1 Canon Formation in the Sikh Tradition Gurinder Singh Mann The

1 Canon Formation in the Sikh Tradition Gurinder Singh Mann The compilation of the Adi Granth ("original book"), the Sikh sacred text, took place during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Given the centrality of scripture in the Sikh tradition almost all the subsequent Sikh chroniclers refer to the making of the Adi Granth in some detail.1 These later authors constructed their accounts primarily around oral traditions, using them with varying degrees of ingenuity. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there emerged a common narrative of the compilation of the Adi Granth, one that continues to hold sway in both popular and scholarly circles. But there is another source for understanding this process: the scriptural manuscripts themselves, a substantial number of which are still extant (see appendix). These documents, prepared during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were preserved as objects of veneration by their custodian families, who have been generally reluctant to open their treasures for scholarly scrutiny. In my case, however, they very kindly shared with me the family traditions regarding the history of their rare possessions and permitted me to examine these documents and find out details pertaining to their time of compilation and precise contents. In this essay, I present a reconstruction of the formation of Sikh canon based on two elements: data available in early manuscripts and their firm placement in the context of early Sikh institutional development. The results are quite remarkable--exciting if you see it one way, but unsettling if you see it another. At almost every critical juncture the information available in these 2 manuscripts confront the received wisdom about how the Sikh scripture began, expanded, and became canon. The traditional reconstruction Sikh sources trace the original compilation of the Adi Granth to Guru Arjan (d. 1606), the fifth in line of the Sikh Gurus. The date thus proposed is some eighty years after the founding of the Sikh community. During this period, according to the popular view, Guru Nanak's hymns and those of his immediate successors survived primarily through oral transmission.2 When Guru Arjan decided to compile the Sikh text, we are told, he collected these hymns, scattered in distant Sikh congregations, and had them recorded according to the musical modes in which they were to be sung. The original manuscript compiled in 1604 is still extant and is known as the Kartarpur Pothi ("book/volume"). Sikh sources proclaim categorically that both the conception and the original compilation are to be seen in that manuscript. And the guiding hand was therefore Guru Arjan's. Why was this body of hymns organized as a single coherent text by Guru Arjan? Sikh scholars say this happened as a response to external pressure. Guru Arjan acted to keep the hymns of the Sikh Gurus pure and distinct from those of their rivals. During the sixteenth century, there were others who composed hymns and floated them under the name of "Nanak," the authoritative signature not just of Guru Nanak himself but of all Sikh Gurus. Guru Arjan--so goes the traditional account--was dedicated to separating the authentic from the spurious hymns and ensuring their purity for posterity. Sikh sources report that following the compilation of the Kartarpur Pothi, two branches of manuscripts proliferated during the seventeenth century. The first consisted of the exact copies of the Kartarpur Pothi, and the second was the 3 Khara Mangat version, which included a set of apocryphal hymns not present in the Kartarpur Pothi.3 Bhai Banno, a follower of Guru Arjan and the compiler of this competing manuscript, added these hymns to obscure the importance of the true Sikh message. Historians who see matters this way are often unaware that in the twentieth century, another family of the seventeenth-century manuscripts known as the Lahore branch also came to light; no scholar has so far offered a convincing explanation of its origin.4 Then comes the stage of canonization, when of the scriptural text took the form of the Adi Granth. The Sikh tradition attributes this development to Guru Gobind Singh (d. 1708), the tenth and the last Sikh Guru, and the work is believed to have been completed in 1706, at Damdama, Bhatinda. The Adi Granth is claimed to contain the hymns present in the Kartarpur Pothi plus the compositions of Guru Tegh Bahadur (d. 1675), the first Guru to have written hymns after the compilation of the Kartarpur Pothi. Guru Gobind Singh, at the time of his death, elevated the Adi Granth to the position of Guru. It became the Guru Granth Sahib and it replaced the office of the personal Guru. Its newly acquired status allows no scope for further alterations in the text, so from this point onward the Adi Granth is believed to have remained unchanged, and its history during the past three centuries has remained largely unexplored. This is the traditional account of how Sikh scripture was formed. But if we turn to the extant manuscripts and have a closer look at the times of their creation, a very different picture of its making, its proliferation, its canonization, and its history during the past centuries emerges. Significant alterations have to be made in our understanding of what happened between the time of Guru Arjan and Guru Gobind Singh, and very importantly, the traditional account needs to be extended both ways--back to Guru Nanak and almost upto the present day--before we have a truly comprehensive picture of the text's 4 evolution. The origin of the Sikh scriptural text There is impressive evidence to support the view that the compilation of the Sikh scripture began with Guru Nanak (d. 1539) himself. All scholars would acknowledge that Guru Nanak was interested in scripture, but most hold that he contested the authority of existing scriptures--Hindu scriptures and those of the Semitic religions.5 This is not true. In my view, his criticism of scripture was not directed at the scriptural texts themselves, but at the way these texts were used by the adherents of various traditions associated with them. Most pointedly, Guru Nanak rejects the ritualistic reading of the Veda, a usage that disrupts peace (Pari pari dajhahi santi na ai, M1, AG, 1026) and results in disharmony (Ved parahi te vad vakhanahi, M1, AG, 638). This distinction between text and its usage offers important background for understanding Guru Nanak's sense of his own mission. Guru Nanak believed that God had assigned him the vocation of singing his praises (Hau dhadhi vekaru karai laia, M1, AG, 150), and that his hymns were the result of direct communications from God (Jaisi me avaai khasam ki bani tesra kari gianu ve Lalo, M1, AG, 722, Ta ma kahia kahanu ja tujhai kahaia, M1, AG, 566). He urged his followers to consider his hymns as the truth and the path to realization (Satigur ki bani sati sati kari manahu, M1, AG, 1028, and Gurbani nirbanu shabadi pachhania, M1, AG, 752). Yet he was not a simply a bard who was satisfied that his divinely inspired hymns be sung. The notable presence of metaphors of writing in his compositions suggests that he was aware of how important it was to preserve them in writing. According to Guru Nanak, inscribing the revelatory message was no ordinary activity but was an act of devotion which demanded the heart 5 and soul of the scribe (Jali mohu ghasi masu kari mati kagadu kari saru. Bhau kalam kari chitu likhari gur puchhi likhu bicharu, M1, AG, 16. If successful, in fact, this exercise produces a state of total blessedness (Dhanu su kagadu kalam dhanu dhanu bhanda dhanu masu. Dhanu lekhari Nanaka jini namu likhaia sachu, M1, AG, 1291). Passages such as these suggest Guru Nanak must have welcomed and encouraged a process whereby his own hymns were captured on the page. Against this background, the existence of a very early manuscript known in the tradition as the Guru Harsahai Pothi can be easily understood.6 No longer an anomaly to be explained away, it now makes perfect sense as a expression of Guru Nanak's own effort to create a written text. The Guru Harsahai Pothi was lost in a train robbery in 1971, but some photographs of it are available. They reveal its early orthography, the absence of any hymns composed by Gurus later than Guru Nanak, and an entirely non-schematic organizational structure--quite unlike the later, more sophisticated Adi Granth. Although the manuscripts contains no dated colophon, all these features point to its early origin. This evidence is further supported by a long-standing tradition prevalent in its custodial family that this manuscript was the original pothi of Guru Nanak. The early recording of Guru Nanak's hymns and the creation of a pothi in a distinct Sikh script (Gurmukhi) seem to relate to the immediate religio-political context in which the new community was founded. Guru Nanak knew the Qur'an and had to be aware of the emphasis it places on the ahl-i-kitab ("possessors of the revealed book"). His writings confirm that he was aware that jizaya--the Muslim tax on unbelievers--was being paid by the Hindus under the mushabah-ahl-i-kitab ("those who resemble the possessors of the revealed book"). So he may well have believed that a Sikh pothi containing hymns manifesting the divine revelation would give his newly founded community a status within the ahl-i-kitab, or at least parallel to it. It is likely that Guru Nanak's acceptance of the 6 significance of scripture in the major religious traditions that shaped his world, his awareness of the role of the scripture in the political definition of the community, and above all his belief in the revealed nature of his own hymns would have led him to compile his own hymns to ensure their proper preservation, and simultaneously to provide the new community with a revealed book that would assign it the status and prestige of the ahl-i-kitab.

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