INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

acts and accept the conventional effects which will transform their social identity. 716
Since the Sikh Rahit Maryada does not provide comprehensive interpretations of symbolic
meanings of ceremonies, local Sikhs will search for meanings elsewhere, in oral
and written stories about the historical Sikh Gurus and particularly doctrinal treatises
on the teaching in Guru Granth Sahib. In connection with a wedding, the bridal couple,
family members, or other participants may present personal motives and meanings
to the ritual acts, 717 but these discursive elaborations will not affect the stipulated
form of the wedding ceremony or its collectively agreed social functions. The bride
and groom are still considered married after circulating four times around the Guru
Granth Sahib whether they have prior intentions to unite with a lover, etablish relations
with a reputed family, or merely satisfy the will of elders. As a social consequence
the wedding establishes new kinship ties that will regulate interactions between
old and new relatives in the social life and ceremonies to follow. The wedding
ceremony, like many other shared events in the Sikh religious life, is thus enveloped
in consensual understanding of the social effects of the performance. The acts have
already been attributed stipulated functions to accomplish something in the world,
that is, transform the social identity of individuals and determine future relations
between the two families.
Stipulated motives and effects may apply to certain acts but far from all. Those
ceremonies which, by the authoritative tradition, are considered important to a Sikh
way of life are sustained by collectively shared meanings, while other religious acts
display no general consensus and may be open for multifarious and sometimes conflicting
interpretations. One reason for the nuances of interpretations is that Sikh
practices are embedded in multi-vocal discourses within the culture to which they
belong. Commentaries in textual and oral traditions in the culture provide images
and ideas that individuals have access to and draw upon with varying degrees. Action
thus becomes a screen upon which people may project a number of meanings
and functions on an individual and institutional level. While some of these meanings
appear to be enduringly conventional in a society, others are constantly exposed to
inventive change. It still remains that human action becomes meaningful when
placed and interpreted by people in a social and interactive setting of some kind; it is
contextual elements which provide meanings to action.
716
Focussing exclusively on the meta-communicative dynamics of rituals, Rappaport (1999)
notes that all religions do not require their worshippers to share beliefs surrounding ritual acts,
but encourage them to accept and confirm to a public liturgical (or ritual) order. People’s
participation in rituals constitutes the acceptance of this order regardless of their private states
of affairs.
717
During the wedding ceremony the granthi or ragi performers will elaborate the spiritual and
symbolic meanings of the conjugal meeting between man and woman from interpretations of
Char lavan and other gurbani hymns.
454
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008