7 - Suṅdarī: the paradigm of Sikh ethics

Summary

tūṅ jihā amrit safal kītā hai tihā harek istrī purukh kare.

As you [Suṅdarī] have succeeded in living your pledge with the Divine, may each and every man and woman likewise succeed.

What does she do after the re-cognition? Where does she go? What happens when the young woman returns home after having viewed that vista of the singular blossom of lotuses? How does a Sikh person lead her or his life after a vision of the Transcendent? Although chronologically, the poem “What is Life?” came twenty-four years after the publication of the novel Suṅdarī it seems to me that ideologically the novel begins where the poem ends. For Suṅdarī in flesh and blood lives the Sikh ideal of insight into the Singular One.

Suṅdarī is one of Bhāī Vīr Singh's earliest literary creations. The story was conceived when he was still at high school, and a part of it was written then as well. As a young boy, Bhāī Vīr Singh had fed on stories of Sikh heroism and sacrifice from the eighteenth century. The encounter with Moghul governors like Mīr Mannū (1748–53) and Afghan emperors like Ahmad Shāh Durrānī invigorated the Sikh spirit, leading to the creation of a sovereign Sikh kingdom. With the kingdom now under British rule, there was again a testing of faith. It was with a view to resurrecting Sikh moral values that Bhāī Vīr Singh chose to recreate that stirring period. He chose a woman to be his principal character, personifying the Sikh virtues of faith and courage.