Five Evils - The Five Inner Thieves

The Five Inner Thieves

There is no philosophical or theological explication of the five evils, collectively or individually, in Sikh Scripture, but man is repeatedly warned against them. They have been called diseases or maladies which afflict human beings with disastrous effects. The evil pentad is however mentioned at numerous places in the Holy Book. In at least five instances the list consists of the following: kam, krodh, lobh, moh and abhiman or ahankar. At one place instead of moh and abhiman we have "mad" and "ninda". Here the word "mad" may be interpreted in the sense of 'intoxication born of egoity'. The word ninda means slander. In two of the seven instances cited here the members of the evil pentad are called 'five thieves' (panch-chor). In a hymn by Kabir the list has trishna (craving), kam, krodh, mad and matsar as the five evils. The word trishna (Skt. trsna) means craving or desire, while the word matsar means jealousy. Often the five evils are referred to as 'the five' (panch) or 'all the five' (sare panch). At places the five organs of sense (jnanendriyas) are also often referred to as 'the five'.

One, two, three or four of the five cardinal evils are repeatedly mentioned almost throughout the body of the Sikh canon. The triad kam, krodh and lobh finds as frequent a mention as the triad kam, krodh and ahankar or moh, lobh and ahankar. Among the five evils the one that is condemned more than the others is ahankar. When only two of the five are mentioned, the pair consists either of kam and krodh, or of moh and "guman", or of lobh and moh; when a group of four out of the five evils is cited, it usually consists of the first four, kam, krodh, lobh and moh. Since the Sikh canon is a composite text containing the religious poetry not only of the Gurus but also of several saints and Sufis from various regions, synonyms, occasionally from different languages, occur. Thus lobh is also called lalach; man is called garab (Sanskrit garva) and guman; moh is also called bharam (Skt. bhrama). A word of most frequent occurrence is haumai. It is perhaps derived from aham, 'I' or egoity, the essential element of ego; hankar, ahankar are its semantic cognates. The word man is employed in a double sense; sometimes it is clearly used in the sense of 'honour' or 'respect'. In most cases, however, it is synonymous with "abhiman".