Guru Granth Sahib

Interrogating Gender in Sikh Tradition and Practice

“…Gurus, Sikhs, and the Text Nine gurus followed Guru Nanak, the first Guru, and each one built on the previous Guru's work, all of which were enshrined in the Adi Granth as devotional poetic scriptures for Sikhs (Shackle and Singh 2005;Singh , 2007Singh , 2014bGrewal 2009). After the ten Gurus, the Guru Granth replaced the living Guru as prescribed by the Tenth-Guru Gobind Singh in Sikh consciousness (Singh 2004).…”

“…Sikh feminists undertaking interpretations of the punj kakars with a goal to emancipate Sikhs from a narrow androcentric view that is so prevalent in the faith is much needed. (Singh , 2014b has provided this first feminist interpretation. New frameworks that address difference and diversity of understandings codify the need to firmly accommodate gendered viewpoints into the philosophy, form, and function of Sikhism.…”

“…(Jakobsh 2014) is right in suggesting that the honourific Sahib has masculine utility, but I suggest that in terms of the Guru Granth's inclusive views in this regard, Sahib can also be a guide/teacher for the learner and can be inculcated as such. In analyzing the androcentric colonized mentality of the translations of the Guru Granth, (Singh 2014b) suggests that "[w]hereas the Divine is the transcendent, metaphysical One, it is invariably translated into a Western monotheistic 'God' and given a male identity" (p. 619).…”

“…This experience of the sacred for average Sikhs is foremost assigned within places of worship, at the Sikh gurdwaras (house of the Guru) or in their own homes where the Sri Guru Granth is ceremoniously housed and obeisance is offered to it on a daily basis through devotional worship (Singh 2000). Singh (2014b) states that the position of the Granth as the guru has become "the ultimate authority within the Sikh tradition, for a wide range of personal and public conduct" (p. 134). However, a new area of research might be the philosophy of diaspora-born young Sikhs (or Sikhs generally perhaps) who regard the gurdwaras or religious institutions as unimportant on a day to day basis and find their spirituality in other multiple ways.…”

“…Considering the religion's particularly theorized commitment to an egalitarian social and religious order (Singh 2014a(Singh , 1988Takhar 2005), it is interesting to note that the institutional leadership has mostly been traditionally patriarchal-bound and male (Singh 1993(Singh , 2014a. While the religion is purposely devoid of a priestly class (Singh 2014b), one might assume that men and women would have equal access to the affairs of organized institutionalized religion-but these are almost all managed by men, with women being relegated to "female" tasks of food preparation and general cleaning. In direct contrast to the theory of equal access to faith, worship, ritual, and practice, "by and large Sikh women's agency has been ignored, displaced, dislocated and disavowed from the religio-aesthetic matrix in the gurdwara" (Bains 2012).…”