Nanak: Sacha Sauda and Socialism

One of the many verses of the holy book 'Guru Granth Saheb' of Sikh religion questions the veracity of the traditional Hindu belief that the earth is resting on the horn of a bull and when the bull changes to the other horn there is earthquake. One suddenly remembers the experience of a Bertrand Russell as described by Stephen Hawking in his famous book 'A Brief History of Time'. Bertrand Russell was describing the revolution of earth in its orbit when a woman in the audience got up to say, " What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

Exactly in the same manner, one sees with curiosity, that the said verse in 'Guru Granth Saheb' preaches that if you like to believe the earth to be resting on the horns of a bull, then that bull must be resting on another earth and that another earth must be resting on still another bull and so on, the verse questions, 'How many earths and bulls are you going to imagine?' It can be said without doubt that Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru displays a purely scientific perception of the earth in this verse and most of the verses of the 'Guru Granth Saheb' preach us pragmatism in contrast to illogical beliefs and mythology. The holy Granth would preach us to treat satisfaction as one of the five Namaz prayers and to the Hindu, it will preach not to rush for holy baths in pilgrimages or to renounce the world, apply ashes or live on too much asceticism for emancipation. In fact the Sikh religion is a reformed synthesis of the traditional Hinduism and Islam.