INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

to neighboring congregations. The ragi ensembles were more frequently changing in
the gurdwaras. Usually a group would stay a year or two at one location to gain practical
training and new experiences and then continue to more prestigious Sikh centers
or gurdwaras closer to the home districts. A young ragi jatha with ambitions to move
up the career ladder told me that the ultimate goal for Sikh musicians is to perform
kirtan inside Harimandir Sahib at Amritsar. Elderly performers, in contrast, seemed to
be more content to mediate gurbani wherever the Gurdwara committees would bring
them.
Another emic category of Sikh performers is kathakar. The noun katha (Sanskrit)
stands for exposition, narration, and oral discussion of sacred text. In the early Indian
history the term kathakar or “story-teller” was apparently synonymous with the term
for a “book-specialist” (granthika), but by the eighteenth century signified a specific
type of performer in the Vaishnava devotional tradition who told stories accompanied
with dance and gestures in temples and later on in royal courts. 366 In Sikhism the
term kathakar came to denote a performer who delivers religious discourses on the
Gurus’ compositions and thus the meaning of the word is intimately associated with
special knowledge in religious texts. According to the tradition, the formal beginning
of katha performances occurred with the compilation of the Sikh scripture in the early
seventeenth century when scribes, deputies, and other Sikh leaders appointed by the
Gurus begun to interpret and orally expound on scriptural hymns at devotional gatherings.
A legend tells that Guru Tegh Bahadur predicted in the seventeenth century
that Talvandi Sabo in the Punjab would become a center for Sikh students, scribes,
and exegetes, saying the town would be the Guru’s Kashi or city of learning. In the
early eighteenth century the Sikh scribe Bhai Mani Singh, who prepared a copy of the
Sikh scripture (Damdama version), was instructed by Guru Gobind Singh to explicate
the scripture and start a school of knowledgeable scholars (giani) at Talvandi Sabo.
Modern Sikh kathakars often claim to be “exegetes” or “expounders” belonging to this
tradition.
The kathakar is responsible for a creative oral retelling and expounding on the
spiritual meanings (See Chapter 3) of the Guru Granth Sahib, which requires sound
knowledge in gurbani, Sikh literature and history, Punjabi stories, proverbs, and
sometimes sacred scriptures of other religions. Unlike larger Sikh shrines the gurdwaras
at Varanasi did not have a kathakar permanently employed. Most of the
kathakars I met were self-employed local performers, constantly on tour within geographical
circumferences of different sizes, either alone or with a friend or the family.
On special occasions they were invited to Varanasi or just passed by on their way to
some other location in Northern India. They would reside in the gurdwara for a couple
of days and deliver religious discourses in exchange of monetary donations or
fixed fees. Being a traveling kathakar was for most a full-time job from which they
earned their livelihood.
366
Hein 1972.
189
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008