Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06the way across the plaza; but when we entered the temple—an interiorlike a mosque but with a central shrine room like a Hindu temple—hisstream flowed more lyrically. Dates, histories, names.... We walkedaround the shrine, looking through its windows at memorabilia, old,mundane objects that reverence had made sacred: here remnants of theGuru’s clothing, here other objects that I can’t remember now; all treasuresof Sikhism. Our guide was filling in the details of a picture that Ididn’t have an outline of: “You can drink some of this water, it is comingfrom the spring that Guru Gobind Singh drank from.” Here GuruGobind Singh was born; here was a picture of Guru Gobind Singh as abeatific child; and so on up the white marble stairs, onto the next floorand the next, reviewing the Sikh memory bank. More cases and pictures:ghastly images of powerfully built bearded prisoners (Sikhs surely)being sawn apart by bald, scowling, and heavy-browed captors; heremighty-thighed heroic Sikhs with grim ardour in their eyes urging otherson to battle and martyrdom; and then up another flight, wondering“What do Sikhs believe in anyway?” “There is one God with manynames. All men are brothers.” I might have guessed.And who was Guru Gobind Singh?For the Sikhs, there were ten great teachers, or gurus, and Guru GobindSingh was the tenth of them. He was born in Patna in 1666. GuruNanak was the first. Their sayings, poems, and devotional songs werecollected in the Sikh holy book, the Adi Granth. That was the thing downstairsthat we came back to, placed on a cushion with a canopy over it,and attended by immaculately dressed priests with long white flywhisks.Horsehair, I supposed in a mesmerized stupor that I hopedpassed for reverence. My legs were going wobbly again. We hovered insilence for a while, consciousness flowing across the hallucinogenic patternof white paving squares, a serene lake on which burly turbaneddevotees floated among soft white light and gold brocades.I needed to sit down and eat, and made suitable noises. Ram RattanSingh took us to a cheap hotel across the road, muttering about the1 7 8