INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

The three pandits are also attributed different dispositions which they bring
with them to the narrated event and make them speak to humans in general: Gopal
Shastri is certainly ignorant about spiritual truths but his humble character makes
him receptive to Guru Nanak’s teaching and promptly he becomes a disciple. After
having mastered saints and intellectuals in religious debates Chattur Das, on the
other hand, is blind by self-complacency to such an extent that Guru Nanak even
refuses to speak with him. It takes a miraculous deed to persuade him of the spiritual
message. The third scholar, Ganga Ram, personifies the destiny of such arrogant
behavior by being reborn in the guise of a dog. He has realized the futility of conceit.
Altogether the personalities and deeds of the three pandits epitomize states and vices
in all humans outside the story. The agentive Guru evaluates and criticizes the scholars
for having entangled themselves and innocent people in empty worship. They
bark like dogs but only nurture their own ego with arrogance. The particular evaluation
is chosen to tell how the pandits should be understood within the plot line and
simultaneously it conveys a more general moral message about the human destiny
without the guidance of the Guru. At the end, however, the most arrogant scholars
will undergo a metamorphosis through the agency of the Guru’s acts, speech and
presence. Instead of confirming the authority of Brahmin scholars the story creates a
reflexive turn to subvert the religious elite to humble disciples of the Sikh Guru. The
pandits become counter-characters who are complicit with the master narrative of
Varanasi but challenge the paradigm by subjecting themselves to the Guru and the
Guru’s teaching. They are the first Sikhs who constitute a holy congregation in the
city.
On one level the local history narratively deconstructs and counters images and
beliefs of the local Hindu context to open up territory for a new agency of the Guru
with power to transform people and places (See Figure 8). The story creates an alternative
story which still positions the collective group of Sikhs within the framework
of the dominant discourse. As Varanasi was the Hindu centre for Brahmin scholars
and pilgrims, Guru Nanak successfully converted the religious elite to the Sikh teaching
and made his garden a site of pilgrimage. When Hindu pilgrims flocked to Varanasi
for a purifying bath in river Ganga, Guru Tegh Bahadur made the goddess river
– the focal object of worship and pilgrimage ‒ an obedient servant at his feet and her
waters are ever present in Nichibagh Gurdwara on his command. Knowing that Varanasi
was reputed for ancient wisdoms, Guru Gobind Singh made it a stronghold of
Sanskrit studies and religious learning for Sikhs by sending his five Nirmala scholars
for studies.
The intertextuality of the emic history makes it intimately related to the wider
social and cultural context in which the history has been produced. For a minority
Sikh community, situated in a predominantly Hindu culture far away from the land
of the Gurus, the stories provide meanings to sacred places and enables them a history
in their own right. The history has been put down in writing by a leading group
of Sikh migrants from Punjab and Pakistan who settled in Varanasi after the partition
in 1947 and did not have any cultural roots in the city. To collect and record a history
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008