Khalsa

The founding

At Anandpur on Vaisakhi in 1699, according to Sikh tradition, Guru Gobind Singh called for a head from the assembly. Five men came forward in turn and were led into a tent; the Guru emerged each time with a bloodied sword, and finally brought out all five alive. They became the Panj Pyare, the five beloved, and received initiation with amrit — water stirred with a double-edged sword while prayers were recited.

The Guru then asked them to initiate him in turn, which reversed the usual relation of teacher and disciple and is treated in the tradition as establishing that the Khalsa collectively holds an authority the Guru himself submitted to.

Discipline

Initiates take the name Singh, lion, or Kaur, princess, discarding caste surnames. They undertake to keep the five articles — uncut hair, comb, steel bracelet, undergarment and sword — to abstain from tobacco, from meat slaughtered by ritual bleeding, from adultery and from cutting the hair, and to live by the rehat, the code of conduct.

The abolition of caste names, the shared initiation of men and women, and the common vessel from which amrit is taken were direct attacks on the social order of the time.

Purpose

The Khalsa was created in a period of conflict with the Mughal state, and its military character is explicit: it was to be prepared to defend the defenceless and to resist tyranny. But it was not only a fighting order. The initiation is a religious rite, the discipline is devotional as well as martial, and the Khalsa is understood as the completion of the community the Gurus built rather than a departure from it.

Authority

After the tenth Guru, authority passed to the scripture as Guru and to the Khalsa as the collective body — Guru Granth and Guru Panth. Decisions taken by the assembled Khalsa in the presence of the scripture, gurmatas, carry binding force, and the doctrine underwrites the standing of the Akal Takht. Not all Sikhs are initiated, and the relation between the initiated Khalsa and the wider community has been a recurring question in Sikh life.