INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

eenth century the Khande di pahul was modified to include all men, women and children
who wished to undergo the Khalsa ceremony, but children should initially be
given less potent nectar to prepare them for the Khande di pahul. 494 The current practice
of distributing the nectar prepared with JapJi Sahib and the dagger to new born children
is similarly conducted for the formation of a religious and moral character so they
may become “completed” Sikhs and adopt an Amritdhari identity in the future.
The preparation of kirpanvala and khandavale involves several ritual elements believed
to produce different transformative powers in the nectars. In both cases it is the
recitation of particular gurbani hymns that will create and detemine the power and
affect of amrit in the first place. The crucial act to transform orally rendered verses
into materialized substances in water is confined in the emic verb compound bhog
lagana, the act of offering objects to the Guru and thereby sanctifying them. The granthi
summed up this thinking in one sentence; “Bani makes the amrit pure [shuddh] and
kirpan offers it [bhog lagna].” 495 An elderly Sikh man verbalized a similar notion when
he said: “From the dagger it [amrit] gets power and the taste [ras] of bani.” The act of
stirring the water with the dagger or the sword while reciting gurbani accomplishes
the substantialization which converts the water into amrit. The act is framed by a
reading of the Ardas in which the preparation is verbally presented as an offering to
the Guru.
Although gurbani purifies waters, the weapons used in the ritual preparation ‒
the double-edged sword (khanda) and the dagger (kirpan) ‒ have significant instrumental
functions and will to a great extent determine the properties of amrit. From the
time of Guru Gobind Singh “all-steel” (sarabloh) was an epithet of God and particularly
the khanda came to represent a divine power and qualities. 496 The use of steel
weapons, sanctioned by the Sikh Gurus, is in this ritual context believed to affect the
character of the person who drinks the nectar. A middle-aged Sikh woman in Varanasi
narrated an anecdote about the first Khande di pahul ceremony in 1699 to illustrate
the power of the double-edged sword:
When Guru Gobind Singh made the amrit in a steel pot, some of it was
spilled and eaten by birds. Immediately these birds started to fight.
When Mata ji saw the fighting birds she added some sugar crystals (batasa)
to the amrit, so that the Sikhs would become both brave and
sweet.
494
See Mann 2004: 17 ‒ 19.
495
The granthis sometimes use bhog lagana for acts of transforming water into amrit, and the act of
making people pure by giving them amrit. In this sense, bhog lagana signified the process of
purifying objects or humans. Some interlocutors said they would always dip their dagger in
milk or water to purify the substance before drinking. This act also went under the name bhog
lagana.
496
In Dasam Granth Guru Gobind Singh invokes God in the form of the khanda and let “all-steel”
signfiy God.
282
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008