INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

prior to the physical touching of books containing gurbani. When customers arrive for
the purpose of acquiring Guru Granth Sahib the employees will take out the scriptural
volume, wrapped in white robes, and place the text on a string bed (manji) or a
temporary dais in the showroom. The procurer will be given a fairly technical demonstration
of print, typeface, format, binding and other typographical details. When
the customers arrived at a decision on which folio to obtain, all present in the shop
will rise to a standing position and read the Sikh supplication. Afterwards, one person
will carry the new robed scripture on the head in a small procession to a car or
van and carefully place it either on a decorated palanquin, a separate seat in the car,
or in the lap of one person, before driving away. With exception for the driver, all
passengers in the vehicle are expected to sit barefoot.
The attitudes and measures that Sikhs take in the production of Guru Granth
Sahib mirror external strategies by which the Sikhs attempt to surmount the difference
between a mere “book” and a text which embodies the agency of a Guru. Although
Guru Granth Sahib takes birth by the same typographical procedures as other
books, the formalized action during the printing process and the strict control exerted
over the production and distribution effectively creates sacredness of the text. That
SGPC and other Sikh institutions have attempted to gain control over the processes
by which the Guru Granth Sahib assumes a material form seem to suggest that sanctification
of the text is invoked already by the printing process. By placing the words
and teaching of the Gurus on a set number of pages, the eternal Word-Guru embodies
in the form of a written book to be revealed to humanity within given temporal
and spatial frameworks. Gurbani made visible in print has transformed typographical
matters into sacred items to be venerated and guarded, and the whole scripture in
one volume will be treated as a Guru imputed personhood. From an analytical perspective
the solemn handling of Guru Granth Sahib can be viewed as parts of larger
strategies by which Sikhs effectively create presence and authority of a majestic Guru
which/who assumes a manifest bodily form to act in the world. These strategies will
assume even more elaborated forms when the scripture is to be transported and
travel longer distances.
PROCESSIONAL TRANSPORTATIONS
Any movement of Guru Granth Sahib within and outside the gurdwara involves a set
of rules to observe. Whilst the scripture is moved on shorter travels it is conventional
to either mount it on a bedecked palanquin (palki) carried on the shoulders of a group
of devotees or let one attendant alone carry the text on a robe on top of his head. To
legitimate these customs Sikhs will relate the Gurbilas account on Guru Arjan’s solemnized
transportation of manuscripts (Goindwal pothis) to Amritsar and the first
installation of the compiled scripture in 1604.
Today the usage of palanquin is more restricted to major Sikh centers and festive
occasions, while carrying the text on the head has become the customary practice
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008