Human Hair and the Sikhs: Preserving the Homo Sapeien Heritage

Copyright © 2015 by Shabeg Singh Dhunda.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4828-4938-7

                eBook          978-1-4828-4937-0

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgement

Chapter One The Issue of Human Hair

Dr. Shabeg Singh

At The Outset

The Secret Of Human Hair

Future Man

Virility

Chapter Two Hail Hair

Dr. Birendra Kaur

The Song Of The Sikh

Hair: A Biological Necessity

Do We Need Facial Hair?

A Hairy Tale

Where The Environment Begins

Chapter Three Hair Power

Sarup Singh Alag

The Human Hair Are The Most Distinctive

Scientific Research On The Maintenance Of Hair

How Hair Are Formed

Relationship Of Hair With Teeth And Age

Care Of Hair By The Ancients

Hair And The Diseases Of Bones

An Electric Aspect Of Hair

Ignorance Of The Truth About Hair

Arguments Of Psychologists

The Hair As Cables Of Information

The Hair And Information On Health

Chapter Four Anthropological Evidence of the Unconscious Significance of Human Hair

Dr. Shabeg Singh

Chapter Five Sikhism And The Third Millennium Man

Dr. Shabeg Singh

Select Bibliography

FOREWORD

Dr. Kapil Kapoor

Former Rector, Professor of English &

Concurrent Professor Sanskrit Studies

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)

Editor in Chief

Encyclopaedia of Hinduism

India Heritage Research Foundation USA.

N.Delhi-110092

14-04-2014

I have been quite intrigued with this short book devoted to the role and place of human hair in the human identity. This intrigued me because there is not much writing that has explored this dimension of our physiognomy.

The subject is not only interesting – it is also significant if one puts it in the perspective of human and civilisational evolution. Through a cogently woven strands of at least three discourses. Dr. Shabeg Singh has argued that man as a human being is naturally endowed with hair all over his body and this hair-cover is a genetic need and endowment of anthropoid beings, one that is crucial to the vitality of these beings.

So critical is this particular endowment, the hair that covers most of the anthropoid body, that its diminution emasculates the very being so much so that at the end of it, the species itself degenerates and may in fact die. Shabeg Singh shows how only in the last 2000 years or so, the so called ‘civilized’ man has started artificially ridding his body of this protective layer and this process has been accompanied by a gradual decline in the potency of the male, given the fact that it is the male of the species, with his generative attribute, who is endowed with this trait. The decline in populations in ‘more civilized’ communities attests this correlation between hair and generative vitality.

On can in fact infer that while the natural endowments are preserved intact in human evolution, they are emasculated in the course of what may be termed as ‘the civilisational evolution’.

Calling the hair ‘the Homo Sapien heritage’ Shabeg Singh has put together the thoughts of some established scholars and his own self to caution the human race against its suicidal practices and ensure survival by retaining its god-given properties.

It may appear that a Sikh scholar is in fact defending Sikh practices. But this limited view is not tenable. We must remember that while enjoining the preservation of kesha (hair) as one of the essential identity markers of the Khalsa (The Sikhs or literally The Pure Ones), Guru Govind Singh ji was reconnecting with the Vedic Rishis and sages who all preserved the hair. Even now the sages follow this practice and even ordinary Hindus adopt this in the third fourth ashrams of life, vaanprastha and sannyasa. So what appears, and has been called by us as ‘a civilisational’ practice is in fact a mere fact of worldly life. In the life of abstinence, the mark of highest cultural attainment, both complete absence and complete preservation of hair are both prevalent, one in Jain ascetics and the other in the sages and savants of many sampradayas. Of these two, the shearing of hair whether in ascetics or in sheep, is a practice that is contrary to nature. And what is contrary to nature is not as good for us humans as what is in harmony with nature.

I hope the book will arouse interest and provoke unorthodox thinking.

With warm regards,

Kapil Kapoor

Home/Postal Address:

B-2/332, Ekta Garden, 9-I.P.Extension, Mother Dairy Marg, Delhi-110092

Ph: 011-22723406 (Home); Mobile ()) 9810202146; E-Mail:

kkapoor40@yahoo.com

PREFACE

WHAT MAN HAS MADE OF HIMSELF

Th e greatest tragedy of the preceding millennium has not been of what man has made of man but what man has made of himself. For approximately two million years man has been maintaining his hair just as Nature had created and intended it to be. Unfortunately in the last two thousand years human beings have started sacrificing this precious natural asset at the altar of vanity. The desire to look young and smart is projected and perceived as the ideal thing. If the majority of men were bearded and this image projected as the best, nobody would shave. Look closely at a clean-shaved man’s face and you’ll see how closely he has ravaged it.

However severe the rigors of modern day living may be, it does not justify this dismembering. Man’s immunity is declining. His physical prowess is deteriorating and male infertility is on the rise. According to Dr. Rima Dada of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, not only has the quantity of sperm production declined in males around the world, there has been a decrease in quality as well. All this is because we are discarding our hair, an invaluable and virile biological asset given to us by Nature. The irony is that a bearded man is generally seen as uncivilized.

Mankind only woke up to the adverse of effects of smoking in the latter half of the twentieth century. When will he wake up to the debilitating consequences of cutting and shaving his hair. It is argued that if shaving and cutting is harmful, why aren’t the consequences being felt.

The answer is simple. Man is the climax of evolution. It took approximately two million years for man to be what he is today and it is only in the last two thousand years that he has started mutilating his hair. The symptoms are already there in the declining virility and sperm count.

I once read in a leading women’s magazine – Femina, of a competition held in a Scandinavian country to determine the most virile people. All the known masculine races of the world participated. The result surprised everyone. The Sikhs came first. There was even a photograph of the Sikhs celebrating the victory.

The aim of this book is to create awareness of the harm the human race is doing to itself by not maintaining hair in its unshorn and natural form. In this endeavour the Sikhs can serve as role models.

Amritsar

Dr. Shabeg Singh

M. +91-9501003789

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am thankful to a number of Sikh scholars namely Dr. Chanda Singh, Sardar Sarup Singh Alag, Dr. Birendra Kaur, Sardar Kharak Singh and Er.Nirmal Singh whose valuable observations and insights have made this book a collaborative effort and helped me build my thesis.

CHAPTER ONE

THE ISSUE OF HUMAN HAIR

Dr. Shabeg Singh

AT THE OUTSET

If we study the anthropological history of the human race, we will learn that for the greater part of our (Homo sapiens) approximately 400,000 years of existence, we have been keeping our hair unshorn. Though man’s presence on earth is attested to be as long as 2,000,000 years, man (the homo Sapiens), made his appearance only about 400,000 to 450,000 years ago. The creature we call man first appeared in Africa during the early part of the geological epoch called the Pleistocene of the Great Ice Age.

Most mammals possess hair. It is one of the main characteristics that distinguish them from other animals. It is the hair possessed by mammals that has enabled them to develop so far beyond their ancestors, the reptiles and hence the relevance of hair cannot be belittled. Obviously it has very important physiological functions to perform. The first men were very hairy and this unshorn state was maintained till about 500 B.C. when the ancient Egyptians started shaving. This phenomenon started initially as a sacrifice to the deities and other religious ceremonies. Human hair was an acceptable surrogate for a human victim. In Byblos in ancient Phoneicia condemned women had the alternative of sacrificing their virginity to strangers in honour of the goddess Ashtart, or shaving the head and offering their hair. It is only about 2500 years that the human race has started cutting its hair as compared to the 4,00,000 years that we have been keeping them intact.

In ancient Egypt, youths dedicated to the service of the deities had to cut off their hair and this gave rise to the custom of tonsure or shaving a priest’s head. The hairless or tonsured head was said to represent emasculation (which was demanded in many shrines dedicated to the Great Goddess); or was a symbol of the circumcised phallus; or of the solar disc; or of innocence and purity.

The ancient