separates the two monumental historical events, The Indian government understood the significance of that day with their attack, but by separating the two events we seem 10 be oblivious to the association in the nine years since 1984, we have met many Sikhs who are unaware that the attack occurred on Guru Arjan’s martyrdom day. By unrealistically separating the two events, we debase our own history.
Our lives are not governed by any Indian calendar, only the Brahmin and the Hindu society are tied to it. The Sikhs are a progressive people, a thinking people. We can certainly fix the dates of the events of our history by the Gregorian calendar, and henceforth follow that schedule unchangeably and predictably. We submit that this question deserves consideration by Sikh scholars, as well as the SGPC and other Sikh organizations.
Footnotes:
- Singh is at
New York University
Gyani Harbhajan Singh
is Granthi at
Gurdwara Sikh Forum,
New York
Article extracted from this publication >> July 9, 1993
