INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

4.3. IN TIMES OF NEED
Among the Sikhs in Varanasi there exists a stock of oral accounts of how people have
been “cured” from infertility and fatal diseases by presenting prayers, reciting gurbani
and conducting regular visits to the gurdwara. The stories carry evidence of the positive
effects of engaging in a close relationship with the Guru, especially in situations
where medical treatments have either failed or been refused. These incidents are not
looked upon as miracles, but proof of a divine power exerting influences on human
conditions and state of affairs through the words of the Guru.
The last section of this chapter will focus on what ritual theorists sometimes call
“rites of affliction”, that is, rituals that “attempt to rectify a state of affairs that has
been disturbed or disordered.” 680 In this analytic category of ritual one may find various
religious ceremonies and healing therapies that aim to affect physical, psychological
and social dimensions of situations in which people experience suffering and
disorder in life. How the occurrence of disorder is diagnosed and which type of ritual
measure is taken usually depends on the way in which a culture interprets the human
condition and its relation to cosmic forces or beings. Commonly these practices attempt
to alleviate physical and mental afflictions of the human body and mind, using
methods that stretch far beyond physical conditions of individual persons in order to
seek intercession of supernatural beings. Rites of affliction may co-exist alongside
scientific medicine as a complementary system which perceives health and illness “as
symptoms of a broadly conceived realm of order or disorder that draws no hard-andfast
boundaries between the individual and the community, the mind and the body,
or the material and the spiritual.” 681
In the semi-structured interviews with Sikh informants in Varanasi, one section
of the questions dealt with the religious steps people take in times when they or a
family member is stricken by illness or in some other way experience suffering. The
aim of these questions was to identify practices which people observe when they are
confronted with a situation that threatens the ordinary social order and even life
itself. The responses became illustrative of how secular, religious, and folk practices
are pragmatically intertwined in the life world of the Sikhs. The Indian culture presents
a rich heritage of medical and healing practices, integrated in the religious traditions
and traceable to Vedic times. Today the use of western-style medicine, commonly
labeled “English medicine” (angrezi dava), has greatly overshadowed the classical
art of Ayur Vedic medicine, even though it is still employed as an alternative
treatment. Sikhs in general have a very receptive attitude toward the use of modern
medicine. They encourage medical care by establishing hospitals and care centers and
are prominent among medical practitioners. This respect for the healing arts is considered
to be embedded in the Sikh doctrine and tradition. There are several accounts
of the human Gurus helping their contemporaries with medicine. The beloved legend
680
Bell 1997: 115.
681
Bell 1997: 116.
422
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008