Miss H. Dendy was published in London. Chapter v. of the second volume is especially interesting to English thinkers as containing a profound examination of the Induction theories of Bacon, J. S. Mill and Hume. Among his other works are Spinozas neu entdeckter Traktat von Gott, dem Menschen und dessen Glückseligkeit (1866); Kleine Schriften (1881); Vorfragen der Ethik (1886). The Kleine Schriften contains valuable criticisms on Paracelsus and Bruno.
SIGYNNAE (Σιγίνναι, Σίγιννοι), an obscure people of antiquity. They are variously located by ancient authors. According to Herodotus (v. 9), they dwelt beyond the Danube, and their frontiers extended almost as far as the Eneti on the Adriatic. Their horses (or rather, ponies) were small, with shaggy long hair, not strong enough to carry men, but very speedy when driven in harness. The people themselves wore a Medic costume, and, according to their own account, were a colony of the Medes. Strabo (xi. p. 520), who places them near the Caspian, also speaks of their ponies, and attributes to them Persian customs. In Apollonius Rhodius (iv. 320) they inhabit the shores of the Euxine, not far from the mouth of the Danube.
The statement as to their Medic origin, regarded as incomprehensible by Herodotus, is doubtfully explained by Rawlinson as indicating that “the Sigynnae retained a better recollection than other European tribes of their migrations westward and Aryan origin”; R. W. Macan (on Herod, v. 9) suggests that it may be due to a confusion with the Thracian Maedi (Μαιδοί). If the last paragraph in Herodotus be genuine, the Ligyes who lived above Massilia called traders Sigynnae, while among the Cyprians the word meant “spears.” The similarity between Sigynnae and Zigeuner is obvious, and it has been supposed that they were the forefathers of the modern gipsies. According to J. L. Myres, the Sigynnae of Herodotus were “a people widely spread in the Danubic basin in the 5th century B.C.,” probably identical with the Sequani, and connected with the iron-working culture of Hallstatt, which produced a narrow-bladed throwing spear, the sigynna spear (see notice of “Anthropological Essays” in Classical Review, November 1908).
SIKH, a member of the Sikh religion in India (see Sikhism). The word Sikh literally means “learner,” “disciple,” and was the name given by the first guru Nanak to his followers. The Sikhs are divided into two classes, Sahijdhari and Kesadhari. The former were so named from living at ease and the latter from wearing long hair. Both obey the general injunctions of the Sikh gurus, but the Sahijdhari Sikhs have not accepted the pahul or baptism of Guru Govind Singh, and do not wear the distinguishing habiliments of the Kesadhari, who are the baptized Sikhs, also called Singhs or lions. Their distinguishing habiliments are long hair wound round a small dagger and bearing a comb inserted in it, a steel bracelet and short drawers. Neither the Sahijdhari nor the Kesadhari Sikhs may smoke tobacco or drink wine. The prohibition of wine is, however, generally disregarded except by very orthodox Sikhs.
In the census of 1901, the number of Sikhs in the Punjab and North-Western Provinces was returned as 2,130,987, showing an increase of 13·9% in the decade; but these figures are not altogether reliable owing to the difficulty of distinguishing the Sahijdhari from the Kesadhari Sikhs and both from the Hindus. A man is not born a Singh, but becomes so by baptism, the water of which is called amrit or nectar. It is possible that one brother may be a Hindu, while another is a true Sikh.
The Sikhs are principally drawn from the Arora, Jat and Ramgarhia tribes, but any one may become a Sikh by accepting the Sikh baptism. The Aroras are generally merchants or petty dealers. The Jats are agriculturists variously described as Scythian immigrants and as descendants of Rajputs who immigrated to the Punjab from central India. They are of a tougher fibre than the Aroras; sturdy and self-reliant, slow to speak but quick to strike. The Ramgarhias are principally mechanics.
To the temperament of the Jat, the Arora and the Ramgarhia Sikh add the stimulus of a militant religion. The Sikh is a fighting man, and his best qualities are shown in the army, which is his natural profession. Hardy, brave and slow-witted, obedient to discipline, attached to his officers, he makes the finest soldier of the East. In victory he retains his steadiness, and in defeat he will die at his post rather than yield. In peace time he shows a decided fondness for money, and will go wherever it is to be earned. There are some 30,000 Sikhs in the Indian army, and the sect is cherished by the military authorities, who insist on all recruits taking the pahul or Sikh baptism. Many Sikhs are also to be found in the native regiments of east and central Africa and of Hyderabad in the Deccan, and they compose a great part of the police force in the treaty ports of China. (M.M.)
SIKHISM, a religion of India, whose followers (Sikhs) are principally found in the Punjab, United Provinces, Sind, Jammu and Kashmir. Sikhism was founded by Nanak, a Khatri by caste, who was born at Talwandi near Lahore in A.D. 1469, and after travelling and preaching throughout a great part of southern Asia died at Kartarpur in Jullundur in 1539. He was succeeded by nine gurus, great teachers or head priests, whose dates are as follows:—
| A.D. | ||
| 1. | Nanak | 1469–1539 |
| 2. | Angad | 1539–1552 |
| 3. | Amar Das | 1552–1574 |
| 4. | Ram Das | 1574–1581 |
| 5. | Arjan | 1581–1606 |
| 6. | Har Govind | 1606–1645 |
| 7. | Har Rai | 1645–1661 |
| 8. | Har Krishan | 1661–1664 |
| 9. | Teg Bahadur | 1664–1675 |
| 10. | Govind Singh | 1675–1708 |
Nanak, like Buddha, revolted against a religion overladen with ceremonial and social restrictions, and both rebelled against the tyranny of the priesthood. The tendency of each religion was to quietism, but their separate doctrines were largely influenced by the surroundings of their founders. Buddha lived in the centre of Hindu India and among the many gods of the Brahmans. These he rejected, he knew of nought else, and in his theological system there was found no place for divinity. Nanak was born in the province which then formed the borderland between Hinduism and Islam. He taught that there was one God; but that God was neither Allah nor Ram, but simply God; neither the special god of the Mahommedan, nor of the Hindu, but the God of the universe, of all mankind and of all religions. Starting from the unity of God, Nanak and his successors rejected the idols and incarnations of the Hindus, and on the ground of the equality of all men rejected also the system of caste. The doctrines of Sikhism as set forth in the Granth (q.v.) are that it prohibits idolatry, hypocrisy, class exclusiveness, the concremation of widows, the immurement of women, the use of wine and other intoxicants, tobacco-smoking, infanticide, slander and pilgrimages to the sacred rivers and tanks of the Hindus; and it inculcates loyalty, gratitude for all favours received, philanthropy, justice, impartiality, truth, honesty and all the moral and domestic virtues upheld by Christianity. Sikhism mainly differs from Christianity in that it inculcates the transmigration of the soul, and adopts a belief in predestination, which is universal in the East.
The Sikh religion did not reach this full development at once, nor was the first of the gurus even the first to feel dissatisfaction with the existing order of things. Ideas of revolt and reform of decadent systems are always in the air, it may be for centuries, until some one man bolder than the rest stands out to give them free expression;Precursors of the Gurus. and as John the Baptist preceded Jesus Christ, so Nanak was preceded by several reformers, whose writings are incorporated in the Granth itself. The chief of these reformers are Jaidev, Ramanand and Kabir. Jaidev is better known as the author of the Gitagobind, which was translated by Sir Edwin Arnold, than as a religious reformer; but in the Adi Granth are found two hymns of his in the Prakrit language of the time, in which he represents God as distinct from nature, yet everywhere present. He taught at the. end of the 12th century A.D. that the practice of yog, sacrifices and austerities was as nothing in comparison with the repetition of God's name, and he inculcated the worship of God alone, in thought, word and deed. What was worthy of worship, he said, he had worshipped; what was worthy of trust he had trusted; and he had become blended with God, as water blends with water.
Jaidev was succeeded by numerous Hindu saints, who perceived that the superstitions of the age only led to spiritual blindness. Of these saints Ramanand was one of the most distinguished. He lived at the end of the 14th and beginning of
