Author: Eminent Contributors
Editor: Taran Singh
Publisher: Punjabi University
Year: 1990
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN/UPC (if available): N/A
Description
This volume is a collection of series of lectures delivered by 4 eminent scholars . The lectures supplement one another, and put together they present a fairly comprehensive view of Sikhism and of the Sikh society.
Each of the series , essentially formulates and presents a thesis. The idea central to Bhai Jodh Singh lectures is that Guru Nanak brought a new inspiration to the Indian religious thought so as to make it more constructive and productive for life. He had contemplated upon the concepts and speculations of various systems, rejected some of them and reinterpreted and recharged some others.
B L Kapur's thesis is that Guru Nanak Dev rediscovered and proclaimed the ancient Vedic or Sanatanist dharma and restored to it, its pristine purity, retrieving it from the superficial "rituals of orthodox form that Hinduism felt compelled by the instinct of self-preservation to assume after it was shaken to its very roots by the Semitic fanaticism".
Sardar Balwant Singh Anand has taken note of the pronouncement of the Western Indologists that the Indian philosophical and religious thought did not pay heed to the ethical aspect of life. He puts forward the thesis that, in spite of his mystic fervor, Guru Nanak gave a very high place to ethics in the realization of spiritual life.
Dr. Niharranjan Ray stressed the point that Guru Nanak and his successor Gurus aimed at creating a casteless society as did Buddhism, the Siddhas and some of the earlier bhaktas. But since they could not give a new economic or productive system, the castes remained. However, the Sikh Gurus were able to carve out a well-knot and homogeneous community, especially by emphasizing that a Sikh must never renounce the world, but lead a life of the householder, and work to earn his livelihood.
In all the four series of lectures, the first quest has been to find whether Sikhism had any new philosophical system to propound. The four lectures supplement one another, and put together they present a fairly comprehensive view of Sikhism and of the Sikh society.
Contents
Introduction
JODH SINGH (1965 )
SHRI GURU NANAK DEV AND INDIAN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
LECTURE I
Review of Ancient Indian Thought
LECTURE II
Raj-Yoga
LECTURE III
Mimansa and Vedanta
LECTURE IV
Guru Nanak's Religious Thought
B.L. KAPUR (1967)
SHRI GURU NANAK DEV IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ANCIENT
SANATANIST TRADITION
LECTURE I
The Pinnacle of Glory
LECTURE II
The Divinity That is Nanak
BALWAN SINGH ANAND (1969)
SHRI GURU NANAK DEV : RELIGION AND ETHICS
LECTURE I
Philosophical Perspective
LECTURE II
Religion and Ethics
LECTURE III
Guru Nanak and the Bhakti Movement