INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

eenth century, the term is more strongly associated with the Sikh scripture ‒ Guru
Granth Sahib ‒ and the Sikh community – the Guru Panth ‒ the first of which now
inhabits spiritual authority as the personal guru of the Sikhs and the second which
signifies the temporal power of the Sikh collective as represented by religious institutions.
For believers, the categories evoked by the single word guru are often perceived
as interrelated and concern matters of generation and progression: human
Gurus were born to the world in a concrete moment of history to make presence of
divine words and messages which continue to live through the scripture. The theological
and anthropological possibilities which the concept of guru engenders among
local Sikhs is the major theme of this and the following sections of this chapter, however,
with sharp focus on the scripture – the Guru Granth Sahib. Because what remains
unique for Sikhism, as the religion is lived and practiced today, is the supreme
authority that Sikhs are attributing to the Guru Granth Sahib and the central role the
scripture plays in their devotional and ritual life. Unlike other traditions in India,
which presuppose that an enlightenment guru is or was a human being, believing
Sikhs would assert that their scripture possesses the same agency as a personal Guru.
The authoritative tradition of the broader Sikh community lays claim on an interpretation
of the scripture as enshrining the enduring agency of a Guru. Whether
practicing Sikhs will comply with this understanding or not depends upon what
individuals and the local communities hold to be right or wrong. Perceptions and
attitudes towards the Guru Granth Sahib that local Sikhs in Varanasi express in action
and verbalize in conversations can often be placed along a continuum of stances. On a
secularized side are those Sikhs who will claim that the scripture is merely a “holy
book”, comparable to the sacred scriptures of other world religions, which contain a
teaching to study and translate into social action in the everday life. A more exclusive
view on the opposite side would assert that Guru Granth Sahib is indeed a manifestation
of God and speak of the text in terms of a deity. At the centre of the spectrum,
however, is the most common view which acknowledges that the Guru Granth Sahib
is both a Guru of the Sikhs and a holy text that enshrines words of divine origin.
In the course of one conversation, a 24-year-old Sikh woman in Varanasi said
that if I was to understand the Sikh way of perceiving the text I should imagine the
Guru Granth Sahib as a precious artifact with three separate but interrelated sides:
the scripture is an abode of divine words revealed in sound and recorded by the
human Gurus; it is the present living Guru; and a holy scripture storing a teaching to
comprehend and implement in social life. Although the formless God is the final
target of devotion, the object of worship should be the Guru Granth Sahib because its
interior – the words and teaching ‒ is the Guru who mediates relationships between
humans and God and shows the way to attain liberation, the woman reasoned. The
three-folded notion of the Guru Granth Sahib is reflected in the ways by which local
Sikhs address their scripture in colloquial speech. Except for the ordinary title “Guru
book” (Guru Granth), added with a suffix of reverence (Sahib ji), they frequently refer
to their scripture as the “Guru-king” (Guru Maharaj ji), “emperor” (Patshahi), “God”
(Bhagwan ji), or simply use a common title of respect for holy men (Baba ji) when
114
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008