INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

11. An elderly man
It is to take the name of the ten Gurus. All the Gurus and everyone are
connected with God. The Gurus always told us to do prayer and by doing
Ardas God will give success.
12. An elderly businessman
Ardas means to do prayer. I do Ardas twice a day: in the morning and
the evening. In Ardas I always say, forgive me for my mischief and mistakes,
give me happiness and peace [sukhshanti] and take care of my
business and give welfare to all people, everyone and me. Nanak ji said
that we should ask for the welfare of everyone. It is like an exclusive
praying.
These verbal accounts indicate that the Ardas text and its performance comprise much
more wider significations than the English word “prayer” generally would suggest.
Many interlocutors frequently used the Hindi noun binti, or the Punjabi counterpart
benti, meaning “request, supplication, prayer, entreaty, solicitation“, 557 synonymously
to Ardas, or the Sanskrit word prarthana, 558 which encompasses similar connotations.
Indeed the oral enactment of Ardas is regarded as a communication with a divine
power ‒ a respectful petition, prayer or request in which wishes, thanksgivings,
pleadings for forgiveness, or appeals for permission to conduct any task may be imparted
to God. Added to this, the performance is a memorial act of recalling the Sikh
Gurus, the five beloved, the martyrs, freedom fighters and all who sacrificed their
lives in the name of religion. The text is dedicated to them and participants should
consequently recall and express gratitude for their deeds through the reading of Ardas.
At the time it would be misleading to confine the local interpretations to didactic
means for recollections of the past. As a few of interlocutors emphasized (answer 1, 4,
9, 11), verbalizing the text is simran ‒ a devotional act of remembering God and the
ten Gurus, which is considered a beneficial act in itself. The notion of Ardas as a practice
of simran partly explains why so many people metaphorically or literally liken the
event of Ardas performance to a royal reception at a divine court. It is to stand in a
space within which a divine power is made present and all people are welcomed.
557
Gill & Joshi 1999: 627.
558
McGregor 1997: 670.
326
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008