Previous

Next

Ask a Question

Summary of Question:	Seating Practices At Gurdwaras
Category:	Sikh Practices
Date Posted:	Monday, 2/20/2006 1:34 PM MST

Khalsajee:

WJKK, WJKF:

I was curious if you had any suggestions as to how I could articulately respond to my non-Sikh friends as to why men and women sit separately at the Gurdwara?

I did a search on this topic, and found a couple of posts from moderator DKK a while back saying that it had something to do with "polarity." I don't know what to make of this answer. Could you please elaborate? Is there any record of how seating arrangements were handled during Guruji's time? Thank you.

********
reply
************
Sat nam. I don't know of a written historical record on Sikh seating practices in Guru's time. But see these practices at least in their historical context: at that time the mughals ruled India. Muslim practice even today is to keep women and men in separate groups in a mosque (women are behind men).
The Sikh version of this practice might well have evolved as a way to say to indicate equality of religious practice to the mughals. It may also have evolved out of some traditional/cultural thinking that it is inappropriate for women to sit next to men who are not their family.
Polarity as a concept is something you should probably search on the web, since I'm not sure how to further explain it to you. This certainly makes for an interesting research project for you. Perhaps someone in your gurdwara community has considerable background in SIkh history and can shed more light on it. Good luck,
--DKK