INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

the ashes in large bedecked urns and again performed a supplication for the completed
cremation. The gurdwara committee arranged a city procession from the
gurdwara to the main ghat (Dashashwamedh), where a team of devotees took out the
urns to the middle of river Ganga and immersed the ashes in the water. These practices
were discontinued in the 1990s when the congregation acquired information
about organized scriptural cremations at Goindwal Sahib. As the granthi reasoned,
contemporary people prefer to remise the responsibility to the convenient service of
specialists in the Punjab because they know how to secure the dignity of Guru Granth
Sahib. “They have institutions and resources to transport and cremate old Guru
Granth Sahib ji with full respect,” he said. The new organization of death ceremonies
for scriptures which have completed a life-time has become widely popularized
among lay Sikhs. Of the eleven interlocutors who accommodated Guru Granth Sahib
at their houses in Varanasi, all intended to hand over old volumes to the local gurdwara
or directly to the centre at Goindwal Sahib. Thus, the local gurdwara is no
longer responsible for the disposal of old scriptures, but act more like an intermediary
institution which preserves old texts before they are sent back to the Punjab to be
reverentially cremated in a ceremony controlled by specialists. 409 It is to this ceremony
we must turn.
RE-INVENTING A DEATH CEREMONY
In the year of 1988 Narinder Singh, a Sikh businessman in Ludhiana (Punjab),
founded a religious centre called Prabhu Simran Kender, literally “the centre for meditation
and remembrance of God“. 410 The main purpose of the centre was to collect and
cremate damaged versions of Guru Granth Sahib and prayer books containing gurbani
under proper procedures. In a speech published on DVD by his association,
Narinder Singh asserts that the idea sprung forth during his visits at Goindwal Sahib:
Naturally I was going from Ludhiana to Goindwal Sahib. At that time
the seva of giving Guru Granth Sahib ji, gutke [prayer books] and pothian
[scriptures] to the fire continued there. I saw this seva. I just got an idea
that this work should be done in a more honourable and respectful way.
With this idea I came back to gurdwara Prabhu Simran Kender, where I
was responsible. 411
At the centre in Ludhiana, Narinder Singh built up a specially constructed cremation
chamber with iron beds which he called Angitha Sahib, “the respected pyre”. To provide
old texts an honorable rest before cremation he also built up a hall, furnished
with a great number of four-poster beds, which would function as a hospice for scrip-
409
The old texts, waiting for cremation, are kept in a metal cupboard inside the scriptural bedroom
(sukhasan).
410
Since 2007 Prabhu Simran Kender publishes its own web site at: http://prabhusimran.com.
411
Agan Bhet Seva: Documentary Film.
225
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008