INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

BABA VADBHAG SINGH
When I first met with Kuku ji in 2000 he handed me a printed book in Hindi with the
title Jivan Sakhi Baba Vadbhag Singh Ji Sodhi and said it would explain the tradition he
was working within. The book contained 108 pages about the “life-story” (jivan-sakhi)
of Baba Vadbhag Singh in the hagiographical genre and was edited by a Sikh named
Mondhari Sant Darbara Singh. 696 In the following I will render the outline of the
hagiographical pages as it provides the narrative background to Kuku ji’s practice in
Varanasi. 697
Jivan Sakhi Baba Vadbhag Singh Ji Sodhi attempts to communicate a testimony of a
divine intervention to restore order in a chaotic world through the agency of the
devout Sikh Vadbhag Singh. He acts on a divine
command and assumes power to fight against
evil forces by using hymns from the Guru
Granth Sahib. The life-story begins to depict the
patrilineal genealogy of Vadbhag Singh, not
only to the Sikh gurus, but to Lav and Kush of
the solar dynasty ‒ the two sons of Ram and
Sita in the Ramayana story. Together with a
descriptive summary of the lives of all ten gurus,
the genealogy extends over thirty pages of
the text. Vadbhag Singh is born into the Sodhi
clan and is a direct descendent of Guru Hargobind.
A framing like this assist the readers to
understand the narrative context and provides
the central character of the text legitimacy by a
strong appeal to the Sikh tradition. The story
confirms that Vadbhag Singh was predestined
The life story of Baba Vadbhag Singh
on poster
for grand work: at birth his forehead was shining
and divine words resounded in the sky.
From childhood Vadbhag Singh loved gurbani
696
Interestingly a mondhari stands for a person who has taken a vow to remain in silence. This is
certainly a strategy to provide authenticity to the story: the sant immersed in silence must speak
up to tell the story of Baba Vadbhag Singh.
697
Except for Dehra Sahib (Himachal Pradesh) and Kuku jis practice in Varanasi, there are, according
to my knowledge, several individuals who operate within the same tradition in Ludhiana
and Kartarpur (Punjab). Apart from telling the life-story of Baba Vadbhag Singh, the structure
and content of the book also suggests that an oral rendering of the text may in itself be a
treatment of different problems caused by spirits and other supernatural forces. In an article I
have analyzed how the written life-story can be approached as a “performative text” which does
not merely communicate the mythologized origins of a healing tradition and verbalize popular
imagination, but it is also a ritual hand-book and can be viewed as a ritual performance in itself
when read and listened to. The book may thus have many different functions depending upon
who is using it and for which purpose (Myrvold 2004b).
439
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008