INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

listen or to cause others to listen to an oral exposition of sacred texts have been traditional
means to express and cultivate love for a supernatural being and the performance
art occurs in vast numbers of devotional contexts in the Indian religions. In the
Sikh tradition the concept and practice of katha can be traced back to the period of the
Sikh Gurus. Their hymns in Guru Granth Sahib frequently employ the term to signify
both the means and the end of human spiritual quests. The reading, chanting, listening,
and meditating upon ”the story of God” (hari katha) and ”the ambrosial story”
(amrit katha) stand for devotional practices through which devotees may remove bad
karma and appropriate divine knowledge. 526 The active partaking in a discourse on
God in the company of co-devotees is a worship act that will bestow merits both on
the narrator and the listener.
In Sikh congregations it was the Gurus’ hymns that were to be recited, sung,
and explicated. As Pashuara Singh (2000) writes, the oral exegesis of the sacred poetry
begun in the milieu of the Sikh Gurus: “The devotional singing of gurbani was
normally followed by the Guru’s spontaneous oral interpretation of the meaning of a
particular scriptural passage.” 527 Textual sources bear witness of an early interest to
give commentaries and expound on the teaching of the Sikh Gurus. The tradition
firmly maintains that the scribe Bhai Gurdas (1558 ‒ 1637) was the first major “exegete”
who at the turn of the sixteenth century presented expositions of Sikh doctrines
in writing. Since Bhai Gurdas was the authorized scribe and closely associated with
the Gurus, his commentaries are by religious Sikhs treated as an interpretive “key” to
unlock true understanding of gurbani. The canonization of the Sikh scripture in the
late seventeenth century encouraged the introduction of on-going oral and written
commentaries on the Guru Granth Sahib. Pashuara Singh identifies seven indigenous
Sikh schools of interpreting gurbani (gurbani dian viakhia parnalian) in writing which
have approached the scriptural content differently depending on tradition and historical
context. The schools have used various methods that involve everything from
literal translation of particular words to more elaborate exegesis that attempt to disclose
subtler spiritual meanings of hymns. 528 The janam-sakhi literature and the gurbilas
testify the existence of narrative traditions that aimed to glorify the Sikh Gurus
and impart narrative settings for gurbani hymns by way of interchanging biographical
Karnataka Damle (1960) examines the tradition of harikatha ‒ narrated stories based on stanzas
from the Ramayana or Mahabharata, or expositions of devotional texts composed by Hindu saint
poets ‒ as a well-systemized form of communicating moral principles, political ideas, and social
norms in the context of traditional culture.
526
GGS: 95, 118, 386, 404, 587, 996, 1294.
527
Pashaura Singh 2000: 270.
528
The four standard exegetical methods which Pashaura Singh mentions provide meanings and
synonyms of words (shabadarath), annotations on particular hymns (tika), detailed exegesis and
interpretations on hymns (viakhia), and sublime meanings of hymns (paramarath). Pashuara
Singh 2000:240. Gurnek Singh (1998) exemplifies the method of annotations (tika) and exegesis
(viakhia) of gurbani in modern Sikh literature.
302
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008