INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

concern for the formal character of the act and the symbolic materials used, since they
consider themselves to be merely recreating ancient customs and returning to scriptural
or even divinely authorized practices. Scholars have suggested that traditionalism
can be seen as both a means to ritualized action and the effect thereof. 749 Acts
which have been exposed to processes of formalization and ritualization appear with
an archetypical character. 750 Discourses surrounding the acts will confirm that contemporary
worshippers maintain historically ordained acts. Traditionalizing becomes
a powerful tool to legitimize religious acts by evoking links to a true and original
form of that action.
THE GURU GRANTH SAHIB
In traditional historiography the Sikh scripture stands in an intimate relationship to
the human Gurus. The sacred text contains the Gurus’ compositions and was compiled
and venerated by them. At his deathbed in 1708, Guru Gobind Singh declared
that the scripture would be the eternal Guru of the Sikhs - the Guru Granth Sahib. As
described in Chapter 2, this decree placed the canonized text in a human line of succession
and invested it with the same spiritual authority which was traditionally
endowed to human preceptors. Local Sikhs will claim that the same “light” or “spirit”
(jot) which inhabited all the ten human Gurus was made manifest in Guru Granth
Sahib. The scripture enshrined the total divine knowledge and power revealed to
humanity by its predecessors.
To Sikh devotees this shift of authority implied that devotional stances they had
taken up towards the human Gurus in the past would likewise apply to the scripture.
By tradition, the manifested form (sarup) of the Guru requires respectful treatment as
a royal sovereign. The same ethos and modes of practices that presumably existed in
the courtly and domestic culture of the human Gurus was, therefore, valid in all contexts
in which disciple Sikhs now interacted with the Guru Granth Sahib. As a consequence,
the scripture was invested a set of culturally defined habits of the human
culture, which in a new historical setting were to be furnished through various devotional
practices executed by the Sikhs.
The careful ministration of the Guru Granth Sahib in gurdwaras can be viewed
from the perspective of enduring devotional and social relationships between contemporary
disciples and the scripture. Well aware that Guru Granth Sahib is a book
made of paper and ink, and not alive in any biological sense, the Sikhs treat the text
as a personal Guru, which/who possesses social agency. Following anthropological
theories, I have argued that local Sikhs personify the scripture and make it socially
alive for continued presence and interactions in the human world. This personification
is relational and occurs in the context of social relationships. By enmeshing the
Guru Granth Sahib in a structure of daily routines and publicly displaying it as a
“person” of exalted status, Sikh devotees set the scripture in a network of relation-
749
See the examples given by Bell 1997: 149.
750
Humphrey & Laidlaw 1994: 105.
467
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008