INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

don’t have a guru there will be darkness”, one of the local Sikh granthis in Varanasi
alluded to a popular interpretation of the word guru. 245
In different layers of the Indian society the guru–chela relationship has been
institutionalized and continues to be a lived system of knowledge and learning, most
noticeable in contexts of performing arts and religious education where practical
training and oral transmission of knowledge prevail. In local and regional musical
traditions of India, for instance, a trainee performer will fully submit to a master and
during a period of apprentice-hood, often extending over years, learn the art by theoretical
instructions, practical training and imitations. It is expected from the novice to
adopt a personal lifestyle and discipline according to the tradition of adherence and
perform services (seva) to the teacher. Pursuing knowledge is not conceived as a personal
acquisition, but set in the context of a long-termed, sometimes life-long, hierarchal
relationship between the superior guru and the inferior novice. The credit for
achieving performance skills will consequently not be ascribed to the individual performer,
but the guru and sometimes the whole lineage of gurus of the tradition to
which the performer belongs. To have learnt an art form under the guidance and in
service of a guru provides more legitimization to the individual performer, rather
than being independently self-taught, although the disciple may and sometimes
should improve some aspects of his or her performance skill better than the master to
obtain individuality, personal style, and not just develop into a mere replication of
the guru.
In religious contexts the concept of guru is broadened to encompass soteriological
concerns and generally signifies an enlightened preceptor, who has been
graced with spiritual knowledge and conferred an obligation to guide others. The
religious guru represents a crucial agent standing between ordinary humans and God
to illuminate the path towards salvation and through whose teaching and person the
divine becomes accessible on earth. In the various religious cults on the Indian subcontinent
followers of a spiritual guru may be lay persons or devout disciples, the
latter of which obediently serve the guru for years to assimilate a teaching before the
guru will confer a formal initiation (dikhsa) by giving a mantra, a glance, or a blessing,
believed to produce transmission of spiritual power and even enlightenment.
The Sikh conceptualization of the term guru conjures up several images that go
well beyond its common meaning and application in the Indian culture. Firstly, the
word is used as a designation of the formless God, often prefixed by the Punjabi term
for “truth” (i.e., Sat-Guru), and the divine words which God generates and reveals to
humanity in history. Secondly, the term guru has come to signify ten historical persons,
from Nanak to Gobind Singh, who lived and operated in Northern India as
spiritual preceptors and worldly leaders of the Sikh community during an era of 239
years. Subsequent to the developments at the turn and the beginning of the eight-
245
According to Cole, the term guru can be etymologically traced to Aiteraya Upanishad, in
which the guru is presented as the one who gives light (ru) by eradicating darkness
(gu) and ignorance in humans (Cole 1982a: 2).
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008