INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

work in Varanasi I quickly lost count of the number of Akhand path performed in the
gurdwaras and private homes. It would be no exaggeration to state that the community
members arrange far more than a hundred recitations each year. As the following
chapters will illustrate, Akhand path makes a significant part of all life-cycle ceremonies
and marks events of beginning and transfer: the opening of a new shop, moving
into a new house or before setting out on a journey. It is a general belief that a
completion of an Akhand path will bestow divine protection, alleviate troubles, and
rectify state of affairs that have been disturbed. After a death family members will not
arrange any happy event at the house, such as marriage, before Akhand path has been
completed three or more months subsequent to the death day. The performance is
said to start “good things” in life and ensure blessings to the family and the house.
People arrange the recitation for those who are seriously ill or to prevent afflictions
from entering the house. Many families commemorate their grandparents or ancestors
by annually sponsoring an Akhand path on the anniversary of their birth or death.
To celebrate birthdays of the Sikh Gurus the gurdwara usually organize a double
chain of recitations (Akhand path ki larhi), forty days before the celebrations of Guru
Nanak’s birthday in October/November and thirty days prior to Guru Gobind Singh’s
birthday in January. In the room of sachkhand two unbroken recitations will be staged
parallel and succeeded by two new recitations without any break. Since the gurdwara
and community members organize Akhand path on the eve of almost every festival it
is hard to find a gap in the calendar when a recitation is not commenced.
Many of my interlocutors referred to Akhand path as the “greatest worship”
(maha puja), and some even regarded it as an equivalent of the grand horse sacrifice
(ashvamedh yajna) in Vedic times. A 45-year old man, for instance, expressed the significance
of Akhand path in the following way:
Akhand path has the same value as a horse sacrifice. Raja Dasrat performed
this sacrifice. Ram also performed it, and his sons, Lav and Kush,
caught the horse, which they used for the sacrifice. The same virtues are
achieved if you arrange an Akhand path. For whichever wish you set up
an Akhand path, the wish will always come true. I have never seen a wish
that was not fulfilled by Akhand path.
The association of the unbroken recitation of Guru Granth Sahib with the Vedic ritual
is an attempt to give it an ultimate status. Another interlocutor employed the parable
of train journeys when elucidating the popularity of Akhand path: in the modern age
people prefer to travel by fast express trains rather than the ordinary trains with delays
and changes. Hinging on more cosmogonic beliefs the granthi in one of the
gurdwaras explained that people are under the sway of the degenerated Dark Age
(kaliyug) when their lives are getting shorter in comparison with generations in the
beginning of the creation. By tradition families should arrange a broken reading of
Guru Granth Sahib on the tenth or twelfth day following the death of a family member,
but instead they set up an unbroken reading already on the day following the
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008