Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T17:51:52.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 5 - Aesthetic Revealer

Poet-Songster-Jeweller

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2024

Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh
Affiliation:
Colby College, Maine
Get access

Summary

Chapter 5 returns to the primal Sikh moment, the divine revelation of Guru Nanak. Autobiographically recounted in Majh Ballad, his sensuous experience of the infinite One is corroborated in early Sikh sources like the Janamsākhīs. This chapter is a three-mirrored kaleidoscope: (1) how the songster/bard (ḍhāḍī) Nanak relays his revelatory event in sonic aesthetics; (2) how poet (shāir) Nanak shares his numinous encounter in poetic ingenuity; and (3) how jeweller/goldsmith (suniāru) Nanak artistically stages his revelations for his audiences to reexperience his transcendent aesthetics. Art as idealized by Martin Heidegger, Amrita Sher-Gil, Leo Tolstoy, and Rabindranath Tagore is fulfilled by Guru Nanak’s gesamtkunstwerk. His multiple art forms function as art to show how the transcendent One is aesthetically lived in this world. Raising spiritual and social consciousness, Nanakian art is not for art’s sake alone; it redresses issues of social and environmental injustice and suffering. With his voice recorded in the GGS as a rich resource, Guru Nanak’s own perception of his aesthetic vocation comes to light.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×