Do Sikhs over celebrate Bandi Chorr Diwas/Diwali?

[Shaheed4life]

14 hours ago, Dsinghdp said:

Malaysia is a Muslim country. How many Sikhs are there?

Malaysia has about 100000 sikhs.Muslims are a majority there but theres still a good amount of sikhs.There was a Mahapurakh in the area he used to go to Malaysia and my country and some nearby countries too.So there are a good amount of Sangat in those particular areas.

[Kaurr]

18 hours ago, jkvlondon said:

basically sparklers

Yeah, I forgot the name.

[IshR]

On 11/17/2020 at 10:07 AM, ChardikalaUK said:

“What I meant in my original post was if Sikhs give too much importance to Diwali/Bandi Chorr Diwas. Is it really a big important event in Sikh history? There are more significant events in my opinion.

It seems that someone just decided to tie in Bandi Chorr Diwas and Diwali together so that we Sikhs didn't feel left out when the Hindus were celebrating.

It's a bit like how the European Christians replaced their pagan winter solstice festival with Christmas. They felt guilty to celebrate their old pre-Christian festival so decided to give it a different meaning that fit their new religion but the dates do not match”. 
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yes I agree 100%
bandi chor is an excuse to celebrate divali 

we have 10 sikh gurus who took birth on this planet. Do we celebrate every  birthday with the same enthusiasm as we celebrate bandi chor? Answer is NO!

 

 

 

[Jai Tegang!]

Diwali and Vaisakhi have been important gathering dates for SIkh Sangat since the times of our 10 Patshahia, and it continued afterwards to this day. You can search through the history of Guru Sahibaan and see that these dates were used to gather far flung sangat who were capable of making the trek. Same way, sangrad (monthly) gatherings were the norm for gathering the geographically closer sangat. 

Diwali and vaiskhi were already important festive times and Guruji used them to gather the sangat. 

In our times the christian holy day of Sunday is used in the west for gathering sangat. 

 IMO, I think having a way of joining in on the festive time of the majority community, on our own terms, isn't such a bad idea. 

 

 

[puzzled]

I think Guru Sahib was "released" from Gwalior Qila on Diwali or he either reached Amritsar on the day of Diwali, there obviously was a reason behind this, Hindus/Indians had already been celebrating Diwali for 1000s of years so to add to their celebrations the emperor released Guru Sahib on this day. If I remember correctly some holy man had actually advised Jehangir to release Guru Ji. I personally don't think Guru Ji's date of release was a coincidence ...   

As long as people who call themselves Sikhs know why they are celebrating Diwali (most don't) then there is nothing wrong with it. 

I remember watching Sikh cannel a few years back and the presenter asked a woman (looked around 20 years old) why she is celebrating Diwali today and lighting candles , and she shrugged her shoulders and looked at her dad who looked just as confused as his grown daughter. So father and daughter had no clue why they were lighting candles and celebrating Diwali. Not that surprising tbh ...

Most my cousins probably don't know why they celebrate Diwali either and even if i told them the ithiaas behind it, it would make absolutely 0 difference, they don't celebrate it for any religious reasons but simply as a Indian party/fun day. 

I narrated the Hindu and Sikh Diwali stories to my Black friend and she said that most cultures have a Princes/Prince story anyway and its nothing new, while our Gurus story is unique and she liked how our Guru made sure his "hommies" came out with him too and didn't leave them behind. 

 

[Jai Tegang!]

The thing is I don't think even Sikhs back in the day celebrated/observed/used Diwali for only the historical event of Miri Piri de Malik freeing hill chiefs, I think it just added onto the existing importance of the day of gathering. I think it's more of a recent push to forgo even the mention of the word diwali (I've seen this happen for vaisakhi with some people pushing for only "khalsa sajana divas").

Also, in all fairness, not everyone knows or cares about the origins of certain big celebrations. People want a reason to gather with those whom they have an affinity and catch up. Only now, with more defined boundaries and expectations, we are forced to provide our unique reasons for certain festivals. 

[ChardikalaUK]

41 minutes ago, Jai Tegang! said:

The thing is I don't think even Sikhs back in the day celebrated/observed/used Diwali for only the historical event of Miri Piri de Malik freeing hill chiefs, I think it just added onto the existing importance of the day of gathering. I think it's more of a recent push to forgo even the mention of the word diwali (I've seen this happen for vaisakhi with some people pushing for only "khalsa sajana divas").

Also, in all fairness, not everyone knows or cares about the origins of certain big celebrations. People want a reason to gather with those whom they have an affinity and catch up. Only now, with more defined boundaries and expectations, we are forced to provide our unique reasons for certain festivals. 

Yes but why not have such gatherings during Guru Nanak's Gurpurab which is a far more significant event.

Buddhists don't celebrate or get together on Diwali.

[Ranjeet01]

2 minutes ago, ChardikalaUK said:

Yes but why not have such gatherings during Guru Nanak's Gurpurab which is a far more significant event.

Buddhists don't celebrate or get together on Diwali.

The original celebration of Diwali is probably related to some seasonal thing. In india it must be the darkest day in the year the same way there is a winter solstice in the west.

It is also related to the lunar cycle/calendar which is why it shifts between October and November. 

There must something very primal that people will intuitively gather and celebrate it.

[MisterrSingh]

55 minutes ago, Ranjeet01 said:

The original celebration of Diwali is probably related to some seasonal thing. In india it must be the darkest day in the year the same way there is a winter solstice in the west.

It is also related to the lunar cycle/calendar which is why it shifts between October and November. 

There must something very primal that people will intuitively gather and celebrate it.

I wonder if the celebrations and rituals were observed prior to the events of the Ramayana? That would probably go some way to explain its actual origins.

[Ranjeet01]

1 minute ago, MisterrSingh said:

I wonder if the celebrations and rituals were observed prior to the events of the Ramayana? That would probably go some way to explain its actual origins.

Just read a little background, there are 12 no moons in the year in the lunar cycle. Diwali falls on the darkest night out of the 12 no moon nights.

Hence the festival of lights, dark against light.

I don't think there is a single festival that isn't related to some astronomical/season occurance.

The events like the Ramayana are likely to be based on some historical event, but have been embellished and then associated with athis particular pagan festival to give it some significance and meaning.

The ancient civilisations were master mathematicians and astronomers in order to calculate these kind of things.