INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

ing that strike a family. A Sikh man told me that the excruciating death of his eleven
year old son was caused by black magic performed by an evil-minded neighbor who
dispatched a lethal mantra in the name of his son. For another man, the sorcery of a
jealous female neighbor was explained as the underlying cause for decreasing profits
in his business. People who to take the existence of spirits and ghosts seriously will
argue that people do not fully believe in magic or “superstitious” things until they
have witnessed the effects of these troubles. “The person who has never experienced
these kinds of sufferings will consider it superstitious beliefs, but the person who is
suffering knows the existence of spirits,”a middle-aged Sikh man said. A more common
approach is to admit the existence of malevolent forces, but in the next moment
state “I do not believe in them.” Spirits and ghosts are generally believed to be attracted
to people who fear them and whose heart/mind (man) is weak. To publicly
assert disbelief is thus in itself a means to protect oneself from attacks of malevolent
forces.
Even if there is a large margin for doubts and disbeliefs in spirits and ghosts,
people will still consult different specialists and defined practices in situations where
problems are accumulating. The granthi and other employees in the gurdwara said
they cannot stop devotees from seeking religious services for reasons they themselves
might find suspicious or even contravening gurbani, since they stand in a dependant
relationship to the congregation. The performers I spoke with claimed that no one
had ever consulted them for problems with ghosts or spirits, but they did provide
community members with gurbani verses thought to protect humans from malevolent
forces. Children who repeatedly fall sick and cry incessantly, for instance, are suspected
of being under the effect of the evil eye or spirits. The mother will consequently
bring her child to the gurdwara and request the granthi to restore his or her
health with gurbani recitations. Well aware that many community members, even
their own family members, believe in a world of spirits, the granthis often take a neutral
position to emphasize the positive effects of remembering God, while tactfully
leaving out judgments about people’s personal beliefs.
According to a popular demonology that frequently surfaced in discussions, the
different types of spirits and ghosts can be generalized into three broad categories:
firstly, there are spirits which are naturally a part of the creation and not necessarily
harmful to humans. The malicious spirit in this category which has a tendency to
cause people problems every now and then is the jinn, regarded to be an “evil spirit”.
The second category involves spirits of humans who have died an unnatural and
untimely death or did not have proper death rituals performed. They are likely to end
up as a bhutpret, or a ghost caught between the world of humans and the abode of
ancestors, who possesses the power to create troubles. A ghostly existence is seen as a
punishment for bad karma in previous lives which the spirit must act out to its final
account. Since bhutpret are tormented human spirits without peace, they often have a
particular identity with gender, age, religion, caste, and behavioural characteristics
specified. A restless spirit of a Brahmin woman, for instance, will be called Brahm
bhutni – the female Brahmin ghost. Bhutpret of Muslim origin are especially dreaded
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008