INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

transformation of those in the social reality, outside the text, who devotionally submit
to the Guru’s teaching.
MAKING PAST PRESENT THROUGH “THINGS”
The local Sikh history relates that when Guru Tegh Bahadur left Varanasi to continue
his travels eastwards his disciple Kalyan Das and other devotees in Varanasi tearfully
queried the Guru how they would be able to live without his auspicious sight. In
response Guru Tegh Bahadur handed over his shirt (kurta) in Dhaka muslin, “after
touching it to his body”, and his wooden sandals. The Guru told his disciples that by
seeing this shirt in love and devotion they would always get the sight of him. 220 By
offering some of his clothes the Guru bridged the temporal and spatial separation
between himself and the congregation, caused by his departure, and established his
eternal presence at the location. In Nichibagh Gurdwara today the shirt and sandals
have been displaced to showcases as markers of an event that occurred more than
three hundred years ago. The objects have been given the status of relics because they
were parts of the corporeal properties of Guru Tegh Bahadur, which he wore on his
body and intentionally handed over to the congregation. Mundane garments that the
Guru once used in everyday practices have been re-framed and attributed a sacrosanct
status. Metonymically the relics are believed to store and mediate the power of
the Guru and his wish to be remembered in Varanasi, that is, parts of the Guru corporeal
presence continue to emanate power and evoke memories of an event in a common
past which they claim to be a part of.
If narratives attempt to prove historical presences of the Sikhs Gurus and connect
the contemporary community with a pristine past, then marked out geographical
locations and material objects, such as relics and artefacts, forcefully support these
stories. To erect a building labeled “historical” (itihasik) is in itself an effort to link up
with a common past. Clothes, weapons, letters and other items related with the human
Gurus are held to constitute the material body of evidence of written depositions
about the Gurus’ deeds. The stories recounted and the “things” displayed are interdependent:
a story discursively explains the historical event related to a relic or picture,
while the object will affirm and substantiate the story told. Radley (1990) reminds
us that the human activity to remember and create a past is a product of both
human discourses and “the world of things”. When material objects are removed
from one context over time (e.g., functional or mundane usage) to be displaced and
systematically arranged within another (e.g., church or museum) they “become
marked out as indices of the past, as objects to ‘remember by’.” 221 Artefacts often
survive in ways not premeditated by the owner or holder. A sword, for instance, may
have outlived its functional aspects and instead becomes a condensed symbol that
operates as historical “evidence” on which people build interpretations of history and
220
Varanasi Dian Kuch Itihasik Yadan, p. 11.
221
Radley 1990: 52.
97
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008