INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

fringement on the “body” of the Guru. 281 Contemporary Sikhs occasionally extend the
framework of the Guru-body metaphor to a ritualized act of reciting from the scripture.
“When doing recitations of Guru Granth Sahib ji, if you make a mistake [in
reciting] there is a chance that the Guru will loose a body part”, an elderly Sikh man
in Varanasi related. In these utterances both the scriptural content and form is imagined
and figuratively described in human terms as a complete body of the Guru.
The tendency to attribute and represent abstract ideas and powers in organic
metaphors is in no way particular for the Sikhs, but seems to be a common tendency
among humans to describe their relationship to objects. People model the world on
the most immediate experiences of the body and “employ that selfsame model as a
source of labels and concepts to interpret the world outside the body”. 282 Moreover,
the careful choreography of action
in the presence of the Guru
Granth Sahib has also come to
assume a form “as if” the text
indeed possesses human qualities
and needs. The emic historical
account on the installation of the
Sikh scripture in 1604 depicts
Guru Arjan as an active agent,
stipulating archetypical acts of
the daily ceremonies performed
for the scripture. To emphasize
the majesty and high prestige of
the compiled manuscript the
Guru embedded the text in
courtly symbolism of human
The granthi is venerating the scripture, installed on a
palanquin, by waving a whisk
culture. The story narrating Gobind Singh’s nomination of the Guru Granth Sahib in
1708 brings the connection with the text and human culture to the front stage. When
Gobind Singh ritually installed the scripture in a manner similar to enthronement
ceremonies for human Gurus and commanded that devotional stances which disciples
had taken up towards the Gurus would likewise apply to the scripture, he did
not merely decree the transfer of agency to gurbani dwelling in the Guru Granth Sahib.
By doing this he also established a tradition of venerating the corpus (sarup) of
text in the same manner as its predecessors. That believing Sikhs take this command
seriously is evident. “We have to give proper respect to the Guru Granth Sahib ji as
we give to the Gurus who had human bodies. If we will make any mistake in this
regard we commit sins,” a Sikh man in his twentieth said.
281
For the eighteenth century writer Kesar Singh Chibbar this analogy was close at hand. For the
reference, consult Mann 2001: 124.
282
Ellen 1988: 223.
134
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008