INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

and sangat-pangat – the holy congregation and the practice of sitting in lines sharing a
meal ‒ which he often made the subject of explications.
“THE SACRIFICES OF GURU GOBIND SINGH”
History-oriented discourses are more narrative-based and focus on the deeds of the
Sikh Gurus. Performers will assert that the aim of these performances is to display the
bravery of the Gurus and evoke the flavour or “taste” of heroism (vir-ras) embedded
in Sikh history. To generate this flavour and substantiate interpretations of history the
performer may weave an intertextual web with quotations and discourses from a
variety of sources, and especially from the Guru Granth Sahib. To conclude this section
I will render an historical katha on the theme “The Sacrifices of Guru Gobind
Singh”, which dealt with the consequences of Guru Tegh Bahadur’s martyrdoom in
1675. The discourse was delivered by Jaswant Singh, an elderly kathakar operating
mainly in Varanasi district, during the celebration of Guru Gobind Singh’s birthday
in January 2001. The transcription of the approximately fifteen minutes long oral
exposition certainly does not do justice to the evocative and electric atmosphere created
in the performance situation, but it may be illustratative of how an exegete
builds up a story, creates dialogues within the discourse, uses rhetorical questions to
direct the audience, and ends with a coda that emphasizes the immediacy of historical
events for the audience. In this example the exegete quoted one gurbani verse to
verify the historical setting of Moghul rulers. He also made a reference to the Koran
to confirm that the advent of Guru Gobind Singh, as a prophet (nabi paigambar) sent
by God, was already predicted in sacred scriptures of other religions. In the ending
coda the kathakar tried to bridge the temporal distance between the sacrifices of the
Guru and the present by asserting the Guru’s sacrifices as conditional for religious
freedom and independence in the Indian democracy. Guru Gobind Singh’s entrance
into the world and his sacrifices were thus not merely events in a remote past that
should be commemerated on a festival day in the calendar, but celebrated for the
implications these events have on people’s lives today. The metamessage communicated
beyond the parameters of the performance revealed that the Guru sacrificed his
own father to procure religious freedom for all.
[Salutation] Vahiguru ji ka Khalsa, Vahiguru ji Fateh!
[Narrative] When we study the life of Guru Gobind Singh ji Maharaj
then we will see truth in the world. When you see his life then you will
know that Guru Gobind Singh ji Maharaj is an incarnation and prophet
in this world. He is the leader who revealed the path of life to people
who were lost. What was the situation? The situation in our country of
sanatan dharma was this: Bharat [India] was riding on the boat in a
storm and the boat was sinking. Remember the Mughal rulers, they
ordered that nothing should be seen in India except for Islam. During
the time of Aurangzeb he wanted to see nothing else but Islam for as
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008