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When I was at high school, my religious studies teacher would set us essays pertaining to the religion we were studying. Whenever we were set an essay on Sikhi, the questions were never as subtle or as philosophical as they were for other religions. The questions here would invariably be of such a nature as 'Is Sikhism a Kshatriya form of Hinduism?' or 'Is Sikhism a synthesis of Hinduism and Islam?' or 'Is Sikhism the same as Buddhism?' Why is Sikhi victimized so often by the ignorant as being a plagiarism from or a synthesis of Hinduism and Islam, when one considers that both of these faiths, and several others, are syntheses themselves? - -'Hinduism' is an amalgam of the ancient Vedic faith of the Aryans, and the folk religion of the Indus Valley Civilization and surrounding tribesfolk. The precepts of reincarnation and karma, and the God Shiva (Pasupati) did not exist among the Aryans, and the rituals of havan and the gods Agni, Indar and Vishnu were to be found nowhere in the belief system of the Dravidians, until the two peoples' faiths merged in about 200BC (correction, unsure of actual date). -Islam is quite clearly a blatant plagiarism of the very worst bits of Christianity and Judaism, that has taken on accretions from Middle-Eastern Paganism - 'Allah' was a creator deity of the Arabian Pantheon and the Kabah at Mecca was a shrine to the very same pantheon, where all manner of idols were kept. - Over half of the Christians' sacred text is constituted by the Jewish Pentateuch and Hebrew Bible. Moreover, Jesus' most celebrated teachings on brotherly love, namely, 'Do unto others as you would have them do to you'/ 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone' (really very similar to one another) were hardly unique. The Babylonian Rabbi Hillel said the exact same thing over a century before the birth of Christ, and a variant of it exists in the Analects of Confucius. The only completely new precepts introduced by Jesus, the ironically named Prince of Peace, were Hell and Judgement Day, eternal torture in a fiery pit and a brutal apocalypse. Christianity also appropriated dates from the Pagan calendars of Europe for itself, as well as the Pagan tales of immaculate conception, or virgin birth (Helios, Mithra, Horus, Krishna). Which of these Sikh precepts may be found in another religion's scripture? - - Complete equality of all irrespective of gender, caste, race or religion? - The total abhorrence of all forms of ritual, such as fasting or pilgrimage? - A God within that can only be realised/experienced through the total obliteration of one's sense of ego or I-ness? - The injunction to preserve the god-given form as an act of humility (kes)?