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In Sikhism, a langar (Punjabi : ਲੰਗਰ, pronunciation: [lʌŋɾ] , 'kitchen' [1] ) is the community kitchen of a gurdwara, which serves meals to all free of charge, regardless of religion, caste, gender, economic status, or ethnicity. People sit on the floor and eat together, and the kitchen is maintained and serviced by Sikh community volunteers who are doing seva ("selfless services"). [2] The meals served at a langar are always lacto-vegetarian. [3]
Langar is a Persian word that was eventually incorporated into the Punjabi language and lexicon. [4] [5] [6]
The concept of charity and providing cooked meals or uncooked raw material to ascetics and wandering yogis has been known in eastern cultures for over 2000 years. However, in spite of institutional support from several kings and emperors of the Delhi sultanate (up to the Mughal empire), it could not be institutionalized into a sustainable community kitchen, but continued as volunteer-run free food opportunities.
Within the Jammu hills, a significant component of the Sufi missionaries' social outreach was to organize community kitchens, known locally as langar. In addition to providing meals to the needy, they were also intended to promote inclusion within their society and discourage segregation and untouchability, both of which were widely practised throughout the Indian subcontinent. This practice, largely facilitated through donations, allowed participants to discard their social identity and was considered a sacred duty. The tradition was inaugurated in the 12-13th century by Shaikh Farid. [7]
The community kitchen started by the Sikh Gurus, was universal and accepting of people from all faiths and backgrounds, a tradition which has continued to this day. The type of food served and the method of cooking employed, further helped make Sikh langar universally accepted by all faiths and castes.
Several writers such as Gurinder Singh Mann and Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair have alluded to this fact of cooked food (or raw material) being provided to travelers, ascetics and wandering yogis, [8] free food distribution practices being in vogue in fifteenth century among various religious groups like Hindu Nath Yogis and Muslim Sufi saints. [9] [10] However, no evidence exists of formal institutionalized community kitchens, providing cooked free meals, continuously, over a period of time by any particular community.
The roots of such volunteer-run charitable feeding is very old in Indian tradition; for example: Hindu temples of the Gupta Empire era had attached kitchen and almshouse called dharma-shala or dharma-sattra to feed the travelers and poor, or whatever donation they may leave. [11] [12] These community kitchens and rest houses are evidenced in epigraphical evidence, and in some cases referred to as satram (for example, Annasya Satram), choultry , or chathram in parts of India. [13] [14] In fact, Sikh historian Kapur Singh refers to Langar as an Aryan institution. [15]
The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim I Ching (7th century CE) wrote about monasteries with such volunteer-run kitchens. [16] [17] The institution of the Langar emerged from Fariduddin Ganjshakar, [18] [19] a Sufi Muslim saint living in the Punjab region during the 13th century. This concept further spread and is documented in Jawahir al-Faridi compiled in 1623 CE. [20]
The concept of langar—which was designed to be upheld among all people, regardless of religion, caste, colour, creed, age, gender, or social status—was an innovative charity and symbol of equality introduced into Sikhism by its founder, Guru Nanak around 1500 CE in North Indian state of Punjab. [10]
The second Guru of Sikhism, Guru Angad, is remembered in Sikh tradition for systematizing the institution of langar in all Sikh Gurdwara premises, where visitors from near and far could get a free simple meal in a simple and equal seating. [10] : 35–7 [21] He also set rules and training method for volunteers ( sevadars ) who operated the kitchen, placing emphasis on treating it as a place of rest and refuge, and being always polite and hospitable to all visitors. [10] : 35–7
It was the third Guru, Guru Amar Das, who established langar as a prominent institution, and required people to dine together irrespective of their caste and class. [22] He encouraged the practice of langar, and made all those who visited him attend langar before they could speak to him. [23]
Langars are held in gurdwaras all over the world, most of which attract members of the homeless population. The volunteers feed people without any discrimination, alongside the Sikh devotees who gather. [24] [25] [26] Almost all gurdwaras operate langars where local communities, sometimes consisting of hundreds or thousands of visitors, join for a simple lacto-vegetarian meal. [27]
Sikhism, also known as Sikhi, is an Indian religion and philosophy in particular for the Sikh ethnoreligious group that originated in the Punjab region of India around the end of the 15th century CE. The Sikh scriptures are written in the Gurumukhi script particular to Sikhs. It is one of the most recently founded major religious groups and among the largest in the world, with about 25–30 million adherents.
A gurdwara or gurudwara is a place of assembly and worship for Sikhs but its normal meaning is place of guru or "Home of guru". Sikhs also refer to gurdwaras as Gurdwara Sahib. People from all faiths and religions are welcomed in gurdwaras. Each gurdwara has a Darbar Sahib where the Guru Granth Sahib is placed on a takht in a prominent central position. Any congregant may recite, sing, and explain the verses from the Guru Granth Sahib, in the presence of the rest of the congregation.
Guru Angad was the second of the ten Sikh gurus of Sikhism. After meeting Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, becoming a Sikh, and serving and working with Nanak for many years, Nanak gave Lehna the name Angad, and chose Angad as the second Sikh Guru.
Guru Amar Das, sometimes spelled as Guru Amardas, was the third of the Ten Gurus of Sikhism and became Sikh Guru on 26 March 1552 at age 73.
Khalsa refers to both a community that considers Sikhism as its faith, as well as a special group of initiated Sikhs. The Khalsa tradition was initiated in 1699 by the Tenth Guru of Sikhism, Guru Gobind Singh. Its formation was a key event in the history of Sikhism. The founding of Khalsa is celebrated by Sikhs during the festival of Vaisakhi.
Guru Har Rai revered as the seventh Nanak, was the seventh of ten Gurus of the Sikh religion. He became the Sikh leader at age 14, on 3 March 1644, after the death of his grandfather and the sixth Sikh leader Guru Hargobind. He guided the Sikhs for about seventeen years, till his death at age 31.
The Dasam Granth is a collection of various poetic compositions attributed to Guru Gobind Singh. The text enjoyed an equal status with the Adi Granth, or Guru Granth Sahib, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and were installed side by side on the same platform. The Dasam Granth lost favor during the colonial period when reformist Singh Sabha Movement scholars couldn't contextualize the reworkings of Puranic stories or the vast collection of 'Tales of Deceit' Sri Charitropakhyan.
Anandpur Sahib, also referred simply as Anandpur, is a city in Rupnagar district (Ropar), on the edge of Shivalik Hills, in the Indian state of Punjab. Located near the Sutlej River, the city is one of the most sacred religious places in Sikhism, being the place where the last two Sikh Gurus, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh, lived. It is also the place where Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa Panth in 1699. The city is home to Takhat Sri Kesgarh Sahib, the third of the five Takhts in Sikhism.
The Ramgarhia are a community of Sikhs from the Punjab region of northwestern India, encompassing members of the Lohar (blacksmiths) and Tarkhan (carpenters) subgroups.
Hinduism and Sikhism are Indian religions. Hinduism has pre-historic origins, while Sikhism was founded in the 15th century by Guru Nanak. Both religions share many philosophical concepts such as karma, dharma, mukti, and maya although both religions have different interpretation of some of these concepts.
Jat Sikh or Jatt Sikh is an ethnoreligious group, a subgroup of the Jat people whose traditional religion is Sikhism, originating from the Indian subcontinent. They are one of the dominant communities in the Punjab, India owing to their large land holdings. They form an estimated 20–25% of the population of the Indian state of Punjab. They form at least half of the Sikh population in Punjab, with some sources estimating them to be about 60–66% appx. two-third of the Sikh population.
Rehat refers to the rules and traditions which govern the unique Sikh lifestyle and determines correct Sikh orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The Sikh Rehit Maryada is a code of conduct and conventions for Sikhism. The final version of the Rehat Maryada was controversially approved by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Amritsar in 1945. The Rehat Maryada was created to provide guidance to Sikhs on practical and functional aspects of daily life, including the operations of Sikh Gurdwaras, and religious practices to foster cohesion throughout the community. Rehitnāma is a Punjabi term that refers to a genre of Sikh religious literature which expounds upon specifiying an approved way of life for a Sikh.
Guru Ram Das was the fourth of the ten Sikh gurus. He was born in a family based in Lahore. His birth name was Jetha, and he was orphaned at age seven; he thereafter grew up with his maternal grandmother in a village.
The Golden Temple (also known as the Harmandir Sahib, or the Darbār Sahib, is a gurdwara located in the city of Amritsar, Punjab, India. It is the pre-eminent spiritual site of Sikhism. It is one of the holiest sites in Sikhism, alongside the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Kartarpur, and Gurdwara Janam Asthan in Nankana Sahib.
The Singh Sabhā Movement, also known as the Singh Sabhā Lehar, was a Sikh movement that began in Punjab in the 1870s in reaction to the proselytising activities of Christians, Hindu reform movements and Muslims. The movement was founded in an era when the Sikh Empire had been dissolved and annexed by the British, the Khalsa had lost its prestige, and mainstream Sikhs were rapidly converting to other religions. The movement's aims were to "propagate the true Sikh religion and restore Sikhism to its pristine glory; to write and distribute historical and religious books of Sikhs; and to propagate Gurmukhi Punjabi through magazines and media." The movement sought to reform Sikhism and bring back into the Sikh fold the apostates who had converted to other religions; as well as to interest the influential British officials in furthering the Sikh community. At the time of its founding, the Singh Sabha policy was to avoid criticism of other religions and political matters.
Sikhism prohibits idolatry, in accordance with mainstream Khalsa norms and the teachings of the Sikh Gurus, a position that has been accepted as orthodox.
Guru Arjan was the fifth of the ten total Sikh Gurus. He compiled the first official edition of the Sikh scripture called the Adi Granth, which later expanded into the Guru Granth Sahib. He is regarded as the first of the two Gurus martyred in the Sikh faith.
Sikhism has often been criticised by non-Sikhs regarding its texts, practices, and societal norms, but Sikhs and other scholars argue that these criticisms are flawed and are based on a biased and poor understanding of the texts, especially of the multiple languages used in the Sikh scriptures. They also argue that most western scholars who attempted to interpret eastern religious texts were missionaries and could not overcome the bias they carried with them, irrespective of whether they were translating the Quran, Vedas, Puranas or the Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Nanak rejected ritualistic worship and encouraged belief in one true God, Waheguru. The veneration and bowing to the Guru Granth Sahib, has often been interpreted by western scholars as akin to idolatry, as observed by the Hindu faith, which defeats the ideology of Guru Nanak. Other scholars dismiss Sikhism as, either consciously or spontaneously, a syncretism of the Hindu Bhakti and Muslim Sufi movements.
Nirmala also known as Nirmala Saṁpardā or Nirmal Paṅth, is a Sikh sect of ascetics. According to the traditional beliefs, the Sanatan Nirmala Sikh tradition was founded by Guru Gobind Singh in late 17th century when he sent five Sikhs to Varanasi to learn Sanskrit and Vedanta texts.
Sikh sects, denominations, traditions, movements, sub-traditions, also known as sampardai in the Punjabi language, are sub-traditions within Sikhism that believe in different approaches to practicing the religion. All sampradas believe in the One Creator God typically rejecting both idol worship and caste systems. Different interpretations have emerged over time, some of which have a living teacher as the leader. The major historic traditions in Sikhism, states Harjot Oberoi, have included Udasi, Nirmala, Nanakpanthi, Khalsa, Sahajdhari, Namdhari Kuka, Nirankari and Sarvaria.