The Punjabi community in Auckland got together last week to mark the annual Baisakhi Festival with piety, grandeur and unity, highlighting one of the most fascinating traditions that date back hundreds of years.
More than 1000 men, women and children joined the parade from the Otahuhu Gurudwara to Sri Kalgidhar Sahib (Gurdwara) in Takanini on April 9.
A large contingent of people from other ethnic groups joined in the festivities, demonstrating the rapport and close relationship that Punjabis have with the mainstream society in New Zealand.
Gurudwara Sri Kalgidhar Sahib wore a festive look with the members of the community and others displaying solemness that the occasion deserves.
Prayers and lectures formed a part of the event.
A communication provided a historic perspective of Baisakhi (also spelt ‘Vaisakhi’ by some members of the community).
The following is an excerpt:
Thrilling history
Baisakhi is one of the most important dates in the Sikh calendar.
It is the Sikh New Year festival and was celebrated in India and most parts of the world on April 14, 2011.
It also commemorated 1699, the year in which Sikhism was born as a collective faith.
Baisakhi is a long established harvest festival in Punjab.
The creation of the ‘Khalsa’ was the culmination of a process of social and spiritual uplift that began two centuries earlier by Guru Nanak Sahib, the founder of Sikhism.
He was born in 1469.
Central to Guru Nanak Sahib’s teaching was the belief in one God: The Supreme Creator, who is beyond the limited human frame of birth, death, form or gender.
Baisakhi was celebrated long before it gained an added dimension for Sikhs.
In 1699, the tenth guru, Guru Gobind Singh, chose Baisakhi as the occasion to transform the Sikhs into a family of soldier saints, known as the ‘Khalsa Panth.’
Guru Gobind Singh founded the ‘Khalsa’ in the presence of thousands of people at Anadpur Sahib.
During the Baisakhi festival, Guru Gobind Singh came out of a tent carrying a sword.
He challenged any Sikh who was prepared to give his life to come into the tent.
One volunteer came forward and was taken into the tent.
A while later, the Guru returned alone with his sword covered in blood.
He then requested another volunteer and repeated the action four times until five men disappeared into the tent.
The crowd was very concerned until they saw the five men emerge from the tent with the Guru, wearing turbans.
These five men came to be known as the ‘Panj Pyaras, or the ‘Beloved Five.’
Nagar Kirtans
The festival is marked by Nagar Kirtan processions through streets, which form an important part of Sikh culture and religious celebrations.
Gurdwaras are decorated and visited.
Kirtan is a term meaning singing of hymns from the ‘Guru Granth Sahib,’ the Sikh Holy Book (Nagar means town).
Celebrations always include music, singing and chanting scriptures and hymns.
The processions are led by traditionally dressed Panj Pyaras.
The Guru Granth Sahib is carried in procession to a place of honour, which is the Gurudwara.
Baisakhi also marks reunion of family members. Homes are thoroughly spruced up and useless household effects thrown out. The granary is cleaned to welcome the new harvest arrivals. It is an occasion to wear new clothes, wish relatives, gather blessings and of course sing and dance.
The highlight is the elaborate feasting in every home, especially where new family ties are being forged by marriage or new born babies. Baisakhi is an occasion when the poor and needy are taken care of and given alms and gifts.
The Golden Temple in Amritsar, the religious home of the Sikhs, is richly decorated and glows with the luminescence of thousands of lights and showers its blessings on the millions of devotees who congregate there on this day.
