INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

tures that encourage people to interpret the speech event as a petition made to an
invisible interlocutor. Before starting a reading of the text, Sikhs sing stanza 4:8 of
Sukhmani Sahib, which by some is considered to be the “real” and original prayer of
Guru Arjan and in the performance functions like a call to prayer. The single stanza
metonymically labels the reading of Ardas and, thereby, sets the frame for an event
during which disciple humbly entreats a supreme power for aid and forgiveness.
What remains unique for the reading of Ardas is the opening at the end of the text, in
which Sikhs may insert personalized verbal statements. The insertion may include
explicit presentations of individual or collective motives for which the Ardas and
other devotional undertakings are conducted. The verbal interjection will, in fact,
present most religious acts in the guise of humble offerings which devotees make to
God. When people perform worship acts for special causes, the reading will include
detailed requests or commisives addressed to a divine hearer. 779 Without an Ardas,
the invisible God is not informed on the worship people have conducted and this
may influence the desired effects and results of that action. The interjection will therefore
impart the name and identity of the human subject(s) presenting the Ardas and
include several deictic grounding devices (like “we”, “here”, “today”), which make it
possible to index personal and socially shared experiences. 780 These decitic expressions
become verbal specifications of contextual elements that are constantly shifting
as performances are grounded in new and changing social events. They also emphasize
that the human “animators” are the authors responsible for the words communicated
in this section of Ardas (unlike the standardized main text).
The ethnography on Sikh worship acts at Varanasi has illustrated how every
gurbani rendition and religious ceremony will be framed by the performance of Ardas.
In Sikh life everything begins and ends with a reading of Ardas. This phenomenon,
one could argue, reflects a significant meta-pragmatic strategy to recontextualize
formalized religious action. The distance between subjective stances in ever-changing
contexts and a stable canon and stipulated acts is successfully bridged by incorporating
“self-referential” messages to the reading of Ardas, and then allow this reading to
frame other Sikh worship acts within larger ceremonial constellations. From the location
of Ardas within the sequential order of Sikh ceremonies ‒ in the opening and at
the end ‒ the performance becomes a meta-commentary, which can provide the frame
for understanding situational meanings and the particular temporal and spatial aspects
of other religious acts. The reading of Ardas within larger ceremonies supplies
“contextualization cues” that channel interpretative frames to understand people’s
situational motives and meanings for performing other ritual acts. The Ardas accomplishes
this by clarifying the social circumstances, the subjective states of devotees,
and the desired (and conventional) effects, which explain how the religious acts
should be understood. The reading of Ardas becomes a device to connect contextual
779
In case a reading of Ardas is the only act to be performed, the verbal inclusion will reflexively
refer back to the Ardas reading itself.
780
Hanks 1989, Shoap 2002.
482
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008