INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

ation of a deceased person justifies the custom and thus provides the practice with
new meanings.
ANCESTORS IN MEMORY
During the weeks, months and years to come the family will continue to honor the
dead through additional offerings and recitations of the Guru Granth Sahib. Some
Khatri families in Varanasi observe satarvan, or the seventeenth day after death, when
they donate food, fruits and money in the gurdwara according to status and means.
One female interlocutor specified the food offering on this day to consist of four fried
breads (puri) on seventeen plates and a basket of fruits, although she did not know
the reasons of the custom, more than it must have something to do with the number
of days following a death. Another Sikh woman of Khatri caste said her family observed
this offering in the time of her grandfathers but it has more or less run out of
fashion. Instead her family preferred to do seva by distributing large quantities of
food and blankets outside the community to poor and homeless people in the city.
Other interlocutors maintained the importance of offering food in the name of the
dead. One month and six months after a death, for instance, the family should bring
dry food, such as flour, rice and sugar, as offering to the gurdwara or simply give a
monetary donation for these articles.
Irrespective of the notional standpoints the individual or the family may have
with regard to death pollution and mourning periods, most families will not plan or
arrange a marriage, or celebrate any joyous event before an additional unbroken
recitation of Guru Granth Sahib has been arranged and completed. In general this
recitation is scheduled between the third and the sixth month following the death,
either at the family house or in the gurdwara. The completion of it is generally believed
to accomplish the transition from times of “sadness” (dukh) to “happiness”
(sukh).
The anniversary of a death marks the conclusion of a year and again families
may summon five people form the gurdwara to feed them and give donations to the
communal kitchen for the departed family member. Another recitation of Guru
Granth Sahib, sometimes called Salana path or “the annual reading”, should preferably
be completed on the anniversary day and is by some perceived as the last ceremony
for the deceased, who from now on will be considered an ancestor to commemorate.
If the dead person was a close relative, the family will continue to complete
a Khulla path or Akhand path on the death anniversary day, and arrange a reading
of Ardas and sometimes serve food to the society in honor and memory of an
ancestor.
4.2. FESTIVALS DURING THE TWELVE MONTHS
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008