Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Singh Sabha Movement" in English language version.
Of these five symbols, primacy unquestionably belongs to kes. It is the Sikhs' kes which rescued them from a critical situation. Unwarily, they had succumbed to a process of backsliding. The decline had in fact set in during the days of Sikh power. The stern religious discipline which had sustained the Sikhs through a period of difficulty and privation gave way to a life of luxury and plenty. They lost what, following Ibn Khaldun, may be described as their "desert qualifies." A second — and even more sinister — debilitating factor was the Brahmanical ritual and practice which had gained ascendancy as an adjunct of regal pomp and ceremony. These now took a firmer hold over the Sikh mind. In this way, Sikh faith became garbled beyond recognition. The teachings of the Gurus which had supplied Sikhism its potent principle of re-creation and consolidation were obscured by the rising tide of conservatism. It was fast losing its characteristic vigour and its votaries were relapsing into beliefs and customs which the founding Gurus had clearly rejected. Absorption into ceremonial Hinduism indicated the course inevitably set for the Sikhs. This was the critical challenge they faced in the years following the British occupation of the Punjab.
The author of the Dabistan indicates in several ways that the Sikhs had a religious identity of their own. At places, he is quite explicit. The Sikhs did not believe in idols or idol-worship. Like Muslims, Guru Nanak believed in the Oneness of God, but he subscribed to the idea of transmigration as well. He did not believe in incarnation, and regarded the gods and goddesses of the Hindus as creatures of God; they did not worship the idols of Hindu gods. The Sikhs did not recite Hindu mantras, and they did not care for Sanskrit, regarded by the Hindus as the language of angels. On the whole, thus, the Sikhs are presented as distinct from Hindus and Muslims. Bhai Gurdas also talks of the Sikh Panth (called gurmukh, sachcha , nirol or nirmal panth) as distinct from both Hindus and Muslims. The salient features of the Sikh Panth are: renunciation of renunciation, equality of castes, a new scripture, and transcendence of former panths.
For Bhai Santokh Singh, the immediate aim of creating the Khalsa was to assume sovereign political power. "On seeing the third unique religion in the world the enemy apprehended disaster (and realized that it will) snatch the political power." ....(teesra mazhab jag dekh ke ajab mahan, bairee ke gajab pario chheenai thakurai hai)
[But God reassured him, saying] "Go, Nanak. Your panth will flourish. The salutation [of your followers] shall be: pairī̃ pavaṇā satigurū hoiā. The salutation of the Vaisnava panth is: rām kriṣan. The salutation of the Sanyasi panth is: namo narāiṇ. The yogis' salutation is: ādes ādi purakh kau. The Muslims' cry is: salām-'alaik. You are Nanak and your panth will flourish. [Your followers] shall be [called) Nanak-panthis and their salutation shall be: pairī̃ pauṇā satigurū hoigā.
"I shall bless your panth. Inculcate devotion towards me and strengthen [men's obedience to their] dharma. [As] the Vaisnavas [have] their temple (rāmsāl), the yogis, their seat (āsaṇ), and the Muslims their mosque, so your [followers shall have their] dharamsala. Three things you must inculcate in your panth: [repeating] the divine Name, [giving] charity, and [regular] bathing. Keep [yourself] unspotted while [yet remaining] a householder."
About the Sikh religion, the Qazi says: "The Sikhs are disciples of the pious man who lived in Chakk [Chakk Guru, Amritsar]. After him came his successor, Gobind Singh, from whom they derived the title Singh. The dogs are not from the Hindus; the path of these evil ones is different."
They were not to worship gods, goddesses, idols, graves, tombs, etc.
The first signs of Hindu-Sikh rift surfaced with the Satyarth Prakash of Arya Samajist, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, in which he wrote against Guru Nanak in a derogatory manner.
The actual term 'hindu' first occurs as a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: sindhu). In Arabic texts, Al-Hind is a term for the people of modern-day India and 'hindu', or 'Hindoo', was used towards the end of the eighteenth century by the British to refer to the people of 'Hindustan', the people of northwest India. Eventually 'Hindu' became virtually equivalent to an 'Indian' who was not a Muslim, Sikh, Jain or Christian, thereby encompassing a range of religious beliefs and practices. The '-ism' was added to Hindu in around 1830 to denote the culture and religion of the high-caste Brahmans in contrast to other religions, and the term was soon appropriated by Indians themselves in the context of building a national identity opposed to colonialism, though the term 'Hindu' was used in Sanskrit and Bengali hagiographic texts in contrast to 'Yavana' or Muslim as early as the sixteenth century.
{{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help){{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)They included new Hindu identities–the "reform" movement or Arya Samaj, and an "orthodox" reaction, often called Sanatana Dharma.... Before European colonization of South Asia, "sanatana dharma" did not mean "eternal religion" and was not used as a way to delineate a distinct "Hinduism" from other presumed religions. In pre-colonial South Asia, sanatana dharma most often meant something like "venerable order" or "established norm" (or "orders" or "norms." It also appeared in the plural.). It was only adapted in the late nineteenth century as a way to set off an Indian tradition against Christianity, used as a translation for the term "Hinduism."
Arya Samaj members, until the beginning of the twentieth century, preferred to stress their specificity and distinction from Hinduism, which they saw as a degraded form of the Vedic religion. In 1891 the movement's leadership in the Punjab called on its members to declare themselves 'Aryas' and not Hindus, during the census.
p. 133: Though McLeod does not mention it, the phrase tisar panth (third panth) made its appearance in the eighteenth century Sikh literature to underline the distinction of the Khalsa Panth from both Hindus and Muslims. p. 135: Nor can there be objective uniformity or 'homogeneity' among all the members of a community identified as different from others. Neither fluidity nor diversity necessarily invalidates distinctive identity. The objective realities of the Sikh Panth and the self-image of the Sikhs from the days of Guru Nanak to the present day have not remained the same, but the consciousness of distinction from the others around has remained constant. Until we come to the late nineteenth century, there was no debate about Hindu-Sikh identity. Due to the emergence of a new 'Hindu' consciousness in the late nineteenth century, an inclusive definition of 'Hindu' led to the assertion that the Sikhs were 'Hindu'. Implicit in this assertion was a political dimension. Bhai Kahn Singh could see this dimension and his own exposition of Sikh identity was meant to show the political implication of its distinctiveness. The Sikh 'Panth' was a political community, a 'qaum' like Hindus, and like Muslims. Bhai Kahn Singh did not have to invent the tisar panth. The term itself as pointed out earlier, had been in existence at least since the eighteenth century.