INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

speaking of interaction contexts that presuppose the physical presence of the text.
While presenting exegetical expositions or supporting moral values with references to
verses in the scripture, it is more common to use the terms “Guru’s speech” (gurbani)
or the “Guru’s teaching” (gurmat). The choice of designation depends upon the religious
and cultural stance of the individual speaker and the situational context of
conversation. People have differing and changeable convictions and language expressions
depending upon their socio-cultural background, including the variables of
gender, age, caste/clan, and ethnic belonging, and the specific situation and person
they are communicating with. A male Sikh convert originating from the lower strata
of the Hindu society is likely to articulate a slightly different interpretation than a
khatri woman born in a Sikh middle-class family of Punjab, even if both relate to
norms imparted by the gurdwara and public discourses. Verbal records of people
cannot be seen as blueprints of some inner ideas since human reasoning is continually
exposed to variations and alterations due to social and cognitive factors. They are
merely representations that people make within the boundaries of situational conversations.
Aware of these limitations, the ideas put into words and frozen in interviews
may yet point towards a few generally shared perceptions that comprise three categorically
separate but ontologically related aspects of the Guru Granth Sahib, conceived
as a Guru worthy of majestic and personifying epithets and a book containing
divine essence and instructions mediated by its human predecessors.
In order to move somewhat closer to an understanding of the various meanings
Sikhs attach to the Guru Granth Sahib one has to take into consideration the web
of relationships which constitute the context of the scripture’s role and situation at the
present, and the devotional stances that contemporary Sikhs express within the
framework of their relationships to the text. Firstly, one should observe the ontotheological
relationships that Sikhs believe existed between ten Gurus and the divine,
and which legitimize notions of words emanating from an original divine source to
be transmitted in the speech and writings of the human Gurus. For many Sikhs the
words comprised in the Guru Granth Sahib are considered to be the voice of the true
Guru, or God, made accessible in the sacred text and whenever its hymns are activated
in acts of devotion. Secondly, one should take into account the historical relationships
between the human Gurus and the Guru Granth Sahib in order to understand
the means by which Sikhs have come to view and treat their scripture as a personal
Guru. The Guru Granth Sahib was created and canonized by the human Gurus and
eventually ascended to the office of the Guru in a human succession line. As a consequence
of this historical shift of authority, the scripture is said to encapsulate the
teaching and “spirit” of the ten Gurus and inherited habits that presumably existed in
the culture of its human predecessors. Looking at contemporary practices within the
local community of Varanasi, I will also suggest that Sikhs act and refer to the Guru
Granth Sahib in terms of having social relationships to their text that have been shaped
by human relations and which are continually maintained by devotional acts. Within
the framework of these relationships Sikhs invest the Guru Granth Sahib social
agency of a living Guru who has authority and capacity to establish links with the
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008