INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

The rendering of Ardas thus stands as a distinct whole, separated from other
discourses, with recognizable opening and closing sequences (See Figure 20). The
different linguistic acts contained in the structure of a performance go by individual
names and frame the actual reading in different layers. While Anand Sahib and Ashtapadi
4:8 (1+2) and the Dohra (9) provide a broader performance frame, the gurmantra
(3) and Sikh jaikara (8) are verbal markers embedding quotations of the Ardas text. To
mark out the completion of a rendering at the very end, people will exclaim the
Khalsa ovation (Vahiguru ji ka Khalsa, Vahiguru ji ki Fateh). These boundary-marking
verbal acts have a meta-communicative function to announce that what is to come
and what has been ended is different from everyday talk. Although the verbal performance
of the Sikh supplication presents itself as a formalized and structured event
which comprises stipulated acts to be carried out in a prescribed way independently
from the actors’ intentions, the communicative function of Ardas performances is
established by the textual “opening” at the end of the text. In this opening people
may add gurbani hymns deemed favourable for a particular event and speeches in
which they express their wishes and reasons for devotional activities. Given this
communicative feature the performance of Ardas is usually integrated in larger Sikh
ceremonies and is attributed various instrumental, transformative, and confirmative
functions by its location and relation to other devotional acts. The prayer is not
merely a tool for conveying human wishes and feelings to a divine receiver, but becomes
a means by which Sikhs present offerings to the Guru and God, create sacred
time and space, and even transform properties of material objects.
3.6. SEVA – SELFLESS SERVICE
On a November night in 2000 a group of local Sikhs arranged what they called “milkseva”
at Varanasi railway station for a group of Sikh pilgrims travelling from the
Punjab on the express train Akal Takht to the pilgrimage centre of Patna Sahib. When
the train arrived after two o’clock in the morning, the Varanasi group was saluting
the pilgrims loudly by repeatedly crying the Sikh jaikara. For the few minutes the
train waited at the station buckets of milk and parcels with sweets were freely distributed
in a coach crammed with people seated on benches and the floor reciting
gurbani. As the train departed, all participants repeatedly shouted out the Sikh salutation,
which thereby framed the nightly operation of selfless service to the holy congregation.
In both Hindi and Punjabi language the noun seva meaning “service” is given
various secular and religious connotations. The word can mean attendance and care
of parents and people in general, free and voluntary service to the society and country,
or altruistic actions in devotion and worship to a spiritual preceptor or deity. The
noun sevak signifies the agent of these acts; the attending person or devotee who
humbly subordinates herself to serve and honour the subject of veneration. In the
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008