Baba Farid and Guru Nanak: Influence, Dialogical Reinterpretation, and Lived Religion in Punjab

Abstract

Baba Farid and Guru Nanak are frequently studied in isolation by religious histories, or in general as Sikh representations of the Punjabi spiritual unity, without clarifying the role of influence and reinterpretation, the role of ritual difference. Such strategies might facilitate blurring the line between transmission of history and thematic similarity and they can lead to transformation of Sikh and Sufi traditions into an abstract syncretism. The issue thus lies in explaining the actual proximity without banning theological and institutional lines. It has three purposes, namely, to find what teachings with Baba Farid there existed, in the Punjabi religious context, and came in the Sikh text; to see how Guru Nanak confirmed or redirected or transformed these themes using the Sikh notions of Ik Onkar, hukam, nam, shabad, Bhagat, household responsibility, and community; and to compare the culture of practise lived there with the culture of practise lived under the Sikh gurdwara tradition. Due to the qualitative approach to history-comparative, a method is applied. The main corpus is the hymns and saloks which SHAIK Farid and some chosen hymns of Guru Nanak are being written on in the Guru Granth Sahib, both Salok Sheikh Farid Ke and the responses of the Guru being written in that version are especially focused on. The texts are evaluated by the close reading, coding of the text according to the theme, the intertextual comparison, the interpretation of the context. The convergence, transformation and divergence can be differentiated by a cross-case matrix, and to prevent the claim of theological identity between the two traditions, a negative-case analysis is used. Historical control comes in the form of scholarship on Chishti Sufism, the Sikh formation of canon, Punjabi vernacular culture, Pakpattan rituals and gurdwara practice. It is mediated Faridian, dialogical Sikh reinterpretation, and proximal involving rituals as it is revealed through the analysis in juxtaposition to distinct contrasts in authority, grace, asceticism, domesticity, scriptures, tomb-focused devotion, and congregational structure.