Five Freedoms of Vaisakhi 1699

By Harinder Singh

The initiation rites or ceremonies without a doctrine get reduced to mere meaningless rituals. Without the Nash doctrine, the Vaisakhi for the Sikhs cannot be located as a transformative historical event. And it will not continue to be a revolutionary 1Force-1Ness paradigm to radically secure personal and public freedoms, from spiritual to political.

On 1 Vaisakh 1699, Guru Gobind Singh Sahib spoke to the great gathering at Sri Anandpur Sahib soon after initiating the first Five Lovers (Panj Piare) to Order of the Khalsa. A copy of the Guru’s address was sent to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb by a news writer:

I wish you all to embrace one creed and follow one path, rising above all differences of the religions as now practiced. Let the four Hindu castes, who have different rules laid down for them in the Shastras, abandon them altogether and, adopting the way of mutual help and cooperation, mix freely with one another. Let no one deem himself superior to another. Do not follow the old scriptures. Let none pay heed to the Ganga and other places of pilgrimage which are considered to be holy in the Hindu religion, or worship the Hindu deities such as Rama, Krishna, Brahma, and Durga; but all should cherish faith in the teachings of Guru Nanak and his successors. Let the four castes receive my initiation (of the Double‐edged Sword). Eat of the same vessel, and feel no aloofness from or contempt for one another. - Bute Shah alias Ghulam Muhi‐ud‐Din, Tawarikh‐i‐Panjab

On the Vaisakhi day, the initiated Sikhs renounced their previous occupations (krit nash) to work for Akal‐Purakh (Creative Personality); severed their family ties (kul nash) to become the family of the Guru; rejected their earlier creeds (dharm nash) for the Khalsa;