Ritual and Authority: Sikh Gurus, Mughal Emperors, and the Politics of Devotion

Abstract

The Sikh community was a successful, independent religious tradition that developed in 16th and 17th-century Mughal India. It emerged in a landscape influenced by imperial power and various forms of devotional activities. The most important rituals during this process included sangat (congregation), langar (communal meal), kirtan (sacred music) and remembrance of martyrdom as they served as a visible tool of defining Sikhs and their unity. This paper claims that they were not separate acts of personal religiosity, but they were places where issues of power, rights, and piousness were to be struck between the Sikh Gurus and the Mughal emperors. Diplomatic interactions such as that of spiritual resistance by Guru Nanak against Babur, or the martyrdom of Guru Arjan under Jahangir, of rituals being used to both solidify her allegiance and seek patronage, or evoke rebellion, and the abidance become political statements. By relying on textual traditions such as Janam Sakhis, hukamnamas, and Mughal court chronicles, and by adopting a theoretical approach to ritual and power, this paper will demonstrate that Sikh religious practices during the Mughal period were closely tied to the politics of their day. Finally, the mechanism to which the devotion itself turned out to be the instrument of power itself is also outlined to show how the Sikh community could express both spiritual independence and indirect resistance to the Mughal imperial structure.