INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

etween the highly stipulated formal features of Akhand path and the apparent lack of
one coherent “meaning” seems to make the performance “apprehensible” for the
assimilation of multitude meanings derived from contextual elements. 760 As the entextualized
text of Guru Granth Sahib contextualizes in the performance of Akhand
path within a particular social framework, the recitation can evoke several metaleveled
symbolic meanings, illocutionary functions, and perlocutionary effects. Celebrants
will draw these meanings from surrounding discourses or from the positioning
of Akhand path within the structure of other Sikh ceremonies. In some instances
the tradition will specify conventional meanings and effects which can be expected
from the enactment.
Take, for example, the performance of Akhand path during a death ceremony. In
Varanasi the Sikh observances following a death usually span over a period of thirteen
days and comprise of a set of acts that should be performed prior and subsequent
to the cremation. The death ceremony is not one single ritual but provides a
new context that brings together and reframes a plurality of common worship forms
‒ such as recitation of Sukhmani Sahib, Kirtan performances, readings of Ardas, and so
on ‒ that appear in other ceremonies as well. In this particular context Akhand path
makes a post-cremation ritual, arranged from the 5 th , 7 th , 11 th or 13 th day after a death.
The auspicious completion of the recitation finalizes the death ceremony when
community members express condolences with the chief mourners by dressing up in
white clothes and together perform a last prayer for the deceased. When asked the
reasons for performing the recitation on this occasion, some of my informants would
say “it is for the peace of the deceased soul”, “for respect to the deceased family
member”, “to support the mourners in their grief”, “because it was the last wish of
the deceased” or “because it is a part of the death ceremony”. These responses have a
common denominator in that they refer to social and emotional circumstances surrounding
real human experiences of death. Others would develop more elaborate
religious explanations to present Akhand path as a worship act that would generate
good karma and assist the soul of the deceased on the journey to a divine court. In
either case there was no intrinsic single meaning to the performance, but respondents
drew their own reasons from religious discourses and social conditions which they
themselves found most significant in the particular situation and superimposed on
the performance.
The range of these “derived” or “proposed” meanings, however, is not entirely
ad lib since people are socialized and situated within a given cultural framework. To
arrange an Akhand path after a death is a practice stipulated by the tradition and the
expressed meanings for observing this practice quite often employ and refer back to
fairly conventional beliefs, purposes, and norms. For instance, local Sikhs recurrently
say that Akhand path and the final reading of Ardas in the gurdwara are conducted
“for the peace of the deceased soul”. When the mourners are sending out invitation
letters to the congregation before the gathering, they will similarly write that they
760
Humphrey & Laidlaw 1994: 227.
474
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008