INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

“Nanak says” within individual hymns, whether the composer is Nanak or some of
the other Gurus, sustains this idea.
In addition to the evidence within the text, local Sikhs in Varanasi would support
the theory of ideological consensus on two different interpretations of the spiritual
relationship between Nanak and the following Gurus. The first version would
situate Nanak in a unique position in relation to his successors. Since Nanak claimed
to have had direct access to a transcendent source and did not follow any human
teacher himself, he is perceived to be the personal Guru for nine subsequent leaders.
The communication between God and the nine following Gurus went through the
words and teaching of Nanak, from which they obtained spiritual authority and were
enabled to comprehend and express divine knowledge. “Guru Nanak Dev ji was not
taught by any teacher. He was god-gifted. But the other Gurus learnt from him and
followed a tradition,” an elderly Sikh man expressed this view. That Nanak continued
to occupy a sovereign position does not mean that Sikhs supporting this view
give less importance to the later Gurus. The traditional guru-disciple relationship
presumes the disciple is fostered to engage in disciplinary worship and perform regular
service to the Guru in order to gradually assimilate a teaching to such an extent
that the Guru’s knowledge will be transmitted to him or her. Only when the disciple
has advanced to spiritual maturity and shows readiness can he be inducted to the
gaddi and become a Guru. In line with this fundamental idea, the Sikh Gurus after
Nanak were nominated to the office after having served the incumbent Guru as humble
and obedient disciples. Except for Guru Angad, who pursued knowledge directly
from the person of Nanak, each of them obtained their spiritual authority and power
from the Guru in office who had embodied the teaching of Nanak.
The second and more widely accepted interpretation emphatically stresses the
existence of a continued direct revelation through divinely inspired utterances of all
the Sikh Gurus. Like Nanak the subsequent Gurus were preordained minstrels of
God and graced with power to hear and understand the voice of God. 261 To elucidate
the ideas underlying this position an elderly Sikh man in Varanasi narrated the story
of Guru Har Krishan, who was only six years old when he received the title as Guru
in 1661 from his father Har Rai. The young Guru was forced to work a miracle to
persuade a group of sceptical Brahmins that ”he was having knowledge of God
(brahm gian) and the same light (jot) of Nanak” despite his age. The boy did not inhabit
a teaching by serving the Guru as a disciple, but possessed supernatural knowledge
already from birth. When appointed to the office of Guru he became an embodiment
of the “light” flowing from Nanak.
In colloquial speech it is common to title all the human Gurus by the phrase
dason patshahion ke sarup, “the form of ten kings”, while the individual Guru is referred
to as jagadi jot, meaning the “manifest light”, and sometimes jot rup, or “the
261
Apologetic scholars frequently use textual references in the Guru Granth Sahib to prove the
revelatory nature of the writings of Gurus following Nanak. See for example the hymns of Guru
Amardas (GGS: 515), Guru Ramdas (GGS: 308), and Guru Arjan (GGS: 734, 763).
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008