Theorizing the (Un)Sounded in Sikhī: Anhad, Sabad, and Kīrtan

Listening to sabad kīrtan (sung scriptural verse) is a core, everyday, widespread, and loved worship practice of Sikhs around the globe. Thus, it would be fair to state that sounding is central to Sikh worship. Indeed, the Sikh scripture considers kīrtan to be an eminent mode of devotion. Yet, the ultimate aim of this sonic practice is to sense the “unsounded” vibration—anhad—and thereby the divine and divine ethical virtues. Based on a close reading of Sikh sacred texts and ethnographic research, and drawing on the analytic of transduction, the paper explicates the embodied vibratory dimensio... Mehr ...