INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

procession to Amritsar. To honor the pothis Guru Arjan placed the texts on a palanquin
decorated with precious stones that was bore by devotees, while the Guru himself
marched behind barefoot accompanied by musicians and devotees singing sacred
hymns. Hargobind, the youngest son of Guru Arjan, is said to have showered petals
in front of the manuscripts. At Amritsar the Guru pitched a camp and started the
editing work on the Sikh scripture. Beside him was his faithful disciple and scribe
Bhai Gurdas. While the Guru selected and dictated the material for inclusion in a
scriptural corpus, Bhai Gurdas penned the devotional poetry in Gurmukhi script. Sri
Gurbilas Chhevin Patshahi continues to narrate the celebration of the completion of the
scripture and the ceremonial installation of it at the newly constructed Harimandir
Sahib in 1604. Sikhs came in large numbers to venerate the new sacred book. Guru
Arjan selected his devout disciple Baba Buddha to be the first custodian of the scripture.
In a solemnized procession Baba Buddha carried the text on this head, while
Guru Arjan walked behind waving a whisk over it. The scripture was installed in the
centre of the new temple and Baba Buddha opened the folio to obtain the first Hukam,
the divine command. After Kirtan Sohila had been recited at night, the scripture was
draped in robes and carried to a secluded room (kothari) which Guru Arjan had built.
During the night Guru Arjan was sleeping on the ground beside the text. 270
The importance of this textual reference for contemporary Sikhs lies in the
stipulation of conducts towards the scriptures by Guru Arjan himself. In words and
deeds the Guru set the norms for a future ritual ministration of the scripture that
would cast the text like a worldly sovereign and confirm its spiritual authority. The
daily liturgies that Sikhs perform in Harimandir Sahib at Amritsar and gurdwaras at
other locations embody the memory of this historical event as they imitate or reproduce
archetypical actions that were sanctioned by the Guru Arjan. The reference
provides a paradigmatic textual model for the treatment of Guru Granth Sahib.
The second significant event in Sikh history, according to local people, was the
elevation of the Sikh scripture to the office of the Guru. A traditional account relates
how the tenth Guru Gobind Singh in the beginning of the eighteenth century compiled
the Adi Granth, literally “the original book”, by adding hymns composed by his
father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, into the scriptural corpus of the Kartarpur pothi. 271 Gobind
Singh declared that the newly compiled text was to be forever closed with no more
hymns incorporated. The copies of the scripture went by the name Damdama bir as
they were prepared by scribes under the Guru’s supervision at Damdama Sahib
(Bhatinda) in the Punjab. It is popularly believed that the Sikh scripture has remained
unchanged ever since the final version was completed.
At his deathbed in 1708 Guru Gobind Singh declared the scripture to be the
eternal Guru of the Sikhs, which hereafter was to be called the Guru Granth, added
270
Fauja Singh 1990: 45 ‒ 50.
271
Mann provides a deviant interpretation of this traditional account and locates the compilation
and canonization of the Adi Granth to the 1680s. He bases this argument on the existence of
manuscripts from this decade which incorporate the compositions of Guru Tegh Bahadur (Mann
2001: 83 ‒ 84).
129
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008