INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

other words, by contextual elements and not what people actually do. To some extent
this chapter follows a traditional classification system since the sections are divided
into three genres or types of rites. Analytically I wish, however, to reserve the word
“ritual” for separate acts which have become ritualized, while the term “ceremony”
denotes a much broader event. 586 Ceremony, in my use and understanding of the
word, is an analytic term which signfies a compound or structure of a set of ritualized
and formalized acts, often in sequential and interdependent combinations. A ceremony
like a “wedding” is thus not a single rite, but contains several acts clustered
together within the framework of a larger happening. It also constitutes an immediate
action context, from which people may derive meanings for their conducts. Writing
on Quranic recitations in Egypt, Nelson (2001) has categorized five different public
contexts for recitations: liturgical, rites of passage, ceremonial, media, and nonoccasional.
587 Although Nelson is a musicologist and did not develop her notion of
contexts theoretically, her general approach is interesting precisely because she treats
different “types of rituals” as contexts in which recitations are attributed meanings in
interaction between performers and the audience. The following descriptions of Sikh
ceremonies should similarly be read as examples of how different types of ceremonial
contexts can be shaped within a local community. In these contexts people enact
various acts and negotiate meanings in relation to religious norms, the local culture,
family customs, and changes in the broader society.
4.1. SIKH RITES OF PASSAGE
In anthropological literature the term “life-cycle rites” or “rites of passage” refers to a
genre of rituals that people perform at major events in life, like birth, puberty, marriage
and death. These types of rites characteristically mark a person’s transition from
one stage of social life to another and are sometimes tied to biological changes. 588
Arnold van Geneep’s oft-quoted interpretation of rites of passage presumed a threestaged
ritual process during which a person leaves behind one social identity and
then passes through a phase of no identity before admission into another. Van Gennep
suggested that rites of passage had a function to generate symbolic stages which
culturally redefine social status and identities of individuals. 589 Throughout history
the authoritative traditions of the world religions have displayed a deep concern and
interest in defining these rituals to mark religious boundaries and control practices. In
the Sikh tradition the present code of conduct (Sikh Rahit Maryada) prescribes how
Sikhs should conduct life-cycle rites in the time of birth, marriage, and death. The
586
As Humphrey & Laidlaw writes, ritual should be perceived "not as a kind of event or as an
aspect of all action, but as a quality which action can come to have ‒ a special way in which acts
may be performed”(Humphrey & Laidlaw 1994: 64).
587
Nelson 2001: xxv.
588
See e.g. Bell 1997: 94 ff.
589
Van Gennep 1960.
348
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008