Help! Best Sikh History Books

[SHOGUN ASSASON]

I think it was a typing error as Cunnigham wrote the first History of the Sikhs, I think Kushwant Singh the later revised it.

I'm sure you can find Cunningham's book online too.

I have heard that this book albeit a few mistakes is well regarded but now ill probably buy it.

You can read it online here.

http://www.archive.o...age/n1/mode/2up

A friend of mine also use to recommend any writings by SIRDAR KAPUR SINGH i think his essays are over in Sikhcolaition

[dalsingh101]

Cunningham's work is important because he was one of the few, if not only, goray that admitted the British were guilty of provoking Sikhs and making aggressive moves against them in the run up to the Anglo-Sikh wars, in which he participated.

The book he published upset his superiors and he was demoted and ridiculed for his revelations.

He is also credited with being the first person to draw connections between Sikh ideology and the events of early Sikh history. Although later works have gone into more depth, his work is an important early attempt at understanding Sikhs. His personal views of the Anglo-Sikh war is also important as he was a witness to and participant in what went on.

[SunSingh]

There was one stand-out issue for me in the Max Arthur Macauliffe volumes which shocked me when I first read them. He mentions Sikh warriors preparing and eating meat in-between battles against the Mughals as a way of keeping their strength up. I was very surprised at reading this the first time, and I honestly didn't know what to think, because nearly everything else Mr. Macauliffe wrote seems to be absolutely spot-on. It is still a bit of a weird issue for me. If anyone can shed any light on this I'd be very grateful.

Just for the record, I'm not looking for confirmation (or not) of being able to eat meat - I've never touched the stuff since birth and don't intend to.

Puratan singhs fighting in jung were unable to farm etc. and followed jung maryada of chatka. However, some singhs like Baba Deep Singh ji and others of that caliber did not ever eat meat. These mahapurkhs had such kamai that they could live off Amrit russ.

--

Yep, it's cunningham, not what I typed.

[VanHelsingh]

Ok, thank-you SunSingh for the confirmation. What you've written makes sense. I suppose the best way to look at this is, who are we to judge those Sikhs that basically fought so that we're alive today? Those were remarkable times (not necessarily always in a good way), so I guess a few instances took place which sit weirdly with us in the modern day, but make sense in the context of those times.

[Bijla Singh]

Which time period specifically do you want to study?