INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

shall arrange Akhand path “for the peace of the soul” (atma ki shanti ke lie). The expression
“for the peace of the soul” has assumed almost a formulaic character in explanations
about the reasons for staging Akhand path in a death ceremony, even if individual
Sikhs may elaborate and interpret the soteriological depths of this sentence in
many different ways.
A somewhat useful term to explain the workings of meaning construction is
what scholars in linguistics and literature studies call interdiscursivity or intertextuality,
761 that is, utterances and texts always relate to other discourses in a web of relationships.
To the literary theorist Bakhtin, human utterances circulating through
society always respond to previous utterances and are constructed from larger and
already existing discourses. 762 Utterances display a dialogic relationship in the sense
that “the now-said reaches back to and somehow incorporates or resonates with the
already-said and reaches ahead to, anticipates, and somehow incorporates the to-besaid.”
763 Bakhtin considered this dialogic principle of human communication foundational
for the constitution and historical continuity of societies. Elaborating these
ideas, Julia Kristeva coined the term “intertextuality” which referred to the dialogic
relationships between texts. By shifting focus from utterances to texts, Kristeva saw
that “any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and
transformation of another” and thus embodies intertextual relations. 764 Just as an
author brings together the textual masonry from the larger ongoing discourses in
society and the “meaning” of a text is to be found in these intertextual relations, so
are Sikhs articulating meanings from discourses that transcend the limits of the performed
event. Many religious acts may present an original or ideal meaning encoded
by the authoritative tradition, but practicing devotees will still decode and understand
these meanings from their distinct matrices of interdiscursivity. Using Bhaktin’s
terminology, one could argue that processes of meaning construction present ongoing
tensions and interplay between official ideologies and centripetal (monologic)
discourses and centrifugal (dialogic) forces which will promote the unofficial and
more subjective dimensions. 765
To stage an Akhand path within the framework of a death ceremony “for the
peace of the soul” might be linked with a number of outside religious discourses on
the soul’s destiny after death. People will say they have read in books or heard from
their grandparents, saintly people, and other significant persons that the performance
will assist the deceased soul on its otherworldly travel, grant a place in the divine
court, or protect the soul from a ghostly existence. From a rich repertoire of publiclyknown
alternatives they emphasize the ideational aspects of Sikh doctrines or popu-
761
Bauman suggests one should reserve the term interdiscursive for matters concerning utterances
in the Bakhtian sense and intertextuality for relationships between texts (Bauman 2005:
146).
762
Allen 2000: 19.
763
Bauman 2005: 145.
764
Kristeva 1980: 66.
765
Allen 2000: 22.
475
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008