Talk:Damodar Gulati

Damordas Gulati's religious identity

Hi ThethPunjabi, regarding your most recent edits pertaining to the subject's religious identity, modern scholarship seems to describe him as a Hindu. Please see , and even the source you added which substantiates Damodar's Sikh and Sufi influences mention him as a Hindu- With all due respect, a Dawn article with an unknown author would not be sufficient to offset the claims by modern scholarship written through either established scholars or peer reviewed texts, as per WP:DUE. I believe that the article should mention him as a Hindu who was influenced by Sikh and Sufi schools of thought- unless you can provide more reliable sources that ascertain his religious identity as a Sikh. Thank you.

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Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 00:41, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Also note, the fact that the Dawn article has an unknown author would most likely classify the source as unreliable.

Also as a side comment, even if Bhai Gurdas mentioned Gulati as a convert to Sikhism (which hasn't been conclusively established owing to the article's negligible reliability), that wouldn't necessarily invalidate Damodar's religious identity as a Hindu, as significant demarcation between the Hindus and Sikhs as different religious entities had only been achieved during the twentieth century, and the Khatri community in particular, maintained close ties to Hinduism whilst identifying as Sikhs throughout history. (I'm aware that this is OR btw but I figured it should be mentioned). Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 00:50, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@Suthasianhistorian8 Hey, thanks for your comment. The article was written by Mushtaq Soofi, a columnist. I think you made a good case. I support rewriting that section to describe him as a Punjabi Hindu with Sikh and Sufi influence. ThethPunjabi (talk) 01:31, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much. On a side respect, I have an enormous respect for your contributions to Wikipedia and your wide breadth of knowledge on Asian topics. Thanks. Also if you do find more sources in the future that describe Gulati's religious identity as a Sikh, we can amend the page to something that resembles its current state- i.e. his religious identity being contested. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 01:37, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Also you claim the article was written by Mushtaq Soofi- having an author behind the article alleviates some of the concerns I had with the Dawn article. I will ask around regarding the reliability of the Dawn article and its author before doing anything to it on the Wiki article. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 01:58, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@Suthasianhistorian8 Looks like the article may be referring to a mention of a 'Damodar' in Bhai Gurdas Vaaran - Pannaa 11, you can view the mention here. It mentions this being a list of prominent Sikhs from Sultanpur. This is a primary source, however. Only the Dawn article claims this Damodar mentioned is Damodar Gulati, I haven't come across another source that connects the two yet. ThethPunjabi (talk) 02:13, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

It appears Mushtaq Soofi is a professor of Punjabi at the Institute of Art and Culture [1]. I'm trying to find out if there's a Pakistani equivalent of NAAC which grades universities on their academic rigorousness and excellence. But at the very least it's a recognized university by the Government of Pakistan [2]. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 02:55, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I have posted about Soofi on the RSN, feel free to add any comments if you'd like. [3] Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 03:25, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@Suthasianhistorian8 Hello, I have reinstated the text sourced to Mushtaq Soofi based upon this discussion at the RSN: [4] – sources cannot be discounted based solely on the educational attainment of their author alone. This part is specifically relevant: "This can also extend to historical books published outside of traditional academia. While a lot of history is going to be written by people who are within academia, some specialized areas (say history of an industry or technology) might be written by people without degrees in that area (perhaps a journalism degree or something else). In those cases we would have to look at both what is being claimed (is it an extraordinary claim that requires greater evidence or is it an uncontroversial claim) and the reputation of the source."

So we have to focus on the claim made on this individual's religious identity itself. Is it an extraordinary claim? I do not believe so considered he makes reference to the Varan of Bhai Gurdas, which does indeed mention a Damodar of Sultanpur. DAWN itself is probably one of the most reputable newspapers of Pakistan. Furthermore, the Sahitya Akademi source notes Sikh influence on the writings of Damodar:

"Parallel to Sufi lyricism, a kind of verse romance has flourished in Punjabi literature, the first ancestor of which known so far is Damodar Gulati, a Hindu contemporary of Shah Hussain. He is influenced by the Sikh religious sentiment as well as by Sufi thought and with the help of these he has transformed a love story of his native Jhang, the love of Hir and Ranjah, into a classic version of man-woman love in rebellion against the strait-jacket of the institution of marriage by parental choice. He writes in his native dialect of Jhang, which, however, failed to become the standard form of literary language." (Encyclopedia of Indian Literature, Vol. 3, pg. 2418)

Keeping all this in-mind, I do not agree it is an outrageous claim to suggest he may have been Sikh, considering the influence Sikhism had on his work and his mention in the Varan of Bhai Gurdas, listed as a Sikh. However, since the majority of RS describe him as a Hindu, I think it is fair to keep the intro lede as it is, which describes him as a Hindu Punjabi. The debate over his religious identity can be presented in its current section. ThethPunjabi (talk) 03:23, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@Suthasianhistorian8 After reading an entry in Harbans Singh's 'The Encyclopedia of Sikhism', I have removed the claim of his Sikh identity since the entry for Bhai Damodar of Sultanpur Lodhi makes no reference to this person being Damodar Gulati. Therefore the Damodar mentioned in the Varan of Bhai Gurdas has not been proven to be connected to Damodar Gulati and only Mushtaq Soofi has made the claim. Thus, it is a fringe view and it would be WP:UNDUE for it to be included in this article unless other sources make the connection between these two names. ThethPunjabi (talk) 05:01, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@Suthasianhistorian8 Thanks for the kind words. I have noticed your contributions as well, I thought you did a good job with the Kaur article. A lot of people do not know that Devi may have been the original surname for Sikh girls and women. I appreciate your ability to be objective and focusing on relaying what reliable sources say about topics. Looking forward to working with you in the future. ThethPunjabi (talk) 02:00, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• Following my comment at WP:RSN, ThethPunjabi asked me to expand on why I thought the Dawn article was being misinterpreted in this edit. Doing so here since it's not too relevant to the discussion of the source's reliability. So the relevant quote from the Dawn article is:

Bhai Guru Das (1551-1629), a celebrated Sikh religious writer, in one of his Vars (Epic) mentioned the names of some prominent early Sikh converts. One of them is Damodar the wise, resident of Sultanpur. Sultanpur village is still there, on the road from Jhang to Shah Jewna where a number of Hindus of Gulati caste lived before the partition of India.

In the above quote, the columnist Mushtaq Soofi (the author's name is not mentioned in this column for some reason; but is included in Part II) is saying that a "Damodar the wise, resident of Sultanpur" is mentioned as a prominent Sikh convert by Bhai Guru Das. Soofi also observes that the (modern per-partition) area of Sultanpur was the abode of many of the Gulati caste. He thus implicitly suggests that the "Damodar the wise" could be the poet "Damodar Gulati" of the Heer-Ranjha fame, and thus the poet may have converted to Sikhism..

This is a plausible argument (ymmv) but shouldn't be interpreted as Soofi saying that Das "mentions him [Damodar Gulati] as one of the prominent converts to Sikhism". That is an inference and not a statement by Das/Soofi.

If WP:DUE were not a concern, a correct way (IMO) to summarize the Dawn article's discussion of Gulati's religious identity would be as, Writing in Dawn, columnist Mushtaq Soofi said that Gulati's religious identity as a Hindu or Sikh was uncertain and that a mention to a prominent Sikh convert, Damodar the wise from Sultanpur, in Bhai Gurdas's contemporaneous writings may have been a reference to Gulati. But as I said at RSN, if we are to give weight to claims that Gulati was a Sikh, we need to find sources at par with the ones that state he was an Hindu, ie, peer reviewed articles or books by established scholars published by academic presses. And fwiw, the religious identity itself is possibly only of tertiary importance, behind Gulati's identity as a poet and a Punjabi poet.

PS: The reference to "Arora" in the lede is unreferenced (afaict) and the reference to Gulati's exact birth/death years (1605 – 1656) is a WP:REDFLAG claim since (per what little I have read in the last hour), all that is known is Gulati was roughly a contemporary of Akbar (1542-1605). Abecedare (talk) 05:30, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

• And for completeness sake, since I had mentioned the improper formatting of the OUP citation. Here is how the Farina Mir article in the OUP volume should be cited:

Mir, Farina (2012). "Genre and Devotion in Punjabi Popular Narratives: Rethinking Cultural and Religious Syncretism". In Malhotra, Anshu; Mir, Farina (eds.). Punjab Reconsidered: History, Culture, and Practice. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-908877-5.

ie in an edited volume of collected articles (or a journal), the particular chapter/article and its author(s) should always be cited. Not doing so is misattributing/miscrediting the writing and its claims to the editors!

One can do more fancy stuff like adding chapter-level URLs/DOIs etc (as you can see if you click on the "cite" link at this page) but the above is the minimal requirement apart from the url, which is just a convenience and not mandatory. Abecedare (talk) 05:59, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Abecedare ThethPunjabi I was sleeping while this discussion was going on, but I'm glad it was resolved amicably. Thanks Abecedcare for pointing out that chapters must be cited in a book with multiple authors, I will make sure to do this from now on. However, if Google Books omits the page which shows the chapter's name. would there be any recourse in finding it? I wull also go ahead and remove "Arora" from the lede. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 09:41, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

That is an unfortunate risk of relying on pages (and especially snippets) shown by Google Books. Usually, in addition to the pages being directly cited, one should aim to look at, at least, the adjoining pages; the book's Table of Content, Preface and Introduction; and for an edited volume, the abstract/intro of the particular chapter/article. These provide critical context for what kind of work is being cited. Besides Google, one can search the publisher's website, Amazon, archive.org for such info, or post a request at WP:REREQ, WP:INB or related article/user talkpages. Hope that helps. Abecedare (talk) 14:33, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Also, Gulati being influenced by Sikh and Sufi religious thought has been mentioned twice in the current version of the article, once under "Religious Identity" and again under "Style". Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 09:46, 1 July 2023 (UTC)