INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

expressing gratitude and submitting oneself to God, had memorized four lines of two
separate hymns by the fifth Guru, which he occasionally included in his Ardas:
Have mercy on me, O Beneficent to the meek and consider not all my
merits and demerits. How can the dust be washed? Such is the state of
the man, O my Lord. 568
Whatever I ask of my Lord, exactly that He blesses me with. Whatever
the Lord’s slave Nanak utters with his mouth, proves to be true both
here and hereafter. 569
In any of these examples the inserted gurbani stanza is always uttered in the form of a
shorter quotation before the reader presents the requests or motives for performing
Ardas.
Depending on the contexts for which the Ardas is read, the officiator continues
with a shorter or longer recitative speech that will clarify for whom and which reasons
the prayer in conducted. The break allows for verbal articulation of subjective
wishes and thus provides a significant communicative function of Ardas performances.
Generally speaking, the types of speeches presented within the textual opening
can be declarative, commissive and expressive. When the Ardas is performed in the
beginning and end of a larger ceremonies the officiator will declare which gurbani
hymns will or have been recited and the work which will begin or has just been completed.
The proclamation may encompass all acts contained in a ceremony and recognize
the human agents who have answered for the separate enactments. The
sevadars are thanked for preparing food, pathis for conducting readings, the sponsors
for financial assistance, just like the congregation in its entirety may be thanked. At
the same time the imposed speech is commissive, in the sense that it guarantees the
undertaking of the stated obligations. People should intend to do what they present
in Ardas readings. Among the Sikhs there is a general conception that all religious
action ‒ verbal and non-verbal ‒ must be pronounced in an initial and finalizing Ardas,
or otherwise left undone. If a gurbani recitation or a religious speech to the congregation,
for instance, is not articulated in a communal Ardas within the framework
of a ceremony it should be cancelled or postponed. Stances like this are associated
with religious notions of Ardas as a human-divine communication through the
agency of the Guru. Recitations of particular gurbani hymns or the entire Sikh scripture
should be verbally articulated in the textual opening of the Ardas text as an “offering”
to the Guru. The declaration of action which is about to occur implies an obligation
of conduct since these acts are considered to receive sanction from the Guru by
means of the reading of Ardas. The communicative feature of Ardas becomes more
explicit in cases where individuals or families arrange the reading for highly personal
568
GGS: 882.
569
GGS: 681.
332
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008