Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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womb you worked to preserve us’ (GG: 177); and ‘in the mother’s womb you
nurture us’ (GG: 132).
We hear the Guru Granth honouring t he mat ernal spac e as soc ial ut opia in
whic h the fetus is free from patriarc hal designations of c lass, c aste and name: ‘in
the dwelling of the womb, there is neither name nor caste’ (GG: 324). The
sc ript ural verses transparently reveal that the placental waters of the mother –
primal and nourishing – are free from dist inc t ions and hierarc hies. The Sikh Gurus
were acutely aware of their oppressive patrilineal and patricentered north Indian
soc iet y in whic h t he family name, c aste and profession c ame down through birth.
So the mother’s pregnant body is envisioned as free from all sorts of ‘isms’ and
soc ial hegemonies. Her fetus is nurtured by her life-giving ut erus; it is not
suffoc ated by the father’s name, c lass or professional t ies.
The Tenth Guru absorbed these ideals and brought about a c hange in the
pat riarc hal framework. In the Khalsa family he created, people from different
castes, classes and regions sipped amrit from the same bowl and received a new
ident it y. As not ed earlier, in parallel wit h t he surname ‘Singh’, for men, Sikh
women have the surname ‘Kaur’ (meaning princ ess). Women are thus free from the
lineage of fathers and husbands. As ‘Kaur’, a woman retains her own identity for
her whole life. She does not have to adopt the name of her father at birth nor that
of her husband at marriage. Sons and daughters, husbands and wives retain their
selfhood equally throughout their lives. T his t ransformat ion in t he pat rilineal
struc ture, trac ed to the Gurus, has radic al implic at ions for the identity and
autonomy of women.
The Guru Granth takes women’s genealogy seriously and ac knowledges
M o t h e r’s milk full of biologic al and spirit ual nut rient s. Even the rec itation of the
Divine name is suc c ulent ly experienc ed as milk in the mouth. The language of the
Gurus is ec hoed by the words of c ontemporary Frenc h feminist sc holar, Hélenè
Cixous: ‘Voice: milk that could go on forever. Found again. The lost mother/bitter-
lost. Et ernit y: it s voic e mixed wit h milk. Her milk is a biologic al nec essit y, keeping
us from dying. So is bani, the Divine Word. By pouring the two together, the Sikh
Gurus make knowledge essential for everybody. The textuality of the Guru Granth
lies in it s physic al sensualit y – drinking the words as though they were the mother’s
life-giving milk.
The Gurus c ompare the intensity of saintly devotion to that of an infant ’s love
for the mother’s milk (GG: 613). In an unforgettable juxtaposition of analogies, the
Divine is like a ‘c ane for t he blind’ and ‘like mot her’s milk for t he c hild’ (GG: 679).
In a tender passage: ‘says Nanak, the c hild, you are my father and my mother, and
your name is like milk in my mout h’ (GG: 713). Throughout the Guru Granth, the
Sikh Gurus unabashedly express their attac hment to the Divine through an infant’s
attachment to the mother’s breast: ‘my mind loves the Divine, O my life, like a
c hild loves suc kling milk’ (GG: 538).
However, the maternal imaginary in the Guru Granth is not a matter of
religious deific at ion, bec ause ‘she’ is not idolized into some distant goddess – an
object of worship. It is when the Divine is genuinely imagined as Mother that her
posit ive c harac t erist ic s begin t o filt er int o our mind, and ignit e respec t for our
mothers, sisters, daughters and wives. We regard them as life-and-blood
individuals who take on the qualities and powers of the Divine One. We thank them
for c reating and nurturing us. We remember real women, and our lips utter the