Re-Membering the body of the transcendent one

This paper is a re-memory of Sikh scripture from my perspective, which happens to be that of a Sikh female scholar. I borrow the term ‘semiotic’ from Julia Kristeva who distinguishes the Mother's free and primordial ‘semiotic’ language from that of the Father's divisive and oppressive ‘symbolic.’ So by using Kristeva's semiotic process we enter the elemental power of Sikh verse: we become sensitive to its sensuousness and sensuality and re-experience the full physicality, dynamism, and elan vital of the sacred words. Kristeva's ‘semiotic’ helps us realize that female is not set aside in the male compositions of the Sikh Gurus, and that ‘word’ and ‘flesh’ do meet in their expression of and quest for the transcendent Reality. A revised version of this paper appears in my book The Birth of the Khalsa: A Feminist Re-Memory of Sikh Identity (SUNY, 2005).