INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

characterized by a “cognitive nonduality of action and actor, code and substance”. 486
Even words are not something abstract and transcendental to the natural world, but
believed to stem from a perfect (divine) substance that is embodied in ether, minds,
bodies, and “in substances that may have physical attributes, such as sound, shape,
matter, force, etc.” 487 The theory suggests that substances, both natural substances in
the human body and substances which pass through the body, possess inherent values,
or are “coded substances” which people transact in social interactions and
through which they transform and constitute indigenous categories of persons. People
are therefore not considered to be indivisible units ‒ individuals ‒ but composites
of subtle and gross substances they take in from different sources. They are transactional
and transformational “dividuals” who procure appropriate substances by continually
engaging in steady relationships in which they transfer a wide range of
coded substances. 488 According to Marriot and Inden (1977) the substance theory is
valid for contexts in which humans interact with supernatural beings: ”Hindu devotionalism
(including Virasaivaism and Sikhism) manipulates divine substance, often
reciprocally, so as to initiate humans into higher genus of gods while they retain
participation in their original, lower genera.” 489
In an essay that starts out from the translation controversy of Guru Granth Sahib,
Dusenbery (1992) challengingly applies Marriot’s theories to contemporary Sikh
worship to suggest that the controversy is rooted in two different ideologies of language:
a dualistic ideology of language that privileges semantic meanings and cognitive
qualities of texts, whereas a non-dualistic ideology, which is prevalent among the
Sikhs, “recognizes the material as well as cognitive properties of language (especially
articulated speech) and refuses to privilege semantico-referential meaning at the
expense of other properties that language is thought to possess.” 490 The non-dualistic
ideology of language merges semantic and sound properties. To Sikhs brought up
with this ideology, the Guru Granth Sahib is not merely a book to be comprehended
for a moral teaching but involves a physiological engagement with God through the
transformative power of the Gurus’ words. Even if one does not understand propositional
meanings gurbani has power to affect one’s mind and body in a positive way.
Thus, the translation dilemma does not necessarily concern traditional technical
translation problems on form and content, but rather involves perceptions of the text
as a Guru enshrining the original speech and sound from the Gurus’ mouths. To
support the theory of a non-dualistic ideology of language Dusenbery argues that
different forms of Sikh worship and uses of the Guru Granth Sahib, such as recitation
486
Marriot & Inden 1977: 229.
487
Marriot & Inden 1977: 231.
488
Marriott 1976. In an ethnography of Melanesia, Strathern (1988) expounds the notion of
dividuals to argue that the construction of Melanesian personhood is made up of social
interactions and relations in which people are enmeshed. Personhood is thereore more divisible
and partible than the bounded and intact version of individuals which is prelavent in the west.
489
Marriot & Inden 1977: 236.
490
Dusenbery 1992: 388 ‒ 389.
278
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008