Sunday, August 17, 2003		Books

Decoding Sikh canon & ciphers anew
Ashok Vohra

Sikh Dynamic Vision
by Nirbhai Singh. Harman ,
New Delhi. Pages. XIX+436. Rs 750.

ONE of the foremost philosophers of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, concludes his magnum opus Tractatus Logico Philosophicus by saying "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must pass over in silence." What he meant was that there is a point where speaking has to give way to showing. This fact is particularly realised by all those who work in the areas of religion, ethics and aesthetics. In these areas, there is a primacy of the direct experience over the explanation. This is due to the nature of the subject matter and limitations of language rather than the author’s shortcoming. But many authors in the field of religion do not realise this and go on claiming the finality of their findings and explanations. Well-read and informed as Nirbhai Singh is, he does not commit this mistake. Instead, he admits that in his book Sikh Dynamic Vision, "No chapter or part thereof is finished. The book has no beginning and end."

The aim of the author is to make the reader aware of the need for a reinterpretation of the cipher in the canonical literature of the Sikhs in the context of the post-modern era. He makes an attempt to "retrieve eternal message of the Gurus and the philosophers of the world over" using ‘hermeneutical tools’ and analytic method as developed in the West. But he does not accept these methods in total, rather he develops their "modified model that fits into the cultural aura of the Sikh sacred texts from the philosophical standpoint." Using these tools the author proves those wrong who believe that "Sikhism is an offshoot of Hinduism." He establishes that "Sikhism is a comprehensive hermeneutical reinterpretation and understanding of the Indian scriptures and the religious traditions along with the Semitic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam without repudiating the pristine truth of them."

The author claims that the book is "of no use for those who do not have a philosophical and critical insight into the religious traditions and the ciphers treasured in the sacred scriptures." According to him, it is meant only for those readers who "have sufficient background of the Indian and the Western traditions," and are "without preconceived presuppositions." Indeed, the book would be useful for all those who are interested in learning not only about the fresh interpretations of the Sikh canons and ciphers but also the method of comprehending and decoding them anew.

After giving a brief introduction of hermeneutics and analytical method in simple and lucid language, the author applies this method to the text, context and syntax of Guru Granth Sahib. He raises questions related to epistemology, theory of being, moral issues, nature of akalpurakh, the reconciliation between theory and praxis, piri and miri, and non onto-theology (main and toon) of Sikhism and goes on to answer them. He shows that many of these problems are solved in Sikhism by resorting to three perspectives, viz. manmukh—first-person singular perspective; sangat—second-person perspective; and Gurmukh—third-person singular perspective. The free movement from one perspective to the other, according to the author, accounts for the constant becoming and existential freedom of man. This is what he has designated as Sikh Dynamic Vision. According to the author the Sikh claim, "ideal man . . . is in the world, but not of the world" is based on this dynamic vision. But, is this claim exclusive to Sikhism? Does every religion not uphold the same, though it may be using different vocabulary?

It is one thing to call theology ‘a stupid inquiry about truth’ and boldly assert that "the theologians are enemies of real rational faith and killers of God," it is quite another thing to give reasons for it. Surely, neither all theological enterprise is stupid and otiose nor all theologians are crooked. Had it been so there would not have been any development in theology and religion.

The book is sufficiently scholarly, detailed, exploratory, insightful, bold and interesting so as to profit not only those readers who are in "sympathy with the spirit in which it is written" but also those who do not belong to the "cultural milieu" of the author. But the book is so repetitive that the reader can get bored. It requires a thorough copyediting. It contains a plethora of expressions like "dynamic mystic," "the human mind creates language to communicate ideas," "hoary spiritual culture of India," which should have been avoided. Even author’s claim that "English is not my language" cannot exonerate him of many logical, and other linguistic errors—both semantic and syntactic.