PHILADELPHIA -- Imagine fighting, even to the death, over tables and chairs.
Sikhs in the Philadelphia area have seen it happen among their own in Florida, Canada and elsewhere. On a recent Sunday at their temple dubbed Gurudwara Sahib, 250 of them dutifully took their places on the exquisite carpets, sitting cross-legged in facing rows to pray and partake of langar, the weekly communal meal."People eating langar on tables and chairs is against our tradition," said Tarlok Aurora, a temple leader. "Everyone who comes to the gurudwara must sit on the ground."
Sikhs across North America, estimated to number a half-million, were warned to heed that centuries-old rule in a decree issued by Bhai Ranjit Singh, an influential priest of the Indian religion -- and also a convicted murderer who was barred in January from visiting followers in the United States.
Langar symbolizes one of Sikhism's core spiritual tenets: All devotees hold equal status, and casteism violates divine will. But the langar custom has eroded in some Sikh communities in the United States and Canada.
In reaction, Singh declared in April from the Sikh holy city of Amritsar that the faithful overseas must sit on the floor, two inches below the raised platform on which the priests sit.
Since then, bloody disputes have erupted in the United States and Canada between traditionalist and reform factions, ostensibly over furniture.
In August, at a temple in Florida, a fundamentalist Sikh killed a moderate, wounded two others, and then took his own life in what police said apparently was an argument over tables and chairs. In November, a Sikh who had been openly critical of the fundamentalists in his temple in Vancouver, British Columbia, and had objected to Singh's edict was gunned down in his garage.
For some Sikhs, the dispute is rooted in a struggle between traditional and reform factions over control of the gurudwaras and their funds.
"It's about greed, it's about money, it's about power," said Rupinder K. Hayer, daughter of the moderate Sikh leader gunned down in Vancouver.