gives his chelas (disciples) instructions on training, self-discipline, tech-
nique, and overall development. However, a guru is more than a teacher;
he is the object of his disciples’ absolute devotion and service, and this de-
votion and service are understood as an integral feature of training. In
many respects, the guru is revered as “greater than God” by his disciples,
and thus the regimen of training in the gymnasium takes on the aura of rit-
ual practice. Young wrestlers must prostrate themselves at their guru’s feet,
and on Gurupuja (devotion to the guru [master teacher]) must formalize
their obeisance by transforming the guru into God. In this sense the guru’s
persona is much closer to that of an ascetic adept intent on the embodiment
of truth than to that of a coach. However, Guru Hanuman cast himself,
and was cast by the central government of India, in the role of an Olympic
coach, and many if not most other ustads in contemporary gymnasiums
struggle with the conflicting demands of athletics and asceticism, of self-
discipline as an end in itself and training for competition.
Although there were senior wrestlers in the stables of many rajas and
maharajas who functioned, undoubtedly, as teachers, and there were men
who built and defined urban gymnasiums around themselves and their sense
of national purpose, the status of a guru, as such, has an ambiguous history.
Little or no mention is made in the medieval literature and in the history of
competitive wrestling of who won against whom. Much more is made of in-
dividual prowess than of a tradition of training defined by a specific master
of the art. In short, the ideal of the guru-chela relationship seems to be much
more important than the practice as such. More significantly, the ideal is a
function of the way in which the priorities of modern wrestling and modern
coaching require that for Indian wrestling to be anything other than just
wrestling in India, it requires the form of difference. Wrestlers in contem-
porary India are quite clear on this point. While categorically defining them-
selves as disciples of a master, they say it would be foolish not to avail them-
selves of a broad range of expertise. As the range of expertise expands to
include training camps run by coaches from Russia and Canada, the need
for there to be gurus may increase or decrease, depending on the degree to
which wrestlers define themselves as pahalwans or Olympic hopefuls.
The designation pahalwanrefers to a man who embodies the ideals
and practices of wrestling. A pahalwan is a wrestler, but a wrestler who is
oriented in two directions at once. As a wrestler in India competing with
other wrestlers for the chance to participate in the Asian Games or the
Olympics, he is drawn, through the structure of sports hostels and recruit-
ing camps, toward the mats of the National Institute of Sports. As an In-
dian wrestler he is grounded in the akhara, as the akhara defines a cultural
space that is modern by way of its location in the colonial and postcolonial
history of India.724 Wrestling and Grappling: India