INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

scriptures at their houses may visit the gurdwara to take a personal Hukam or let the
granthi take one for them. For whichever purpose the Hukam is taken the appearing
gurbani hymn is often treated as a divination foretelling the destiny to come. 344 In the
gurdwara the granthi and other specialists will assist laypersons to interpret the semantic
content of a command and tell whether the divine reply was “good” or
“hard”. If a Hukam does not come out well people may hesitate to embark on a journey
or reconsider a plan, and several local anecdotes report on tragedies ensuing
from neglect of these divinatory stanzas. Nevertheless, people believe that the destiny
foretold by the command will occur at any event, since it is ultimately the revealed
will of God. 345 In most cases the temporal jurisdiction of a Hukam depends upon the
purpose and for whom the ritual act of taking a command is conducted: the one that
comes out in the daily liturgy of the gurdwara is a
general and guiding decree applying to the whole
congregation for one full day, whereas the validity of
commands taken for specific reasons are particularized
to persons and events that will be presented and
specified in the preceding supplication.
In gurdwaras of Varanasi the congregational Hukam
is orally rendered thrice a day: two times during
the morning liturgy and once in the evening before
closing the court. Each morning the granthi is therefore
memorizing the hymn that makes the daily Hukam and
the page number(s) on which it is included in Guru
Granth Sahib, in order to open the scripture on the
same page and repeat the hymn in the evening. On
each of these occasions the granthi usually renders the
The Hukam written on a framed
whiteboard outside the gurdwara
Hukam in two specific speech styles to make the referential
content clear and enhance the identity of the
hymn as a divine command. Firstly, he presents the
whole unit of a shabad, including its sub-heading, in a singing manner at a slow pace
by using an ascending melody in minor mode with long intonations on the last rhyming
word of each line. The dramaturgical elements of his rendering ‒ high-pitched
voice and melody ‒ convey the impression of a royal proclamation. Owing to its
formal features in performance the Hukam is very easy to recognize in a ritual setting.
Rather than just reading the text, the granthi is melodiously crying or calling it out to
344
The granthi referred to the Hukam for individual purposes as bhag, a noun with multifold
meanings but which in this context signify one’s fate that is predicted and shared through the
hymn.
345
For instance, one interlocutor told a story about a saintly person who performed the Sikh
supplication and took Hukam before embarking on a journey. When the Hukam came out a little
hard people advised the saint to cancel his plan. He refused any cancellation, stating that his
journey had already been sanctioned by the Sikh supplication and whatever happened he would
consider the will of God. Soon after the man met with an accident and died.
171
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008