Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mr. Hutchinson and welcome to religious education.

We're learning all about Sikhism.

In our last lesson we learned about the founder of the Sikh faith Guru Nanak, and in today's lesson, we're going to be learning all about the 10 Gurus.

So there were 10 Gurus, including Guru Nanak, and we're going to learn today about some of them.

This is what our lesson will look like.

First of all, we're going to learn about how the passing on of the guru ship was like a candle.

I'll speak a bit more about what that means.

Then we're going to just zoom in on three.

We don't unfortunately, have time to learn about all 10 Gurus, even though each is fascinating and important.

So we're going to zoom in on Guru Angad, Guru Arjan, and Guru Hargobind, and then we'll finish that end of lesson quiz.

So lots to do.

So let's get started.

Make sure you've got a pencil.

Make sure you've got something to write on.

There's going to be lots of writing to do today, and some drawings.

So make sure you have all of your equipment ready, your nicely organised, distractions away, you're ready to focus, and learn, learn learn lots of new interesting facts all about Sikhism.

Like a candle.

So we learned in our last lesson that Guru Nanak was the founder of the Sikh faith, that religious experience that he had, where he came to understand God and started teaching that to other people.

And Guru Nanak passed on towards the end of his life.

He passed on his guru ship to Guru Angad.

And that's sometimes said to be passing on like one candle, lighting a new candle.

So the light there is the religious message of Sikhism, and even though Guru Nanak, his candle is burning out, he can pass on that light to the next Guru to continue to spread the message.

So, we've already learned that Guru Nanak was a really important person, and now Guru Angad was taking over, and Gurus are so important within Sikhism.

Here's my question for you.

Are Gurus worshipped within Sikhism? True or false? Gurus are worshipped within Sikhism? What did you say? Did you say it was true or false? It's actually false.

So we're going to be learning all about these Gurus, and Gurus are so important, and they're revered and respected by Sikhs but they're not worshipped , only God is worshipped within Sikhism.

So it is important to have that distinction right from the start.

And we can see here that these the early Sikh Gurus.

So there's 10 Gurus around including Guru Nanak in the middle there.

So there were 10 Gurus that started the religion of Sikhism, and each helped to develop the religion to promote it, and to defend it.

The last human Guru, who was called Guru Gobind Singh, who we'll learn about next lesson, died in 1708.

And then after Guru Gobind Singh died, the guru ship didn't pass to another human.

Instead, it passed to the sacred texts, the writings of Sikhism.

So, the first person we're going to learn about is Guru Angad who took over the guru ship from Guru Nanak.

He lived from 1504 to 1552, and he was the second Guru.

Guru Angad was very wealthy.

He was very rich, and he came from a Hindu family.

And he was so wealthy but he heard through the hymns of Guru Nanak.

Guru Nanak would write hymns, and sing hymns, and use those to spread the message, people would be able to remember them easily because it's easy to remember a song, they will be able to express an experience, and in fact, one of the experiences that Guru Nanak wrote about was called the Song of the Soul, and that was where Guru Nanak wrote a hymn, wrote a song all about his experience with God, when he first came to understand God, and Guru Angad heard this, and wanted to learn more.

And so when travelling looking for Guru Nanak, leaving his wealth behind.

Now back then, Guru Angad wasn't called Guru Angad, he was called Lehna.

That was his name.

And when he first arrived at Guru Nanak, in his community, at his house, he faced three tests from Guru Nanak.

The first test was to do with bales of hay.

Now there were loads of bales of hay, and they were covered in mud.

And Guru Nanak said, "I need all of those bales of hay moved from one place to another place." Lehna, whose Guru Angad's old name, was wearing these beautiful clothes because he was wealthy, and he had these precious, amazing, expensive clothes, and if he picked up those bales of hay, he'll get them all muddy.

Now, Guru Nanak asked his son to do it, and his son said, "I'm not doing that.

That job is below me, that's a menial job, I'm not going to.

I'm not going to move the bales of hay.

Somebody else can do that, somebody less important." But Lehna thought, "I've listened to the message of Guru Nanak about how everybody is equal.

I'm going to move the bales of hay." And so, Lehna moved all the bales of hay, and made all of his clothes all muddy.

The message that that test teaches us, what it symbolises is that wealth, money, material things like the objects that you own, they don't really matter.

The only thing that matters is God, and God's message of equality, that's the Sikh belief.

And so Lehna passed his first test.

There was another test though.

One night there was a huge flood and a big storm, and it really damaged the wall of Guru Nanak's home.

And so he said to Lehna, "You need to fix the wall." And so Lehna got out all his tools, and started fixing away at the wall, and he worked all night.

As soon as he saw it was damaged, he worked all night to fix this wall, and did a really good job of it but when Guru next saw it, he said, "No, it's not good enough." And he tore it down and said, "You need to start again." And so Lehna got out all of his tools, and immediately started to work again.

And when Guru Nanak saw it, he looked at it and said, "No, it's not good enough, you need to start again." and he looked at Lehna to see what Lehna would say, and Lehna said, "I'll start again." And he started again, and Guru Nanak kept saying it wasn't good enough, and Lehna never complained, he never challenged, he never argued, he always just started again, and that showed Guru Nanak that Lehna was obedient.

He understood that sometimes it's important to surrender, sometimes it's important to be obedient, and do what you're told, even if you don't like that message.

The third test, and the final test came when a huge feast was set out.

And there was all sorts of delicious food, and Guru Nanak said to Lehna, "Take something from the table, eat as much as you like, you can go first.

You can see that delicious food there, fill your belly up." And Lehna looked at it.

and he looked at the people around and he said, "I won't go first.

You should eat first, Guru Nanak, and everybody else should eat, and I'll just eat whatever's leftover because I want them to be full first." And so he passed the third test because he showed that he would always put others in front of himself, before himself.

And because Lehna passed these three tests, and then that he was chosen as the next Guru.

And Guru Angad means live or like a piece of me, and so Guru Nanak named him Angad to say, "It's like you're a piece of me, because you're obedient to me, you understand my message, and so that's why I'll give this new name of Angad, which means peace of me." So can you remember those three tests? What I'd like you to do now is pause the video and draw a picture, just like I had to represent each of the tests, and then write down what the message of that test was, what the meaning was.

So pause the video, and write out the three tests now.

Great works, I'm going to put up the images that I had there so that you can just remind yourself, and see if you've got everything right.

If you want to, you can pause, and add a bit more detail or edit your answer or you can give yourself a tick if you've got the right messages, and got the correct images there.

It wasn't the own, so Guru Angad became the Guru after Guru Nanak died, and he realised that this music, these songs were really, really important but some people couldn't understand them.

They couldn't understand these songs, and so one thing that Guru Angad did, one of his amazing contributions was he started to invent a new language, and he took bits and pieces of other languages, Punjabi languages, and he created a language that was easy to read, and easy to speak, and easy to hear so that everybody can easily hear that message and read it, even if they couldn't read before, reading was too difficult, they'd be more likely to be able to read, and that language is called Gurmuki, and it means from the mouth of the Guru.

So that language was created so that everybody could hear the message of the Guru, and lots of the sacred texts of the sacred writings within Sikhism are in that language, and most of the songs written in that language now.

So thinking about songs, that's how Guru Angad came to see Guru Nanak.

He wanted Guru Angad, then wanted to make sure that those hymns could continue in that in that language.

So why are songs or why would songs be an effective way to spread the message of a religion? So you might want to think about memorising, about emotion, and about groups.

So, using those ideas, write down a few sentences or a paragraph, answering that question as best you can.

Why would songs been an effective way to spread the message of a religion just like in Sikhism? Pause the video and write your response now.

Awesome work.

I'm sure that you've got an amazing response there.

Oh! I should have put that before that showed instruction but you've already done it so you don't need to look at that.

Never mind.

As you did that, you might have talked about how songs are easier to remember than just long bits of text because they rhyme, they're set to music.

Have you ever noticed how when your favourite song comes on, then you often know one of the words to the song even though it's a long piece of writing, and you don't learn all the words to a book that you're reading, but something about it being to the music, being predictable, rhyming, it helps you to learn every word, and that will be really useful for religion.

You can obviously sing songs in groups together, so it brings people together, and it gets across that real emotion that often people who are religious or who have faith sort of feel when they're thinking about God.

Let's move on to the next Guru who we're going to be learning about and it's actually the fifth Guru so we're skipping a few Gurus, and this Guru is called Guru Arjan, and he lived from 1563 to 1601.

So the time has moved on a little bit, and Guru Arjan is probably most famous for this.

Guru Arjan was the person who built and finished this Golden Temple.

It's amazing Sikh temple and its name is the Harimandir Sahib.

Maybe you could practise saying that, maybe you could practise writing it.

Harimandir Sahib.

Do you want to try and say it? Harimandir Sahib.

Awesome work, maybe you can try writing it down.

So that, we might sometimes just call it the Golden Temple.

That's what's also known as, but Harimandir Sahib is its other name.

And this was the centre of Sikh worship, and by now, Sikhism, even though it's still quite a new religion have become very, very wealthy, and very, very popular, and successful as a religion.

Guru Arjan put a door in the corner, in every corner of the temple.

So you could get into each of the corners.

Now we talked about that little bit before in our last lesson, the importance of having a door in each corner.

Why is that? Why in Sikhism is there a door in each corner of a temple? Is it to make it easier for people to enter the building? Is it to make sure plenty of light gets into the main hall? Is it to show that everyone is welcome, and everyone is equal? Or is it to make the temple easier to clean? Write down the correct answer.

So pause the video, and write down what you think the correct option is.

Well done if you said that it was to show that everyone is welcome and everyone is equal.

That was such an important part of Sikhism.

Challenging this caste system, this idea that all people are different, some people aren't welcome, some people shouldn't eat with each other, was going against that, and Sikhism was saying, " Everybody is welcome, whichever direction you come from, there's a corner there waiting for you to join us." That wasn't the only thing that Guru Arjan did, he also started to say, he was a fifth Guru, and previous Gurus had come, and Guru Arjan thought, "I should actually probably start writing down, and bringing together all of these sayings, and teachings, and songs, and hymns from the previous Gurus.

As he started to do that in, and he called the book the Adi Granth, and he started to write down what everybody, the Gurus before him, what they had taught.

That's because Guru Arjan started to bring this message the word, the message of Sikhism, that was the important bit, not the man, not the person who's the Guru.

They're just the sort of like vessel for the for the message.

It's the message, the word that's important.

Now, about this time there was a big Empire called the Mughal Empire, which was around all of India, and in charge of all of India, and since Sikhism was starting to become so popular, and so wealthy, and so successful, the Mughal Empire started to become a bit more interested in these Sikh communities, and the Mughal Empire was an Islamic empire.

So it had its religion was Islam, and some of the writings in the Adi Granth were actually Islamic writings because you might remember, Guru Nanak thought that all sorts of different religions had truths in them.

They had some truths, and so there were some Islamic writings, and the Mughal Emperor said to Arjan, "You need to take all of the Islamic writings out of your book.

There're Islamic writings, they're not for your religion.

And Arjan refused.

Arjan said, "I'm going to take them out.

I think they tell the truth about God that's important to our religion, so I'm not going to take them out." And so the Mughal Emperor said, "Well, in that case, I'm going to fine you.

I'm going to fine you lots of money.

So you need to give me some of that money that you've got.

I've seen your big Golden Temple, I want some of that money, and I want you to take out the writings." And Arjan wouldn't do it.

And so, Guru Arjan was taken away by the Mughal Emperor, and he was tortured, he was put on a sheet of metal, and the metal was heated up so it got really, really hot, and he was burned with boiling hot sand.

And one day, the story goes within seekers, and the story goes after being tortured for five days, he was taken down to the river to wash him and call him down from these burns.

And once he went into the river, he just disappeared.

He disappeared into the light.

And that's the story that many Sikhs believe, and for them it shows them that Guru Arjan was the first martyr.

So it is a martyrdom.

A martyr means somebody who dies for their beliefs instead of changing their beliefs, instead of going against their beliefs, they'd rather die, and that's called martyrdom, where you die for your beliefs.

And Guru Arjan was the first martyr within Sikhism.

Martysm is very inspirational to lots of religious believers, and other believers.

Why do you think that is? Why do you think that many believers.

Oh! There's a mistake there.

Whoops! Why should have an H, nevermind, you've spotted it already.

You can correct it.

Why do you think many believers find stories of martyrs so inspirational? Write down your response to that.

You can ignore my mistake, please.

Okay.

Let's see what you wrote.

I wrote down there, she might've put even more but you can give yourself a tick if you got any of the same ideas.

I've heard many believers find stories of martyrs inspirational because they show that the faith is more important than even life to some.

They may believe that the message is so powerful that others will do anything to try and stop it being heard.

So if you have a message, that's your faith, and other people want to kill people to stop that message, it might shape people.

Well, we've obviously got a really powerful, important message because other people don't want to hear it.

And if somebody else becomes a martyr, they say, "I'm not going to change my mind.

I'm not going to give up my beliefs, I'd rather die." And you have the same beliefs, then you think, "Wow, that was so inspirational because they have the same beliefs as me and they wouldn't give them up.

That shows that my beliefs are really right, and my beliefs are really important.

So martyrdom can become really, really important feature of many religions where one of the religious leaders dies instead of giving up their beliefs.

So that brings us to our final Guru who we'll be looking at today, Guru Hargobind, who lived from 1595 to 1644, and Guru Hargobind was the sixth Guru.

He was actually Guru Arjan's son, and Arjan had been killed by the Mughal Emperor.

Guru Hargobind, when he was only 11 years old, was actually taken prisoner then by the Mughal Empire, and kept in prison.

And that influence, so his father's death, and him being imprisoned, influenced what Guru Hargobind thought about what the Sikhs needed to do next, because he thought that they needed to start to train themselves.

He realised that they were being persecuted or picked on, that they had got lots of money, and people were going to try and attack them, and they needed to learn to defend themselves.

And so he started to teach all the Sikhs a kind of martial arts, and he started to create an army, a Sikh army, and create and turned Sikhs into kinds of warriors.

That's still a tradition that continues today because for Guru Hargobind, he thought that even though Sikhism is a religion of peace, sometimes fighting and war is unavoidable.

For example, in the Mughal Empire, a huge empire comes, and starts attacking you or taking people away or putting them in prison, he thinks you can't stop, like you can't stop that, and so you need to learn to defend yourself and sometimes you might have to go to war.

It's just unavoidable.

So that's an interesting proposition, isn't it? Do you agree or disagree with that statement? Do you agree with what Guru Hargobind thought that we need to train ourselves? And you can see that he's got this sword, that we need to train ourselves to start to defend ourselves.

So write your response.

Yes, I agree that fighting the war sometimes unavoidable or no, I disagree.

I think that you can avoid these things.

Write your response.

I dare you to justify it.

Write why you think what you think? Pause the video and do that now.

I'd be really interested to hear what you thought about that.

Guru Hargobind thought though that even though we're fighting a war, battles are sometimes inevitable, they can be avoided.

Sikhism is still a religion of peace, and doesn't want to harm people, and so he made some rules.

Here's some of his rules.

He said that, Sikhs should never attack an enemy, they should only ever fight in self defence.

So they shouldn't send their armies to others places to take them over, they should only ever fight in self defence.

He thought that after a battle, the Sikhs should never take any property.

So, if they've defeated an enemy, they shouldn't take things from the enemy.

He also said that as soon as a battle is won, the Sikhs should stop fighting.

If the enemy surrender, then that says the end, they won't carry on fighting.

And lastly, he said, "You should never take the enemy as slaves." So some other places, they would add some other people after fighting, if anybody surrenders, they might say, "Right now you're our slaves." He said Sikhs must never do that.

Everybody is equal, that's what the religion teaches, and so nobody should be a slave.

That's the end of our lesson.

We learned about just three of the 10 Gurus, and I could have spoken about them for much longer, they have such interesting lives, they developed the religion, in lots of different ways as well as the community, and there are some that we didn't look at who are equally interesting as well.

It's all we have time for unfortunately, you might want to research yourself some of the other Gurus or find out more about Guru Hargobind or Guru Arjan, or even Guru Nanak, who we've already taken a little bit of a look at, but there's still plenty more to learn.

Really, really interesting religion, and so, make sure you do our end of lesson quiz, lock in all of those key facts that we've already learned.

If you do those quick quiz questions you're more likely to remember the facts, and I'll see you in our next lesson, where we're going to be learning even more about Sikhism.