Divine Bliss To Ardent Passion

From Divine Bliss to Ardent Passion: Exploring Sikh Religious Aesthetics through the Dhd Genre Author(s): Michael
Nijhawan Source: History of Religions, Vol. 42, No. 4 (May 2003), pp. 359-385 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/378759 . Accessed: 31/05/2011 21:28
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Michael Nijhawan
F RO M D I V I N E B L I S S TO A R D E N T PA S S I O N : E X P L O R I NG S I K H R E L I G I O US A E S T H E T I C S T H RO UG H T H E D h a d i GENRE
One of the distinctive features of Sikh religious practice is the variation between meditative-mystical and heroic-passionate aesthetics, which in their mutual relationship lend themselves differently to processes of political and social resignication. In this article I wish to explore something of the background of this relationship as it is represented in the discourses and practices associated with a popular performative genre of Panjab called hai. Astonishingly, this genre has to date not received needed scholarly attention, although it is rmly situated in the cultural history of the region. The hai genre comprises crucial elements of bardic song-recitation and in addition incorporates elements of devotional music as well as oratorical forms of historical narration. As an interesting issue we might note that the social stratum from which the performers called hais have emerged was very exible in its association with the major religious traditions of Panjab. As pointed out by scholars like Mark Juergensmeyer and Harjot S. Oberoi, until the late nineteenth
Field research in Panjab in 1999 and 2000 was funded by the Cusanuswerk Bonn. I am grateful to Roma Chatterji, Vasudha Dalmia, Martin Fuchs, William Sax, Khushwant Singh Khushi, Shobna Nijhawan, and the reviewers of History of Religions for commenting on earlier drafts of this article. I would also like to thank Prem Singh, the Sikh Missionary College, and the members of the Guru Hargobind Dhadi Sabha for their generosity in sharing their thoughts and experiences, without which this article could not have been written.
2003 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0018-2710/2003/4204-0003$10.00
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century bardic groups in Panjab could hardly be labeled by attributing to them unied identity markers of Sikh, Hindu, or Muslim origin, which is certainly more accurate in respect to the present situation, as a majority of the performers are members of the Sikh panth.1 In the course of conducting anthropological eldwork, I have encountered hais in religious and secular gatherings, primarily at the occasion of cultural festivals (mele), commemorative festivals at Sikh and Su shrines, and frequently during daily liturgical services of the Sikhs. They are singers, forming a group of three musicians consisting of two drum (ha ) players and a player of a stringed instrument called saragi. In the Sikh tradition a fourth member accompanies the musicians, performing oratory in the form of historical narration (itihasak prasaga) about the Sikh gurus and historical martyrs. Since the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, this genre provides the representational media through which the lives and deeds of past heroes, religious gures, and more recent gures of Panjabs history are remembered. Patronized under the umbrella of the Akal Takht and thus representing Sikh worldly power, the hai genre has retained a language and aesthetics of martyrdom, suffering, and violence, which in its modern, twentieth-century form has emerged as an agent of collective Sikh self-denition and political mobilization. Let me begin with an observation that is directly related to the recent association of the hai genre with the rise of militancy and Sikh ethnonationalism in the 1980s.2 By the time I started ethnographic research, the militant movement had ebbed, yet the memory that linked the passionate voice of hai singers with the violence and suffering of the 1980s was still vivid.3 We might note here as an intriguing fact that this relationship has been mediated by a discourse on the efcacy of the female voice. The recognition of the female voice as such was not entirely new. For a long time the voice of the saragiwithout question the central idiom of hai performancehas been associated with the female
1 Mark Juergensmeyer, Religion as Social Vision (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); and Harjot Oberoi, The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997). A full discussion of how genre, community, and religion are related in the Panjab is beyond the scope of this article. For a broader perspective, see Michael Nijhawan, Dhadi Darbar Religion, Violence, Agency, and Their Historicity in a Panjabi Performative Genre (doctoral thesis, Heidelberg University, 2002). 2 For the term ethnonationalism, see Gurharpal Singh, Ethnic Conict in India: A Case Study of Punjab (London: Macmillan, 2000). 3 Michael Nijhawan, Rhetorik, Musik, und Reprsentationspraxis in Panjabs DhadiGenre, in Moderne Oralitt, ed. Ingo W. Schrder and Stphane Voell (Marburg: Curupira, 2002). For a discussion of diasporic hai songs that represent the ideology of the Khalistan movement, see Joyce Pettigrew, Songs of the Sikh Resistance Movement, Asian Music 23 (Fall/Winter 1992): 85118.
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voice of longing and lament.4 In the recent context of political violence, however, a different principle of the invigorating female voice was given expression. It happened in a way that allowed women performers to enter the male-dominated tradition.5 Women performers rst appeared on the scene immediately before the Indian army launched their attack on the Akal Takht in Amritsar. A group of women performers known as the nabhewale bibiam started to perform heroic songs in the vicinity of the temple complex. The contemporary performers with whom I worked emphasized that the bibiams high pitch of voice was deemed appropriate to arouse fervent passion ( jo), the expression of extreme agony, and the spirit of resistance. In 1999, I had a series of conversations with female singers and musicians, recent converts to Sikhism, whose motivation to perform the hai genre has to be understood against the background of this entanglement of performative voice with political violence. At one point I asked Pawandeep Kaur, leader of a hai group and one of my eldwork interlocutors, why she was attracted to perform the heroic songs of Sikh martyrs, although all evidence suggested that, more than a decade after the turmoil, it could still be potentially harmful to bear the name hai. Counterinsurgency measures of the state were occasionally directed against those taking an active role in commemorative functions. Her answer was:
We do this to gain a state of inner peace [assi apne man di anti vaste karde ham]. It is good for us and there will be no tension. We will not incite tension. We shall neither incite tension nor shall somebody bother us. Brother, nothing wrong will happen to us. Brother, should we suffer pain, we will face it with honor, with our parents honor, with the honor of our brothers and sisters we shall continuethats all [bhai, jitthe unha num ez pahumce, assi unha di leke izzat, ma-piu di izzat, bhain-bhare di izzat le ke turan, bas].
Borrowing the English term tension that has perpetuated public discourse during the last two decades or so, Pawandeep Kaur discarded my
4 As pointed out by Regula Qureshi, the saragi embodies ambivalent memories that are linked with courtesan culture. See Regula Qureshi, How Does Music Mean? Embodied Memories and the Politics of Affect in the Indian Sarangi, American Ethnologist 27, no. 4 (2000): 80538. A full exploration of how the materiality of the saragi signies voice production and functions as a site of alterity for the hai performers is beyond the scope of this article. 5 The emergence of female hais occurred at a time when their male colleagues, with their orthodox outer appearance, were directly confronted with censorship by the state. In performing this genre one had to deal with these hazards of public speech. However, I would not consider the emergence of female performers as the direct consequence of such restrictions. Rather, as I have pointed out, the reassessment of the heroic voice provides the parameters by which the actual appearance of female singers is acknowledged.
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idea that her hai performance would be an expression of militancy or would spur the use of violence. Tension is something that has to be avoided by all means. Tension is what she had known for all too long. It has been a prevalent condition in her life and a political condition under which her performative profession had become subject to general suspicion. Instead, the performance of hai would lead to the release of tension. Beyond the immediate context of violence, the rendering of aesthetic experience is related to the self-understanding of the performers as responsible public and pious actors. What is needed, says Pawandeep Kaur, is the obligation (rz) and responsibility ( jummewari ) of performing before an audience; as another performer stated it, what is presented on the stage must contribute to the Sikh communitys well-being [succajji sehat] and progress [sucaru sehat]. This is different from any bad conduct that is without soul, without recognition (sirah), without meaning [literally without head and feet, be sir-pair]. In the contemporary context in which Sikh hai performers begin to reorganize their social network by dissociating themselves from corrupt patrons and a recent history of militancy and suffering, it comes as no surprise that they emphasize issues of reputation, social responsibility, and piety in clear distinction from bad politics. Thus, on the one hand, Pawandeep Kaurs rendering of the hai genre as a religious way of life resonates with the agenda of an entire performative community.6 On the other hand, she tells us something about the internal processes of how female actors gain reputation in a male-dominated performative community.7
6 The performers of the Malwa region with whom I worked have recently formed an association (hai sabha) in order to put forward their claims on a political platform. Leaving aside a few celebrated performers, Sikh hais are currently not granted sufcient recognition. The average amount of money a jatha receives at a major festival occasion is between 200 and 800 Indian rupees that have to be shared among the four members of a team. At historic gurdware, where Sikh hais perform on Sundays, they mostly earn signicantly less, sometimes merely enough to pay travel expenses. At the same time, the hais are aware that popular preachers ( pracarak and granthis) and kirtan performers (ragis) receive a much larger amount of money and public attention, no matter how well they perform. Some of the claims brought forward against the patrons and Sikh institutions are directed against this obvious gap. 7 For the notion of reputation, see Julian Gerstin, Reputation in a Musical Scene: The Everyday Context of Connections between Music, Identity, and Politics, Ethnomusicology 42, no. 3 (1998): 385 414. According to Gerstin, reputation alludes to the actual processes of internal hierarchization in a musical scene. Gerstin has studied the ways in which reputation is constructed in a performative community. These processes are not accidental to the social identity of musicians but are among the key sites in which questions of aesthetics, competence, and social identity are constantly reworked and concretely related to performative practice (ibid., p. 397). Without being able to explore this issue further here, I argue that for the hai performers, reputation alludes to a broader notion of social recognition. As a performative community, the members of the hai sabha articulate their common ground in terms of religious discourse, by which they also hope to transcend the micropolitics operating in their own networks.
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Pawandeep Kaurs evaluation of performative aesthetics, however, appears to have further implications. The process in which she links self, performative community, and religious tradition cannot be explained entirely in terms of discursive constructions, although, of course, it is through language that these issues are made accessible and intelligible. Pawandeep Kaurs statement is set against the background of a nondiscursive idiom: the mood of stillness and the release of tension. In Sikhism, the process of forming the self in terms of religious piety is usually linked to the practical efforts of reciting, singing, and listening to the hymns of the Adi Granth in the form of the meditative kirtan ritual. Kirtan is considered to be absolutely central, as it elucidates the devotees constant active engagement with, and enactment of, the sacred text. As attested by Pawandeep Kaur and several other performers I have worked with, the meditative idiom and mood of Sikh kirtan is employed here to reinterpret the passionate-interpretive form and performative aesthetics of the hai genre in the aftermath of political violence in Panjab. As I shall further explore, such reinterpretations of performative practice and aesthetics have signicant ramications for our understanding of religious practices in the Sikh tradition and beyond. Anthropologists have drawn attention to the various musical and poetical forms in both liturgy-centered and performance-centered rituals. Music, in particular, has been considered essential to practices of religious experience and self-denition.8 It is said to engender a sense of wholeness and transcendence. The sequencing and patterning of musical performance serves to structure ritual time and set it apart from ordinary time, as can be witnessed, for instance, in the Su qawwali ritual.9 Music intensies the emotional attachment to particular places and moral communities in a persuasive and focused manner. The frequent employment of poetical and musical genres in the religions of north India indicates that people link themselves with religious tradition not merely by the attraction to the doctrines of a particular faith, but because religious tradition is transmitted in a variety of performative repertoires and aesthetic forms through which the self is shaped spiritually and ethically. There is sufcient evidence to suggest that what was for a long time deemed a mere entertaining or supplementary form of expressive culture has in fact been instrumental to the various ways in which subjectivity and agency are constituted in religious practices. Such reevaluations of performativity and musicality have certainly contributed to a reconsideration
8 For the north Indian context, see, in particular, John Leavitt, ed., Poetry and Prophecy: The Anthropology of Inspiration (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), and Regula Qureshi, Su Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context, and Meaning in Qawwali (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 9 Qureshi, Su Music, p. 141.
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of dominant scholarly frameworks on religious tradition. Thus, A. K. Ramanujan, in his work on Indian folklore and literature, has pointed out that Western scholarly approaches to Indian cultural and religious traditions have a tendency to omit the complex structure of performative practices. For a long time, Western approaches were preoccupied with a context-free hermeneutic analysis that would not lend itself to contextsensitive forms of cultural practice and narrative tradition. Regarding the plural framework of Indian narrative traditions, which are often part and parcel of religious rituals, he has emphasized that no Indian text comes without a context, a frame, till the nineteenth century. Rather, we nd clear instructions that tell the reader, reciter or listener all the good that will result from his act of reading, reciting or listening.10 Recently, historians of religions have reemphasized this line of thought. The deistic model of religiosity in particular, based on a clear distinction between arts as the domain of (secular) aesthetics and the essence of religion to be accessed by natural reason, has become subject to extensive criticism. As Donna Wulff has argued, Western students of religion continue to focus largely on the discursive symbols of theology and philosophy rather than on the presentational symbols of music, drama, and the visual arts.11 In a similar vein, Navid Kermani has pointed out that the relatively clear separation between art and religion in the Western mind . . . is rather the exception, and one is tempted to turn the discussion of the aesthetic dimension of the Quran into the question of why this dimension is largely lost in the Western image of religion.12 Wulff and Kermani defy the idea that religion is primarily accessible through its rational doctrines. At the same time, no attempt is being made to return to European romanticist notions of a presumably universal religious (mystical) core in the diversity of religion, which, as lucidly shown by Grace Jantzen, had been a current in post-Enlightenment thinking from Schleiermacher to William James.13 In this article I would like to pursue a somewhat different line of thought by shifting the emphasis from the debate over religious hermeneutics to an investigation of religious aesthetics as a sphere of practical engagement through which we might better understand the historical transitions taking place within religious and performative traditions them10 A. K. Ramanujan, Is There an Indian Way of Thinking? in The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, ed. Vijay Dharwadker (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 3451. 11 Donna M. Wulff, Religion in a New Mode: The Convergence of the Aesthetic and the Religious in Medieval India, Journal of the American Academy of Religions 54, no. 4 (1986): 673. 12 Navid Kermani, Revelation in Its Aesthetic Dimension, in The Quran as Text, ed. Stefan Wild (Leiden: Brill, 1996), p. 221. 13 Grace M. Jantzen, Mysticism and Experience, Religious Studies 25 (1989): 296315, and Could There Be a Mystical Core of Religion? Religious Studies 26 (1990): 5971.
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selves. As my introductory example illustrates, it is not sufcient to confront hermeneutical and performative concepts in their applicability to non-Western forms of religion. Anthropologically speaking, the issue has to do with the culturally situated practices and discourses in which the relationship between religion and aesthetics is recognized and reevaluated by social actors. To take this issue seriously, I suggest, we should not lose sight of the fact that practitioners can and often do make clear distinctions between the ineffable mystical experience of the divine and aesthetic experience. The important fact is that we nd an ongoing debate on the necessity and legitimacy of such distinctions, which are frequently drawn within the same registers of art, poetry, and music (as, for instance, between sacred and secular poetry in Islam). In this regard, there is a common feature in my argument with Anna M. Gades work on the tradition of Quranic recitation in Indonesia, which concerns the idea of critical self-measurements against commonly held ideals of religious musicality.14 Gade proposes conceptualizing religious musicality as a key site for understanding how social actors internalize religious structure, enactments of religious musicality thus offering particularly accessible, audible points of reference for apprehending changes in religious self and system, as well as the interactions of these domains.15 Gade has focused on how the self is measured against the background of nondiscursive ideals of voice, talent, and taste, which I think accounts for the possible ways in which a performative tradition can become a site of alterity. Thus, for instance, Pawandeep Kaurs reassessment of the meditative mood of kirtan in the passionate hai voice is a translation of the new sense of self, attained through musical and religious training. This is appraised in terms of gaining self-respect and honor distinct from a personal past of vulnerability and poverty. My interest in this article, however, is not with the social psychology of this process but rather with the relationship between performative aesthetics and their historical and social conditions of possibility. I argue below that the assessment of the hai genre in terms of religious aesthetics can be reiterated as a struggle with the dissonant memories that are inherited in the practices associated with the name hai. Thus, the term hai is incorporated in the Sikh scriptures as a concept of mystical communication with the divine. Sikh hagiography, in contrast, provides a different notion of how hai and religious aesthetics are related by signifying hai as a recognizable performative tradition in terms of Sikh patronage. This in turn places the relationship between performative voice and sacred sound on a different level. As I will show, the transitions
14 Anna M. Gade, Taste, Talent, and the Problem of Internalization: A Quranic Study in Religious Musicality from Southeast Asia, History of Religions 41, no. 4 (2002): 32868. 15 Ibid., p. 330.
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between these two orientations serve to problematize the notion of otherness of contemporary hai performers. Yet at the same time, and under particular historical circumstances such as existed during the 1980s, they allow for a kind of social resignication through performative aesthetics, as indicated in the statement of Pawandeep Kaur introduced above.16 Dhadi in the early sikh traditionthe mystical dimension
Ardasi suni datari prabhi hahi kau mahil bulawai Prabh dekhdia dukh bhukh gai hahi kau mangnu citi na avai (Sri Adi Granth Sahib, Rag Maru, Mahla 5, Pauri, Panna 1097) [God, the great giver, hears the prayer, and summons the minstrel to the mansion of his presence Gazing upon God, the minstrel is rid of pain and hunger; he does not think to ask for anything else.]17
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The mystical meaning of the name hai can best be appraised by situating it within Sikh cosmology and the social vision of the early Sikh tradition. Let me remind the reader of the most basic principles of Sikhism: it is a monotheistic religion in which God (Adi Purakh) is regarded as omnipresent and as the creator of the universe. This is already expressed in the compositions of Guru Nanak (14691539), whom Sikhs conceive as the founding father of their religion, and all the following historical gurus conrm it. God is regarded as immanent and transcendent at the same time. He revealed himself to mankind in the form and teachings of the historical Sikh gurus.18 Their hymns are compiled in a sacred book called the Adi Granth (or Guru Granth Sahib), to which Sikh religion assigns the highest authority. In fact, it is itself regarded as the manifes16 My argument on how differently the Sikh tradition authorizes the hai genre does not entail a value judgment on either Sikhism or hai in terms of a coherent tradition in historical perspective. As will become sufciently evident in the course of my discussion, we deal here with a category of social praxis and interaction (distinctions and interpretative efforts made by various actors). 17 I have indicated the original section and pages according to the Guru Granth Sahib. The translation is taken from Sant Singh Khalsa, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, with revised translation (Santa Ana: Sikh Center of Orange County, 1995 [CD-ROM]). 18 For a discussion of the Sikh belief system, see J. S. Grewal, Contesting Interpretations of the Sikh Tradition (Delhi: Manohar, 1998); Niharranjan Ray, The Sikh Gurus and the Sikh Society: A Study in Social Analysis (Patiala: Punjabi University Press, 1970); Daljeet Singh and Kharak Singh, eds., Sikhism: Its Philosophy and History (Chandigarh: Institute of Sikh Studies, 1997); J. P. S. Uberoi, Religion, Civil Society, and the State: A Study of Sikhism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999). The canonization of the Adi Granth is expansively discussed in Gurinder Singh Mann, The Making of Sikh Scriptures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
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tation of the guru and is accordingly treated as the central element around which Sikh liturgical rituals are organized. The Adi Granth is considered unchangeable in its form and character, and Sikhs nd in it the basics of their faith. According to the hymns of the Adi Granth, the world came into existence by divine order (hukam). The hymns describe a religious path that follows neither Hindu nor Muslim practice and custom. The gurus insist on the rejection of all ritualistic or ascetic practices as a means of salvation. The emphasis is on truthful living that follows an ethical code (rahit), which entails an active engagement with society and humanity. The worldly orientation of the householder is regarded as a prerequisite rather than a hindrance to salvation in Sikhism. In some of the hymns in the Adi Granth, to which I shall now turn, the gurus refer to themselves as hais (hahi). The rst reference to hai appears as the last stanza of the tenth composition, Rag Majh, in a var composed by Guru Nanak. We nd here that the name mediates mystical communication with God and the core concepts of the Sikh faith:
Hau hahi vekaru karai laia Rati dihai kai var dhurhu phurmaia hahi sacai mahali khasami bulaia Saci siphati malah kapra paia Saca amrit namu bhojanu aia Gurmati khadha raji tini sukhu paia hahi kare pasau sabadu vajaia Nanak sacu salahi pura paia (Sri Adi Granth Sahib, Rag Majh, Mahala 1, Pauri, Panna 1501) [I was a minstrel, out of work, when the Lord took me into His service. To sing His Praises day and night, He gave me His Order, right from the start. My Lord and Master has summoned me, His minstrel, to the True Mansion of His Presence. He has dressed me in the robes of His True Praise and Glory. The Ambrosial Nectar of the True Name has become my food. Those who follow the Gurus Teachings, who eat this food and are satised, nd peace. His minstrel spreads His Glory, singing and vibrating the Word of His Shabad. O Nanak, praising the True Lord, I have obtained His Perfection.]
In these words, Guru Nanak expresses his belief that he was bestowed with divine insight and that he had been chosen by God to sing his sacred hymns. The name hai has a truly spiritual meaning in this context. Used as an epithet in Nanaks hymns, it is at the same time an expression of the devotional prayer and graceful calling of Gods name.
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It is important to note that the verses of the Adi Granth are hymns; they are sung and memorialized by the devotees in the form of different ragas. In fact, the very spiritual meaning of these hymns can hardly be thought of as existing separate from the music-poetical forms, in the sense that the latter would constitute an aesthetic supplement to the actual meaning of the narrative content. The emphasis on music and poetic form is expressed in the structure of the Adi Granth as a whole. The book is divided into thirty-one subsections, each of which is attributed to a particular raga, beginning with Sri Raga. This indicates that the historical gurus were trained in classical north Indian music. They consciously chose complex musical structures to transmit divine messages.19 Sonic form itself was regarded as sacred, and listening to sacred sound as transcendental. In contemporary Sikh liturgy, these hymns are recited in the kirtan or abad-kirtanthe central devotional practice of Sikhism. It is a form of meditation that consists of singing and listening to the hymns of the Adi Granth in a congregational setting. In kirtan, the gurus hymns gain their full evocative power in the aesthetic experience of singers and listeners. Similar to the Islamic tradition (as, e.g., indicated in the debate on correct listening in the Su sama), there are certain prescriptions and codes of conduct as to how the hymns are to be heard and recited. Ideally, the mind has to be puried from the desires and interests of everyday life in order to guarantee a correct execution of the kirtan. Pious Sikhs will only recite and listen to the poetic hymns of the Adi Granth in a devotional posture and with proper attire. This attitude is symbolized in practices such as cleaning hands and feet before entering the precinct of the gurdwara and keeping the head covered before the sacred scripture, which after all is also considered to be the residence of the guru. Such prescriptions guarantee a clear boundary drawn between the pleasure taken in secular poetry (or music) and the religious aesthetics evoked through listening to the hymns of the Adi Granth. Unlike in the Islamic tradition, however, where the doctrine excludes any form of instrumental music during prayer times, Sikh kirtan has always been performed to the accompaniment of string and drum instruments.20 Some historical examples of instruments used for the kirtan include the taus,
19 Sher Singh Sher, Contribution of Sikh Gurus to Indian Musicology, in Current Thoughts on Sikhism, ed. Kharak Singh (Chandigarh: Institute of Sikh Studies, 1996), pp. 31927. According to Sher, these ragas represent all basic seasonal and temporal moods of the classical Indian raga. Sher Singh also points out the Sikh gurus preference for string instruments. Thus, the sarinda (the predecessor of the sarangi ) is attributed to Guru Arjan (ibid., p. 323). 20 The Su qawwali is certainly an exception, yet as a form of ritual practice it is also clearly distinguished from Muslim prayer and never falls into prayer times.
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sarinda, and jori-pakhawaj. In modern times, the harmonium and the tabla have occupied their place.21 The importance attributed to sound also accords with the religious practices and teachings that characterized the north Indian saint-poets. Some of these compositions were even authorized by the Sikh gurus and later included in the nal canon of the Guru Granth Sahib. In one of these verses, Kabir, the famous saint-poet, says:
By union of the ardent seeker and the enlightened Teacher Comes about success in unison and devotion to God. People consider my poems as songs, Know these are meditations on the Divine. Holy as the liberating sermon in Kashi at the time of death Whoever chants or listens to the Name Divine with devoted heart Saith Kabir, without doubt shall attain the supreme.22
The inclusion of Kabir and other saint-poets hymns indicates that the religious aesthetics of the early Sikh tradition shared important elements with the sant tradition of medieval Panjab. This does not agree with a current view, according to which Nanaks religion was simply another form of nirguna bhakti, which for many Sikhs entails a crucial misunderstanding of the uniqueness and self-constitutive character of Sikh religion.23 For the purpose of the argument outlined here, it is sufcient to say that the historic Sikh gurus lived in a wider cultural and religious framework to which the use of vernacular musical-poetical forms as a medium of religious aesthetics was germane. To the extent that the Sikh gurus have withdrawn from seeing the divine in iconic representations
21 I am grateful to Bhai Baldeep Singh for sharing his insights into the history of instrumentation and religious musicality in the Sikh tradition. 22 Sri Adi Granth Sahib, Rag Gauri, Ashtpadi. This translation is taken from Gurbachan Singh Talib, Sri Guru Granth Sahib (Patiala: Patiala University Press, 1984), p. 335. For a discussion of Kabirs religion, see Charlotte Vaudeville, Kabir and Interior Religion, History of Religions 3, no. 2 (1964): 191201. 23 Kabir, Nanak, and Dadu are often named in the same breath as the inuential sants (or poet-saints) in medieval north India. See, e.g., Karine Schomer and W. H. McLeod, eds., The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1987). Hew McLeod has proposed that the early Sikh tradition had been merely another version of the sant movement. This idea has had a signicant impact on how Western academia conceptualizes Sikhism and has in turn been criticized by a variety of Sikh scholars. While many of the arguments against McLeod were polemical in character, J. S. Grewal, among others, has pointed out that McLeod has failed to acknowledge crucial differences between Nanak and other santsdifferences that in the case of Nanaks thought were decisive in explaining the self-constitutive force of the Sikh tradition. Existing cleavages in Sikh scholarship notwithstanding, most historians would certainly agree that there was a shared common ground in the teachings of Kabir, Dadu, and Nanak.
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(the Hindu notion of daran), they have revitalized the sacred meaning of sound. Musical congregations have been a predominant way of worship since the inception of Sikh religion. The belief that one could reach a new threshold of religio-aesthetic experience by performing a pure lyric in the kirtan has been a main focus of Sikh ritual practice up until today.24 We can link this shared emphasis of the Sikh gurus and bhaktas on aesthetic praxis and reception of divine sound to a shared notion of Indian aesthetics as indicated in the concept of rasa, of which I will have more to say below. There is a clear emphasis on experiencing the divine messages through their mood, taste, or tone of voice. Particularly in reference to Guru Ram Das (guruship: 157481), commentators have put emphasis on the fact that for the early Sikh community (as is true for the contemporary Sikh panth) the focus of devotional activities was not on the text in its abstract meaning (though the written word was important) but on the liturgical-musical praxis of evoking the divine Name.25 The divine Name can be reected upon in all its aspects (nam simaran), and it seems the compilers of the Sikh holy book systematized this insight in a musical architecture that provided the text with its nal form as bani, which at the same time expresses the idea of text as an aesthetic object and as a site of constant practical engagement.26 It is in this framework of sacred sound and religious aesthetics that we can locate the mystical meaning of the term hai in the Sikh tradition in its generic dimension. For Guru Nanak as well as for his successors, the liberation of mankind lay in inward meditation in the service of the True Lordhai is the minstrel divine engaged in exactly this devotional practice.
24 According to Bhai Baldeep Singh, shabad kirtan requires a perceptual awareness of the tradition of kirtan maryada as it developed right from the times of the Gurus. This would mean a clear understanding not only of the raga forms but also of the classical folk forms used in kirtan . . . [as] indicated in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. With changing times these fundamental forms have been polluted and tampered with. For example, there are 22 vaars (odes) in the Guru Granth Sahib but it is a pity that only asa-di-vaar is recited today. The singing of these compositions was phenomenal as was the style of accompaniment on the percussive instruments. There were different rhythmic patterns played with each vaar. The enormous challenge that we face today is to recover and restore the original forms of these compositions as authenticated by the great bards of the Gurdarbar. Bhai Baldeep Singh, The Tradition of Kirtan and Its Discipline, in Perspectives on Sikhism, ed. Prithipal Singh Kapur and Dharam Singh (Patiala: Punjabi University Publication Bureau, 2001), p. 155. For more information on the genre of the var, see n. 33 below. 25 Gobind Singh Mansukhani, A Survey of the Poetry and Music of Guru Ram Das, Journal of Sikh Studies 11, no. 2 (1984): 6686. 26 Balbinder Bhogal, On the Hermeneutics of Sikh Thought and Praxis, in Sikh Religion, Culture, and Ethnicity, ed. Christopher Shackle, Gurharpal Singh, and Arvind Pal Singh Mandair (London: Curzon, 2001), p. 88.
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hahi tis no akhiai ji khasmai dhare piaru Dari khara seva gur sabadi vicaru hahi daru gharu paisi sacu rakhai ur dhari hahi ka mahalu agala hari kai nai piari hahi ki seva cakari hari japi hari nimatari (Sri Adi Granth Sahib, Gujari ki Var, Mahala 3, Pauri, Panna 5165) [He alone is called a minstrel, who enshrines love for his Lord and Master. Standing at the Lords Door, he serves the Lord, and reects upon the Word of the Gurus Shabad. The minstrel attains the Lords Gate and Mansion, and he keeps the True Lord clasped to his heart. The status of the minstrel is exalted; he loves the Name of the Lord. The service of the minstrel is to meditate on the Lord; he is emancipated by the Lord.]
It needs to be remembered at this point in the discussion that Sikhism is not embedded in an entire belief system of mysticism or asceticism. As already mentioned, the practice of meditation and congregational singing in Sikhism is complemented by an equally strong commitment to the specic conduct of a social and pious life. Unlike nath (yogi) or certain ascetic Su traditions, which stress inward meditation and the rejection of outward forms, Sikh religion places an emphasis on the accomplishment of religious truth by associating oneself with the saintly community (sadh-sangat) of devotees. Everyday conduct and social service in the community are therefore absolutely essential. Sikh belief and practice also reject any idea of mysticism according to which disciples would require a spiritual guide in the form of another human agent without whom the objectives of prayer and meditation could not be achieved. The central focus in Sikh religion is the mystical meaning of scripture in its intellectual and aesthetic experience, evoked by means of meditating on, singing of, and listening to the sacred hymns. The emphasis on the intimate experience of God is mystical to the extent that interior communication with the divine is based on the concept of a path of love, which in turn is not private and individualistic but, similar to what Grace Jantzen has found in her study of two paradigmatic cases of the Christian mystical tradition, quintessentially communal, public, and indeed political in its interconnections with integrity and justice.27 These political underpinnings of religious aesthetics and concepts of Sikh mysticism in fact have direct importance for my discussion of the
27
Jantzen, Mystical Core (n. 13 above), p. 71.
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hai genre. The name hai was employed in the sacred hymns not merely by poetic convention but presumably also by conscious choice, in order to express the social vision of Sikh religion: the ordinariness and equality of all human beings in relation to the supreme Lord.28 The Sikh gurus could not have missed the fact that the name hai was associated with a group of bards that ranked at the lower end of the social hierarchy. Although we must be careful not to project the negative social image of musicians of later periods upon the situation in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Panjab, it is very likely that bards were associated with service castes, and thus were regarded as low and dependent on the patronage of powerful rulers, chiefs, and families. The increasing number of hymns in which the term hai (hahi) appears is traceable in Guru Ram Dass compositions. As a matter of fact, this corresponds with the period in which many low-caste groups are believed to have joined the emerging Sikh community. The original Sikh community in Kartarpur that gathered around Nanak was already egalitarian in appearance, based on a rejection of caste and gender inequalities that were explicitly transgressed in the form of sharing of food or by means of congregational worship. This orientation toward social equality and everyday life was further developed during the time of Nanaks successors Guru Angad, Guru Amar Das, and Guru Ram Das. Guru Amar Das (guruship: 1552 74), for instance, established the manjispositions held by appointed Sikhs who were given the task of education and handling of community affairs.29 During this early period of the institutionalization of Sikh religion, the community increased and central institutions such as the community kitchen (lagar), code of conduct (rahit maryada), and a revenue system (das vand ) for the benet of the underprivileged and for the maintenance of the gurdwara were established. Followers of the Sikhs were streaming in from all spheres of social life; however, because of the rejection of caste inequalities, there existed a special appeal for lowcaste groups, which are said to have venerated the Sikh gurus in great numbers. At different junctures in the development of Sikhism, one nds allusions to the depressed situation of its followers. Social criticism runs throughout the scriptures and is one of the cornerstones of Sikh religion, which is why the use of the name hai could possibly be seen as tting into the sociopolitical dimension of religious thought as outlined in the Adi Granth.
28 In the same fashion, it seems, Sur Das used the epithet hai. See John Stratton Hawley, Sur Das: Poet, Singer, Saint (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984). 29 Mann (n. 18 above), p. 13.
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Miri-Piri as interpretive gridrecasting Dhadi as a social and performative category There is not much doubt that the Sikh Gurus had bards (hais, bhas, and other musicians) among their followers. Sikh iconography, for instance, depicts Guru Nanak with two disciples, one of whom is Mardana, the player of the one-stringed instrument, the rabab.30 Drawing on Persian chronicles, Joep Bor and Daniel Neuman proposed that the name hai signifies a particular group of local musicians who, during Mughal rule, were ranked as average musicians below other musicians of Persian origin, such as the atai or huzuri and gunijan or darbari.31 Thus, by using the epithet hai, the Sikh gurus employed a distinct social category as an idiom of self-reference. While this fact seems uncontested, the question of what actual social role the bards held is somewhat ambiguous. Before, I have indicated the mystical evocation of the name hai. In the literature I refer to in this section, we nd numerous references to hais as heroic singers. Thus, Joep Bor quotes from the chronicler Faquirullah, arguing that dhadhis [hais] were the oldest community of musicians, and originally Rajputs. They sang karkha, which was composed in four to eight lines to sing the praises of the war-lords, the brave soldiers, and to narrate the affairs of battles and war. He also informs us that the Punjabi dhadhis [hais] played the dhadh [ha] (a small-sized dhol to which they owed their name), and sang heroic ballads, called bar [var].32 This seventeenth-century description of hai bards is astonishingly close to the image of contemporary Sikh hais. Interestingly, in this citation we nd generic associations with narrative-musical forms such as the var, which in turn is one of the most frequent poetic meters used in the Adi Granth. As a matter of fact, the reference to hai in the Sikh scriptures occurs in the form of pauris. This is the term used for short compositions that are either a subsection of a var or take the form
30 This group of Muslim performers still exists in Panjab (particularly in Lahore), and they trace their origin to the same Mardana who is said to have accompanied Nanak on his legendary travels. While the rabab was an instrument used in Sikh kirtan singing, the same cannot be said of those instruments (saragi and ha) that are characteristic of the hai genre in contemporary Panjab. Thus, although we nd in the early Sikh tradition a combination of stringed and percussion instruments (sarinda and jori-pakhawaj) that might have conceptually facilitated later uses of folk instruments, instrumentation alone is not sufcient to account for the meaning of hai in the Sikh tradition. 31 Joep Bor, The Voice of the Sarangi, Quarterly Journal of the National Centre for the Performing Arts 15 (1987): 6178; Daniel M. Neuman, The Life of Music in North India (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980). See also Bonnie C. Wade, Imaging Sound: An Ethnomusicological Study of Music, Art, and Culture in Mughal India (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 32 Bor, p. 62.
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of a single short var. The genre of the var (pl. varam) is usually translated as epic poetry. The twenty-two varam and abundant pauris included in the Adi Granth vary in their musical structure, but some of them are attributed to bards who were specialists in heroic genres.33 Guru Arjan specied nine varam, with particular information on rhythm and style.34 Signicantly, these varam are associated today with the hai genre. For the Sikh tradition, the occurrence of a heroic var in the Adi Granth reects what is often described as a transition from a pietistic to a heroic period in Sikh history. In its application in modern historical analysis, the distinction between these two phases sometimes involves the idea of a dualistic devotional concept in Sikhism. Yet it must be clearly stated that for a majority of Sikh believers piety is not opposed to the concept of the heroic. Most people would agree, however, that because of historical circumstances, a martial spirit and militant resistance as ultimate forms of self-defense became an important facet of Sikh religion. And with this new political emphasis, I shall argue, we also nd that a new form of religious aesthetics is introduced into Sikhism. The notion of hai serves as an ideal point of access to reect on the social and political signicance attributed to this transition. The turning point was Guru Arjans death in 1606, which is remembered as the rst martyrdom in Sikh history. This event was followed by decisive changes in the Sikh tradition, introduced by Guru Arjans son and successor, Guru Hargobind (15951644). The latter founded the institution of the Akal Takht (the eternal throne), hence the representation of Sikh political authority. It was erected exactly opposite the sacred place of worship, the Harmandir Sahib, in Amritsar. Guru Hargobind established a strong military force, wore the paraphernalia of royal power (he was called the sacca patah, the true king), and established a royal darbar from which he issued his orders, or hukumname.35 This apparent mimesis of prevalent symbolic and political forms of royal authority led
33 According to research on this topic presented in the Sikh Encyclopedia, the var achieved new status with Guru Arjan: The Gurus from the time of Guru Arjan onward had Bhas and bards in attendance on them. After Satta and Balvan, whose var was given scriptural status by Guru Arjan, we come across bards Abdullah and Natth Mall who sang vars in the time of Guru Hargobind. They are believed to have written 72 vars, though only a few fragments of these are still extant. Guru Gobind Singh had living with him a large number of poets and bards, prominent among them Mir Mushki and Mir Chhabila who recited vars at the afternoon divans. See Harbans Singh, ed., The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1998), 4:407. 34 These include Var Malak Murid tatha Cahndrahara Sohia, Rai Kamaldi Maujdi ki Var, Tune Asraje ki Var, Sikandar Birahim ki Var, Lalla Bahilima ki Var, Var Jodhe Virai Purbani Ki, Var Rai Mahime Hasne Ki, Rane Kailas ate Maldeo ki Var, Muse ki Var. 35 G. S. Chhabra, Advanced History of the Punjab, vol. 1, Guru and Post-Guru Period Upto Ranjit Singh (Jalandhar: Sharanjit, 1960), p. 196. See also Uberoi (n. 18 above), p. 93.
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to a situation in which Sikhs were perceived as a potential threat to the legitimacy of the Mughal state. In a nineteenth-century hagiographic genre, the Gurbilas Patshahi 6, it is mentioned that Guru Hargobind patronized hai bards; two of them are explicitly namedAbdullah and Nattha.36 The patronage of musicians ts into a larger cultural picture. The transmission of Mughal religious and political authority, for instance, drew heavily from cultural performances and rituals in which hai and other musicians participated. It is most likely that Guru Hargobind followed this pattern by calling hai musicians into his darbar. According to Sikh hagiographies, this happened at the time when he established his military force.37 Thus, Sikh hagiography links the emergence of hai bards with the militarization of the community. The majority of contemporary Sikh hais name Guru Hargobind as the founding patron of their community. Guru Hargobind not only introduced military exercises, he also created the Sikh ideal of the saint-soldier (sant-sipahi) that can be traced back to these historical circumstances. According to this narrative, hais were introduced to provide panegyrizing services on the side of Sikh worldly power. Their contribution was to sing martial ballads to inspire the military followers of the religious leader. This transition in the organization of the Sikh community is conceptualized in the principle of miri-piri: the balance held between spiritual and temporal power.38 As a consequence of the execution of his father, Guru Hargobind wore two swords that symbolized the dual structure of worldly and spiritual power. The hai genre, linked to the ceremonial order of the Akal Takht, hence became part of the miri concept and must therefore be considered as an agent of religious-political power. Until the present day, hais are associated with the Akal Takht and perform in the same vicinity. In other places, they are explicitly introduced as the heroic element to be distinguished from the congregational kirtan. The narration of historical deeds and the eulogies of heroic deaths on battleelds have become in this way the distinctive edge of hai performance in the Sikh tradition.
Chhabra, p. 200. A further possible interpretation could be that, in order to build military strength, Guru Hargobind exploited the martial nature of the tribal Jas who brought with them the heroic tunes of the hai tradition. This is a valuable idea insofar as Jas are known to have venerated martyr-saints and to have inherited a heroic tradition. Yet we have to be very careful not to essentialize heroism and violence at the level of tribal identity. See, e.g., Nonica Datta, Forming an Identity: A Social History of the Jats (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999). 38 For a discussion of the miri-piri system, see Bachittar Singh, Akal TakhtConcept of Miri-Piri, in Current Thoughts on Sikhism, ed. Kharak Singh (Chandigarh: Institute of Sikh Studies, 1996), pp. 216 47.
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Rasa and sikh religious aesthetics I have referred to the nine varam in the Adi Granth that are associated with the hai genre. The narrative content of these hymns conrms their emphasis on heroic aesthetics. The maujdi ki var, for example, tells of two rivals at Akbars darbar who die on the battleeld. The mood of these varam is bir-rasa, the musical form that according to the Indian rasa theory corresponds to and evokes a heroic taste or mood. It is important to note that these hymns constitute gurbani (the authenticated language of the Sikh Gurus) and are thus given voice in Sikh kirtan. Accordingly, the mood of bir-rasa is conceptualized as a part of the mystical orientation of calling Gods name, sometimes referred to as nam rasa. The rst transition in the concept of hai aesthetics therefore has to do with a shift within the framework of Sikh sacred language. It is not a question of one form of hai being linked to sacred language and the other to secular discourse.39 Before discussing further the historical transitions of the hai genre and its reevaluation in contemporary religious discourse, let me briey turn to the notion of rasa, which I have found to be a popular concept of aesthetic receptivity in Panjab. I do not want to engage here in a theological or philosophical debate on whether the concept of rasa accounts for the mystical experience in liturgical ritual or not. What I have observed is that listeners and performers do employ the technical language of rasas in order to draw distinctions between genres of public performance and ritual liturgy to the extent that these are efcacious in creating particular, collectively shared moods. The mastery of various performative genres and the renements of voice are seen as prerequisite to generating and experiencing these moods. The early Sanskrit treatises on dramaturgy and aesthetic experience in which the notion of the rasa is delineated link technical mastery and religious experience, while placing each of them on different planes.40 Thus the evocation of aesthetic pleasure is not considered an end in itself, in the sense of taking pleasure in art for the sake of art. On the contrary, aesthetic experience is seen as a generalized emotive situation created by means of dramatic, poetic, or musical performance, which ideally is
39 While in the Islamic tradition we nd strong emphasis placed on the tajwid, the inherited tradition that prescribes in minute detail how precisely the Quran is to be recited, a similar institution is missing in the case of Sikh religion. For a discussion of aesthetics in the Islamic tradition, see Navid Kermani, Gott ist schn: Das sthetische Erleben des Koran (Mnchen: Beck). 40 Wulff (n. 11 above), p. 674. The theory of Indian aesthetics was presumably rst developed in a treatise on Sanskrit drama (Nayashastra) attributed to the sage Bharata and further explored by the Kashmiri Shivaite philosopher Abhinavagupta (tenth to eleventh century). For a translation, see Raniero Gnoli, The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta (Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1956).
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oriented toward a process of revelation. The experience of rasa is not a natural state of feelings and sentiments expressed on the stage, but a culturally stipulated concept for which, in the case of classical drama, several requirements of actors and listeners are posited.41 Sanskrit drama theory is explicit in describing the various techniques to be used by actors on the stage to produce seven to nine different types of rasa, such as anta (the pure state of mind, what is thought to be the Buddhas state of mind) or vira (the heroic state). But listeners, too, have to be familiar with the various representational forms and underlying emotive states of mind that are thought to resonate in the process of dramaturgy. With regard to the religious and cultural traditions of South Asia, rasa is differently assessed as a concept by which to understand the communicative and experiential processes in liturgical ritual and performative contexts. Such differentiations also apply within one and the same religious tradition. Thus, contemporary hai performance differs signicantly from the framing of musical performance and reception in terms of sacred liturgy, in the way demonstrated above. The emphasis continues to be placed on the heroic mood (bir rasa), engendered through the performance of var and saka tunes. Rasa as a modality of performative aesthetics, however, becomes related to rhetorical forms of voice production in oratory and song, which serve purposes other than those expressed in Sikh kirtan. I shall provide as an example a section from a popular composition from the early 1930s in which the eighteenth-century Sikh warrior and martyr Baba Dip Singh is praised. The section consists of oratory that leads to a popular hai song in the Panjabi vernacular. Baba Dip Singh, by that time the leader ( jatthedar) of a Sikh misl (military squad), receives the news of an attack by the Afghan ruler Abdali on Amritsar. His reaction is represented as follows:
prasaga Ih sun ke sheram de dil bharak uhe. ik tom duja pahilam shahidi prapt karan waste tiar si. sabh talwaram puh ke tiar ho gae. turan tom pahilam baba dip singh ne dharti te lik vic khic ke ik var pher lalkar ke kiha: [oratory] [When the Sikhs heard this, they got enraged. Everyone was ready to be martyred. They held their swords ready for attack. Before they moved out, Baba Dip Singh drew a line on the earth and once again challenged his companions:
41 Gnoli, pp. 6364. In the translation of Abhinavagupta, aesthetic receptiveness is equivalent to a mirror-like power of intuition (pratibhara) that resides in the heart.
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42 Saka

[Tune Saka] [Drawing a line, Dip Singh raised his sword He said: Only he should cross this line, who embraces death, and whose heart would not be feeble Who would cut the enemy in pieces, and would not show his back, Who would attack them with swords when facing their eyes, Who would play holi with blood, says Sital.]42
lik mar ke dip singh khanha lishkawem bole: agge lik tom uh sura awem jis num maut kabul hai, dil nahim ulawem purza ka mare nahim kan wikhawem mare tegham siddhiam sidhe muh khawem holi khee khun di Sital rang lawem
The rhetoric of martyrdom and bloodshed predominates in contemporary hai performance. The efficacy of hai performance is conceptualized in terms of bodily heat (the blood is brought to a boilkhun vic jo paida hai ) or the eruption of inner forces (man andar ubal auna). The body image of the Sikh hai bard is apparently different from the meditative posture of the kirtan singer and listener: the performers stand upright and hardly move their bodies during the performance, while keeping a majestic and noble pose with the eyes xed in one direction. In addition to the musical-poetical forms, hai performances are assessed in terms of facial expression, gesture, and bodily movement. The entire bodily dynamic consists of the raised oratory nger and the alteration of the singers voices. Thus, although the bards do not use a very complex grammar of facial expressions and meaningful gestures, they are certainly engaged in a manner in which the movement of the hand, the modes of voice production, the play of gestures, and the symbolic meanings displayed by the body in terms of dress and pose constitute recognizable performative aesthetics that depend on their visibility rather than their audibility. For the Sikh disciple, rasa as linked to the notion of ineffable mystical experience in Sikh kirtan is therefore not equivalent to the aesthetic concepts and representative contents of contemporary hai performance. In terms of a technical grammar to assess standards of technical mastery and
42 I traced this composition to Sohan Singh Seetals Sital Taragam (Ludhiana: Lahore Book Shop, 1993). In my doctoral dissertation I have devoted several chapters to analyzing the transitions and entailments of the genre in pre- and postpartition politics in the Panjab. See Nijhawan, Dhadi Darbar (n. 1 above).
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ritual or performative competence, however, the orientation toward rasa as a discernible object alludes to a shared framework of aesthetic evaluation. It is because of this shared framework that actors are able to revitalize links between the musical-aesthetic domains of hai and kirtan. Dhadi as heroic spirit: refashioning the puranic tradition Sikh performers today face further interpretive problems, as hai aesthetics are often associated with particular categories of social and religious difference.43 Most of the references that are historically available in Sikh hagiography trace hai musicians with Muslim names. If we turn to colonial representations, we nd that hai performers were glossed in derogatory terms as mirasi. Although this category originally represented a group of genealogists cum musicians, its social usage had been expanded to designate a witty and vulgar character. Whereas for the Sikh gurus the social class and religious background of the Muslim musicians was not problematic, it seems that in a contemporary context the Sikh tradition faces some difculties in bridging the two dissonant memories of the hai genre. On the one hand, it is remembered as an intrinsic part of the Sikh devotional tradition, and yet, on the other hand, we have a suppressed memory of folk singers who were patronized and had their origin in different cultural or even different religious traditions. One might assume that these two perspectives are not mutually exclusive, and indeed I have no intention of questioning the social legitimacy of this claim. But the puzzle remains of how we ought to understand the transition from a devotional employment of the name hai as an intrinsic part of Sikh sacred literature to a performative genre based on secular representational modesa transition that entails a shift from aesthetic to social categories as well as a shift from what is considered sacred language to vernacular representational modes. Further interpretive efforts are necessary to frame the genre as cultural practice and as an agent of Sikh collective mobilization in historical perspective. In the following section I propose that this transition be assessed in terms of an integration of different religio-aesthetic concepts, as can be inferred from the discourses and practices that have centered on another revered text in the Sikh tradition, the Dasam Granth. Like almost every other religion, Sikhism comprises different traditions and schools of thought, some of which are regarded as almost heretical
43 Nijhawan, Dhadi Darbar, chap. 1. There are indications for a historical connection with Muslim as well as Hindu traditions. Yet the associations with Islam clearly outweigh such references. For the linkage of the name hai with bhakti religion, see also Charlotte Vaudeville, Leaves from the Desert: The Dhola-Maru-Ra Dhuhaan Ancient Ballad of Rajasthan, in her Myths, Saints and Legends in Medieval India, ed. Vasudha Dalmia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 273334.
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by the representative institutions of the Sikhs. The Nirmala and Nirakari sects, for instance, are known to revere living saints and to worship icons. Their disagreement with Khalsa Sikhs has repeatedly led to tensions within the Sikh community. Some traditions, however, are very closely associated with the martial tradition of Sikhism, which is why the veneration of Guru Gobind Singh and Sikh martyrs such as Baba Dip Singh acquires a special place. To one such tradition, the Nihag Sikhs, I shall now briey turn to show how the discourse on hai is linked to a particular inheritance of heroic aesthetics in Sikhism. Nihag Sikhs were originally known as Akali Nihag, a heavily armed order within the Sikh panth that can be traced to Guru Gobind Singh. In the following, I concentrate on a conversation that I had with Prem Singh, a contemporary Nihag Sikh, who by the time we met was teaching the gurbani classes at the Sikh Missionary College in Anandpur Sahib. Prem Singhs account of the origin of the hai genre is interesting for at least two reasons: First, he knows the Sikh scriptures by heart and is particularly committed to seeing hai as an intrinsic part of the Sikh martial tradition as linked to the tenth guru; and second, he shows how epic literature that is included in the Dasam Granth is assigned an authoritative voice. The Dasam Granth (literally, the tenth book) is a compilation of hagiographic and epic texts attributed to Guru Gobind Singh. Besides compositions such as the Akal Ustad, Jap, and Zafarnama, which are regarded as authentic (i.e., believed to be Gobind Singhs own or authorized words), the great majority of verses are martial epics and folk renderings of ancient Puranic (Hindu) texts such as the Devi-Mahatmaya in the Markandeya Purana. Titled Chani Caritra or Krishnavtar, we nd the cosmic battles of the Hindu goddess Durga depicted in epic narratives. According to the Sikh reformist tradition, the tenth guru presumably named the Dasam Granth a book of diversion, to be clearly separated from the status of the Adi Granth. This point seems convincing insofar as there is an unambiguous absence of spiritual reverence or pious attitude toward the goddess Durga in the Dasam Granth. Yet, as Nikki-Guninder Kaur Singh argued, we nd signicant evidence that as a mythological gure the Hindu goddess is a crucial element in Guru Gobind Singhs religio-aesthetic world view.44 Indeed, we can assume that she is reincorporated into Sikhism as a kind of archetypal gure representing the aesthetic imagery and mood of the heroic, which at the time of Gobind Singhs endeavor to ght a holy war (dharam yuddh) against the Mughal rulers must have appealed directly to his followers. It is also likely that
44 Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, The Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the Transcendent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 123.
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the poetic power of the Durga myths was relevant for the Khalsa brotherhoods military struggles in the eighteenth century.45 Among the possible reasons for evoking the mythic power of Durga as a female principle in Sikhism, Singh cites the untamed female energy and sacricial ethos attributed to Durga as creator and destroyer, the full independence of her character, and her purifying anger. Not only is the evocation of these heroic features expressed in abundant epic narratives, but the erotic avor, the heroic mood (the martial, or raudra) constitutes the dominant rasa of poetry honoring Durga.46 This brings us back to our interest in religious aesthetics, and indeed it seems to me that the high reverence paid to the Dasam Granth within the Khalsa tradition is due to the fact that it offers a key to understanding the particular heroic aesthetic values and ideals held by the last of the historic gurus. This holds true for the contemporary reverence paid to the Dasam Granth within segments of the Khalsa tradition. As the next section shall demonstrate, the meaning of the hai genre becomes associated with these heroic aesthetics. For Prem Singh, the Dasam Granth has by no means lost its appeal at the end of the twentieth century. When my colleague Khushwant and I rst met Prem Singh at his home in Anandpur Sahib, the latter was quick to point to heroic poems he had himself written, and which for him were related to poetry in the Dasam Granth. Responding to our questions on the origins of the hai genre in the Sikh tradition, he did not begin his account with Guru Nanak but instead with a reference to one of the poetic verses in the Dasam Granth in which the mythological origin of hai is conceptualized as the singer of the kharka var. Sikh hai bards are often remembered as the singers of this particular poetic form. The word kharak is onomatopoeic in denoting a breaking, cracking, explosive, or rattling sound. The word is often used as a metaphor for an inner state of agony and pain. In this fashion it shares an important facet of poetry in the Dasam Granth, particularly in the Bisnupaas, where onomatopoeic forms are frequent in the depiction of battle scenes.47
45 Louis Fenech assumes that for the tradition of martyrdom in the Khalsa the overwhelming majority of famous eighteenth-century Sikh martyrs drew their inspiration from both the character and hymns of this altruistic, saintly warrior [Guru Gobind Singh, M.N.]. Sikhs of this period joined the Khalsa and were willing to undergo, and succeeded in undergoing, various privations including death to institute the tenth Gurus idea of righteousness. See Louis E. Fenech, Playing the Game of Love: The Sikh Tradition of Martyrdom (doctoral thesis, University of Toronto, 1994), p. 86. 46 Singh, The Feminine Principle, p. 124. 47 The Dasam Granth offers a vast repository of poetic meters that still have not been sufciently analyzed and recognized as valuable sources by linguists and historians of the Panjab. Generally speaking, both syllables (varnik) and syllabic instants (matrik) were used,
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The epic to which Prem Singh refers must be read as a creation myth: the origin of hai is accounted for, and other social categories such as the bhas or the sayyids and sheikhs originate here. The scene is taken from the Chani Caritra (405) and describes a cosmic battle between Mahakal (the creator and destroyer of the universe, eternal time) and the two demons Suaswiray and Dirhgadar. The Caritra consists mostly of the battles between the goddess (Cani or Durga) and various demons. Each of these battles represents the cosmic clashes between the forces of evil and good. It is in this particular story that the goddess, bearing the name Dulhadevi, expresses her wish to marry Mahakal. She is called on by the latter to besiege the two demons as a proof of her devotion. While she is ghting, the goddesss skills impress Mahakal. He joins her and kills one of the demons, Suaswiray. The battle with Dirhgadar demands more effort, as the demon is portrayed as withholding the attack. Sweat from Mahakals forehead drops on the earth.48 From these drops Bhaacarya was created, the founder of the lineage of the bhas. According to Prem Singhs account, from the latters sweat, hasen then came into existence, hence the rst hai singer. He in turn gave birth to Bhumsen who nally intervened in the battle to kill the demon. After hasen was born, he sang a heroic song during this battle, which aroused the warriors spiritsthe above-mentioned kharka var. This is mentioned as a decisive factor in winning the battle against the forces of evil. Prem Singh insists that Guru Gobind Singh did not confuse this Mahakal with the Hindu-Gods, but instills an idea that is superior to Kartikayi (in Hindu tradition considered the son of Shiva-Parvati). In his opinion, the myth itself cannot be regarded as the authentic voice of the
but also meters that are specically related with the hai genre, such as the baimt. On the relationship between meters and narrative meaning, the Sikh Encyclopaedia says, In the Dasam Granth the battle scenes have been described through the metres Kabitt, Savaiyya, Padhistaka and Bisnupada. Saviyya hitherto had been generally used for sensuous love poetry, but Guru Gobind Singh used it with consummate artistry for heroic poetry. To capture the sounds as well as the swift movements on the battleeld, he has used small metres like Padhistaka. Metres are changed frequently with a view to describing different types of combat. In this process the similes and metaphors are sometimes relegated to the background but where similes and metaphors dominate, the metres remain mostly unchanged (Harbans Singh, ed., [n. 33 above], p. 518). 48 The idea that these gures are born from the sweat of the ghting goddess clearly resonates with the idea of asuras in Hindu mythology. The asuras are demons that are born out of blood-semen (rakt-bij). As A. K. Ramanujan has pointed out, many Indian oral epics and related narrative traditions can be understood as folk renderings of the ancient Puranas in which the epic heroes, gods, goddesses, and demons are reincorporated as bodies that sweat, stink, defecate, and menstruate. It seems that such an emphasis on bodily matters is placed here as well. A. K. Ramanujan, On Folk Mythologies and Folk Puranas, in Purana Perennis: Reciprocity and Transformation in Hindu and Jaina Texts, ed. Wendy Doniger (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 103.
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guru (maulik bani), but as a new and exhilarating interpretation of the Puranas ( purana ullkhda kita hoia grantha da) by Guru Gobind Singh in the sense of a powerful mythic narrative of war. In this regard Prem Singh articulates a current interpretation according to which Gobind Singh included mythological accounts of cosmic battles in the Dasam Granth in order to stir the fervent passions of his followers to resist the Mughal army. According to this line of interpretation, the renderings of the Puranic sources are not to be interpreted as a religious discourse that would entail the veneration of the Hindu gods. Prem Singhs account of the origins of hai, therefore, has to be interpreted on two different planes of analysis. On the one hand, it articulates the dominant interpretive frameworks according to which Sikh literature is to be divided into authentic religious and interpretativehistorical sources. In its position within Hindu religious cosmology, hai is thus made other; it is part of the Puranic tradition, which is not considered part of the Sikh belief system. By means of clearly distinguishing between the authentic sacred literature of the Sikhs and these renderings of Puranic epics, the Sikh tradition is able to account for the Puranas as historical sources even if they are not acknowledged in their entire cosmological dimension. This observation can be summarized by Surjit Singh Hanss statement that the Dasam Granth is not a work of Sikhism per se but a Sikh textbook on received tradition.49 On the other hand, hai is reincorporated as a part of a particular aesthetic tradition into Sikhism. And it is reincorporated in a fashion in which the voice of hai is being imbued with an agentive quality: the particular sounds and aural rhythms attributed to the original hai bard are decisive for the victory of the goddess over the demons. We can see this in the link between the inciting quality of voice and the religio-aesthetic disposition it evokesagain based on a reinterpretation of the emotional concept of the rasas. Guninder Kaur Singh has nicely captured the various poetic devices used in the Dasam Granth to create the heroic mood (here raudra rasa instead of vir rasa). It will quote from her book at some length in order to show how the concept of the hai voice has to be read in terms of the particular aural aesthetics of the Dasam Granth:
It seems as if Guru Gobind Singh had woven raudra rasa into the warp and woof of the language itself, into the very texture of the words! His frequent use of alliteration, assonance, and consonance lends a stimulating rhythm and music to the narrative. The constant repetition of sounds like bha, gha, jha, ha, and ra reproduces the heavy sounds of combat. In durga sabhe saghare rakha kharag lai, . . . for instance the use of bha, gha, and ra makes the verse throb with excitement. The sound itself suggests that the goddess is felling the
49
Surjit Hans, Ramavtar in Dasamgranth, Journal of Sikh Studies 11, no. 1 (1984): 62.
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giant-like demons. In another verse, bhaka bhuk bheri hah uh akam . . . haka hukk halam, the martial rhythm is ringingly audible. The readers become saturated with the frenzy of battle and are carried away with it, feeling it ow turbulently in their own blood and nerves. In another line, tani tani tir calae durga dhanukh lai the sound alonea combination of the alliteration of t and the consonances of laireproduces the speed of action in actual ghting. Durga is pictured here shooting arrows (tir calae) with all her might (tani tani ). These devices are very appropriate to the description of battle-scenes. Another favorite device is the use of onomatopoeia. Guru Gobind Singh subtly chooses words whose sound suggests their meaning. He reinforces raudra rasa by the aural effect of his diction. The different names used for Durga like Cani, Bhavani, and Durgshah have a heroic ring. Furthermore, polysyllabic words or compound epithetsaurally very resonantenrich the poetry. . . . In such instances a multiplicity of characteristics are brought together, heightening both sound and sense.50
This emphasis on the aural aesthetics of the poetry in the Dasam Granth provides an explanatory framework for Prem Singhs evocation of the hai voice as the arbiter of the heroic spirit. Prem Singh is aware of the fact that the gurus (beginning with Guru Hargobind) patronized the hai poet-bards and that this corresponded to the historical transition of the Sikh community. The reemphasis on the heroic dimension of hai on the side of the miri concept in Prem Singhs account thus involves a transition in religio-aesthetic meanings as well as a transition in agentivepsychological disposition. Born from the sweat of the ghting Mahakal, the hai as the primordial singer of the kharka var is the authentic voice of the cosmic battle. In our conversation, Prem Singh conrmed the view that hais are patronized to bring the blood in the Sikh bodies into rage (varam ga ke sikham andar jo ate jitt de sankalap num hor pekar karde rahe). As the one to incite a particular aesthetic quality, the hai has become reied as an agent in Sikh history. concluding remarks In this exploration of the hai genre in the Sikh tradition I have tried to nd an explanation for the transitions in Sikh religious aesthetics under different sociopolitical constellations in Panjab. Although contemporary performers frame the hai genre in terms of pious conduct, Sikh discourses continue to allocate a notion of otherness to it, to the extent that it is seen as part of a mythological tradition outside the spiritual world of Sikh religion. The transition from the evaluation of hai as part of Sikh sacred language to its recasting in terms of patronage and bardic performance has been partially the result of the historical developments taking place during earlier periods of Sikh history. Yet, as the major interpretative move to bridge both perspectives in contemporary perspective, I
50
Singh, The Feminine Principle, p. 138.
Long
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have identied the suspension of social references to the name hai by simultaneously revitalizing ontological meanings such as the sacredness of sounds and the heroic aesthetics inherited in performative genres. The persistence of the hai genre as a form through which to articulate a pious Sikh self has been due to the inuence of core traditions within the Sikh fold, which have assigned agency to the religio-aesthetic forms associated with hai representational practice. The martial tradition in Sikhism in particular has emphasized that the heroic meaning of hai is linked to particular figures of the martial epic tradition, which nds its primary text in a broader eld of Puranic literature and localized practices of the veneration of martyred spirits. The framing of hai aesthetics in terms of a martial image and heroic tunes is of paramount importance for the interpretation of the agency of hai bards in the context of crisis and violence that could be witnessed during the militant movement in the 1980s. Almost two decades after the movement ebbed, Sikh performers provide alternatives to deal with the dissonant memory in the hai genre. I have referred to Pawandeep Kaurs rendering of hai in terms of a dialectic between tension and release. In a somewhat different but related way, another performer, Inderjit Singh, has recently phrased his ideas in one of our conversations as follows:
hai is like a golden vessel (ikk sone da bhanda). While the vessel is made of gold, it remains upon you what you put into it. You might put juice, Coke or Seven-up in it. That is your choice. The hai tradition (hai kala) is this vessel, this pot. What some people make to resonate (sunana) in it, that is completely their business. . . . In one direction, people delved in the sweet taste of the folksong (lok git), in the other direction, it was Guru Nanak who provided the unique amrit in singing the devotional songs.
Here, we nd the idea that hai is a cultural form to be lled with religious or secular content. Similar to Prem Singhs interpretation, Inderjit Singh recognizes that the Sikh gurus were reexively drawing on a shared repertoire of oral culture. But unlike in Prem Singhs discourse, the allusion to Guru Nanak places an emphasis on the phenomenology of musical-poetical form as a vehicle through which mystical elixir (amrit) can become manifest. I would therefore argue that the assignment of religious meaning to a performative genre is due to shifting discursive constructions and historical interpretations, as I have demonstrated in this article. But, more than that, such resignications are the result of reevaluations of religious musicality and aesthetics and, most intriguing, a move toward a revitalization of the mystical dimension of the Sikh hai genre. Heidelberg University

Divine Bliss To Ardent Passion

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From Divine Bliss to Ardent Passion: Exploring Sikh Religious Aesthetics through the Dhd Genre Author(s): Michael

2003 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0018-2710/2003/4204-0003$10.00

Sikh Religious Aesthetics

Sikh Religious Aesthetics

Sikh Religious Aesthetics

Sikh Religious Aesthetics

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Sikh Religious Aesthetics

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Jantzen, Mystical Core (n. 13 above), p. 71.

Sikh Religious Aesthetics

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Sikh Religious Aesthetics

Singh, The Feminine Principle, p. 138.

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