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Chapter 3 - Aesthetic Designs in the Language of Love

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2024

Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh
Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh
Affiliation:
Colby College, Maine
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Summary

Chapter 3 approaches Guru Nanak’s poetic artistry in “the language of infinite love – bhākhiā bhāo apāru” from seven angles: (1) the pluralistic medieval north-Indian linguistic context, (2) theophilial heteroglossia comprising infinite names of the singular truth, (3) anthropophilial commercial configurations (4) somatophilial signifiers of the formless One, (5) female-embodied theophilia, (6) biophilial worship (Arati, Samā’), (7) Kristeva’s materiality of language in the guru-bāṇī identity. The chapter explores how Guru Nanak’s images, symbols, paradoxes, metaphors, and allusions materialize the transcendent One. The message and the medium seamlessly coalesce to reveal the shared humanity usurped by age-old dualities, theological conflicts, and colonial mechanisms. The finale analyzes the guru-bāṇī (language) identity birthed by the founder Guru Nanak and embodied in the textual Guru (the GGS) – the sovereign presiding at all Sikh ceremonies and rites of passage, the sacrosanct body circulating with the flow of Sikh gurus, Hindu bhagats, and Muslim sufis.

Keywords

Guru Granth SahibpoetryPunjabiheteroglossiaBakhtinlanguageKristevaguru-bāṇī identity
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Chapter
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Guru Nanak's Transcendent Aesthetics , pp. 110 - 160
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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