Which country did sikhism begin

The Sikh religion began about years ago in the Punjab region of India. Today there are about twelve million Sikhs living in the Punjab region. It was started by a man called Guru Nanak. The title Guru means teacher. He was born at a time in India when Muslims and Hindus were living in the same region but did not get a long well at all.

Some people felt left out of both religions. When Guru Nanak began preaching to others that there should be tolerance of other faiths, it made sense to some some people.

After Guru Nank's death the leadership of the Sikhs was passed down to nine more gurus. Photo Gallery. Video Gallery. Human Rights. Why Learn Gurmukhi? Gurmukhi Alphabet. Random Letter Generator. Gurmukhi Letter Shuffle. Gurmukhi Sliding Puzzle. Gurmukhi Word List. Punjabi Grammar. Punjabi Phrases. Punjabi Vocabulary. English To Gurmukhi Translit. Virtual Gurmukhi Keyboard. Gurmukhi Fonts. Sikh News News in English. News in Punjabi. Sikh Schools.

Sikh Stopwatch. Sri Harmandir Sahib Kirtan. Live Harmandir Sahib Kirtan. Rec Harmandir Sahib Kirtan. Amrit Bani TV. Des Punjab TV. Sikh Channel. Cookie Policy. No Donations. Sikh Website Links. The tradition began of Sikhs serving with great distinction in the British Army. The Sikhs got on well with the British partly because they came to think of themselves less as subjects of the Raj than as partners of the British.

The British helped themselves get a favourable religious spin when they took control of the Sikh religious establishment by putting their own choices in control of the Gurdwaras. In April British troops commanded by General E H Dyer opened fire without warning on 10, people who were holding a protest meeting.

The troops killed about people and wounded 1, Realising the damage that had been done, the British rapidly retired Dyer, but not without promoting him first. Some historians regard the Amritsar Massacre as the event that began the decline of the British Raj, by adding enormous strength to the movement for Indian independence.

When British India gained its independence in ; it was divided between India and the Islamic state of Pakistan. The Sikhs felt badly treated and reluctantly chose to join India. Only by siding with India were they able to keep part of the Punjab, although not before appalling loss of life in communal massacres.

The Sikh ambition for a state of their own was something that India would not concede. To do so would have allowed communalism i. However, in , after years of Sikh demands, India divided the Punjab into three, recreating Punjab as a state with a Sikh majority. This was not enough to stop Sikh anger at what they saw as continuing oppression and the unfair way in which they thought India had set the boundaries of the new state.

They continued to demand various concessions from the Indian government. As Sikh discontent grew, the conflict gradually changed from a purely political conflict into a confrontation between Hindus and Sikhs; and then to real violence.

A Sikh preacher called Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale became the leader of the most disaffected of the Sikhs. He was often portrayed as representing all Sikhs, although, actually, he did not. Each of the ten Sikh Gurus worked to nurture the Sikh community, and over time, the community underwent its own growth of responsibility. It went from bearing a small amount of influence during the time of Guru Nanak to being consulted by the Sikh Gurus in major decision-making moments.

It was on this occasion that the community of initiates was formally institutionalized and given authority. This community, which would come to be known as Guru Khalsa Panth, provided an official structure for those individuals committed to the Sikh way of life. One demonstrates this commitment by accepting initiation amrit and adopting a few of the basic practices that have come to be articulated in the Sikh code of conduct Rehat Maryada. The prescriptions in this document call on initiated Sikhs to, among other things, engage in daily prayers and wear five articles of faith.