Gurbani Sangit Parampara: Sustaining Indigenous Knowledge Systems

Abstract

This paper will discuss the Gurbani Sangit Parampara as an Indigenous Sikh knowledge system whose practices, pedagogies, and patterns have been passed down orally over centuries. Since it takes only one generation for intangible heritage to be forgotten, it will look at the ways in which its pedagogy and practice have been remembered, shared, embodied, and safeguarded to survive through socio-political turmoil, colonization, upheaval from homeland, religio-cultural marginalization, minoritization, and erasure. Through interviews with Sikh musician memory bearers, I will argue that the Gurbani Sangit Parampara trains responsible custodians to sustain “uncolonized” streams of Indigenous knowledge. As a scholar-practitioner, I explore the processes of remembering, recovering, and regenerating Sikh ecologies of knowledge, to understand the ways in which their spiritual-aesthetic symbiosis informs adaptation and sustainability of Sikh music, knowledge, and identity over time.