INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

involved with each other. 308 Gifts exchanged are the physical mediums to objectify
transactions between two or more subjects and serve to “thingify” social relationship.
309 Well aware of that the Guru Granth Sahib cannot receive or eat food in any
physical sense, the Sikhs conceive the scripture as a subject person with capacities to
accept and return gifts. The very existence of food offerings presumes that the text is
socially alive.
What prashad is to individual Sikhs depends ultimately upon internal dispositions
of the receivers, although locals will utilize a range of anthropomorphic analogies
when explaining the practice of preparing and distributing sacred food: prashad
is spoken of as leftovers symbolically digested by the Guru and “tasted” (jutha) with
saliva. Foods which in ordinary social situations have been in physical contact with
the mouth or feet of humans would be perceived as sources of filth and pollution and
create distances in social interactions. In the devotional context, however, the symbolic
touch or taste of the Guru charges the food with spiritual virtues and values,
which devotees can acquire through their own partaking. An elderly attendant in the
gurdwara said, “The Guru hungers for devotion. Karah prashad is like a blessing of the
Guru. It acquires and transmits power. When you eat karah prashad you take part of
that blessing.” Being offered to the Guru, karah prashad becomes a materialized or
“thingified” blessing or essence residues of the Guru transmitted to devotees for
ingestion.
In relation to ordinary food which creates distances in ordinary social interactions,
prashad establishes asymmetrical relations of exchange and hierarchal distance
between the divine agent and humans. 310 The public distribution of karah prashad also
relates to human subjects who are otherwise separate. By accepting substances of the
Guru from the same bowl devotees do not merely express a common identity as disciples,
but share feelings and social events for which the food offering was conducted.
This is evident when Sikhs present the Guru with a supplication and karah prashad for
the aim of relieving a sick person. By collectively ingesting small parts of food offered
in the name of the afflicted, people will say they “share the pain” in sense of sharing
feelings and expressing empathy with the sick. The idea that one shares spaces,
things and actions is central to the Sikh view of life and to mix and share food substances
is a means to create relatedness with the Guru and other human subjects.
308
Mauss 1954. In later years, a number of scholars have sought to understand the role of objects
in social life by focusing on exchanges of secular and religious objects and how cultural meanings
of things are constituted (see e.g. Appadurai 1986, Jeudy Ballini & Juillerat 2002).
309
Ellen 1988. The beliefs and practices of food transactions between divine agents and worshippers
in the Hindu tradition have been thoroughly discussed in scholarly literature (see e.g.
references in Babb 1983).
310
Babb 1975.
150
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008