Philosophical transgression and self cultivation in the Purātan Janamsākhī: Bhāī Vīr Singh and modern Sikh reading practices

ABSTRACT

This paper examines narratological changes made in Bhāī Vīr Singh's Purātan Janamsākhī (1926). These changes encode an alternate narrative logic for producing images of a past that entrenches ‘religious’ identity at the center of cognitive self-becoming for individual Sikh moderns. Philology enacts a philosophical transgression to invent an autodialogic structure through grammatological changes and the incorporation of the paratextual apparatus. Two effects include: (1) facilitating a ratiocinating reading phenomenology to produce colonized, subjugated Sikh religious identity; (2) ignoring gurbānī, the language of the Srī Guru Granth Sāhib, and its poiesis. Alternate engagements begin after this recognition.

KEYWORDS:

• Narratology
• philology
• religious identity
• Sikhism
• Singh Sabha
• Bhai Vir Singh
• Puratan Janamsakhi
• autodialogue

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 It is beyond the scope of this essay to complete this task, but it is important to be aware of the larger implications and potential of such an analysis. Some of the aspects of this argument can not be fleshed out in this paper due to space constraints and topical focus. A more theoretical discussion on the changing ideas about self-cultivation and phenomenology of reading is forthcoming.