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The Word Revealed, The World
Revealed
M
S Ahluwalia
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In these days of
globalization, the lofty ideals of unity of God and brotherhood
of mankind can secure the prerogative of equal rights for the
entire human race and serve as the most effective basis for a
new universal human civilization of love, peace and harmony at a
time when the world is talking of war on terror and divisiveness
seems to be the reining political and social reality. |
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 The
modern age is in some ways the breeding ground for alienation and
anxiety. On the one hand, the elite society exploits science and
technology for its own comfort and convenience, on the other hand
the unlettered masses in
Asia, Africa and
South America struggle for bare existence and vainly hope for
supernatural intervention to end their woes.
Arguably,
globalization cannot change the basic struggle for existence,
instinct and aspirations. It may only make people more impatient
with status quo. It is here that the gospel Guru Granth Sahib
becomes relevant.
The holy Sikh
scripture is inspiring, yet rooted in scientific thought and
practical wisdom of self-reliance. It asserts the primacy of moral
and spiritual principles and does not inhibit the use of rational
investigation. The word of God in Gurbani is the fount
of all those values which enhance and give positive direction to
life on this earth. If followed faithfully, the idea of universal
peace, justice, brotherhood and freedom and happiness shall never
elude mankind. Herein lies the perennial value of Guru Granth
Sahib.
Over the years,
the holy book has received the honours due to the living Guru. No
Sikh assembly can, properly speaking, is so named unless the holy
book is present in it. The contributors to Guru Granth Sahib
came from variety of class and creed background.
.jpg) In
the Sikh system, as is well known, the word Guru is used for the ten
prophet-perceptors, Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh, and for
none other. Now Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred book that was
apotheosized by the last Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, before he passed
away in 1708, fulfills the office of the Guru.
In all, Sikh
literature after Guru Gobind Singh, the Holy Book is universally
referred to as Guru Granth. It is for the Sikhs, the
perennial authority, spiritual as well as historical. The followers
have and will continue to observe their faith more fully, more
vividly through the Holy Granth.
It remained
central to all that subsequently happened in the Sikh life. It was
and shall remain source of their verbal tradition, and shape their
intellectual and cultural environment. It would continue to mould
the Sikh concept of life. It is Guru Granth Sahib that the
community’s ideals; institutions and rituals derive their meaning.
The Bani of
Guru Granth Sahib is poetry devotion. It prescribes no social
code, yet it is the basis of Sikh practice as well as of Sikh
devotion. It is the living source of authority, the ultimate guide
to spiritual and moral path, pointed by the Gurus. Every prayer,
singly or in groups, is followed by Ardas, which is followed
by the recitation of these verses:
Agya bhai Akal
ki tabhi chalayo panth,
Sab Sikhan ko hukam hai Guru Maneyo Granth,
Guru Granth ji maneyo, pragat Guran ki deh,,
Jo Prabhu ko millibo chahai, khoj shabd main leh.
Unlike some
other scriptures, Guru Granth Sahib is neither history nor
mythology nor a collection of incantations. Rather, its contents are
spiritual
poetry, the vision of cosmic order and exhortation to the higher
life. In that respect, it is a unique scripture among the source
books of religion.
In any Gurdwara
Granth Sahib is kept, brought out in state, prayers offered in its
presence, at night time taken to a duly appointed place for
‘retreat’. It is thus treated as a sacred person, the Guru, rather
than merely a book.
Thanksgiving for
a joyous event or the prayers for the peace of the departed soul,
must alike be offered in the presence of Guru Granth Sahib.
No Sikh marriage can be sanctified except in its presence, with the
bride and bridegroom circumambulating it reverently, while the
nuptial hymns from its pages are being chanted. Such a practice is
resorted to all over the Sikh world. All decisions taken in its
presence are held sacred and binding on all.
Compilation: The
Granth Sahib consists of hymns of devotion to God and exhortation to
man towards lifting himself to the state of spiritual peace and the
attainment of liberation, i.e., mukti or moksha. Its
form is throughout verse built on the principles of neo-classical
tradition of music prevalent in northern
India. Its
language is predominantly medieval Hindi of the Braj variety with
variation of Punjabi. In the vocabulary used, a large variety of
language, traditions of India were drawn upon, including a fair deal
of Persian and Arabic, which all the time of the holy Gurus, had
become well established in the cultural traditions, especially
northern India.
The bani of
several Bhakats is included - Kabir, Namdev, Ravidas, Bhikhan,
Trilochan, Sain, Ramanand and Farid. Guru Arjun Dev set out giving
to the Sikh church, by then nearly a century old, a stable and
enduring form which took a new form only a century or so later a new
society.
CONTENTS
Guru Granth
Sahib consists of units which are overwhelmingly quatrains and
shlokas. Then there are pauris, each stanza consisting usually
of eight to ten lines. The verse units are all numbered. The
compositions are counted authorwise, genre wise, and in respect of
each larger unit. Count is also kept by internal numbering of each
couplet, quatrain or stanza.
The recent
device of mentioning the page number has been possible after
availability of copies of the holy Granth in print in which its
pages have been fixed at the standard count of 1430. The total units
are 5751 with largest contribution by Guru Arjan Dev (23l2),
followed by Guru Nanak Dev (947), Guru Amar Das (869) and Kabir
(534) respectively.
 Since
the introduction of the Western type of learning, certain new aids
and study on the lines of modern scholarship such as footnotes and
alphabetical glossaries have been introduced. New helpful books in
print are also available to guide anyone engaged in some aspect of
the study of Gurbani at any level.
The study of Sikh religion at the level of the universities both in
India and
abroad has also led to the publication of a number of aids to the
study of the holy Granth. Some of the important ones are Gur Shabad
Ratnakar, (Bhai Kahn Singh), Ad Granth Shabad Anukaar Manika, (Gurcharan
Singh), Gurmat Nirnay (Bhai Jodh Singh) and Nirukta Sri Guru
Granth Sahib (Dr Balbir Singh). Some translations of Gurbani in
English are also available which are generally satisfying both to
its level of learning and expression.
LANGUAGE
Guru Arjan Dev’s
justification of the choice of the popular spoken medium of language
for the holy book in preference to Sanskrit is explained in the
Guru Pratap Suraj GRanth. The Guru told Bhai Gurdas, his purpose
as under:
‘Make the Granth
into an ample volume.
And write it out in Gurmukhi characters,
In the Patti devised by Guru Nanak,
Are included thirty-five letters.
In these letters record the entire Bani of the Gurus,
Which all may be able to study with ease…
Householders engaged in daily labour, which have little learning,
Yet seek knowledge, may study it with ease…
Therefore write you down the Gurmukhi letters.’
From the above
quotation, it is clear that the purpose of the holy Guru in
composing the Bani in the popular tongue, and writing it out in
popular scripts, was to bring divine knowledge, spiritual experience
and ethical thought to the simple, working folk. Linguistically the
scripture is constituted of two main elements, almost in equal
proportions - Punjabi and old Hindi, out of which evolved kharri
boli or modem Hindi, spoken in Punjabi speaking lands
lying north of river Ghaggar now dividing Punjab and Haryana over a
considerable distance.
Thus, Punjabi
and Hindi with an admixture of philosophical terminology derived
from Sankrit on the one hand and Persian and Arabic in the current
folk forms on the other, are the main linguistic warp and weft of
the Gurbani. Again the Bhaktas coming from different
language regions also employed predominantly the idiom of their
respective regions.
The flip
provided by Guru Nanak and his spiritual successors to the
trans-national language of the Punjab region, through the
compilation of the
and the voluminous literature produced by their followers and
interpreters, helped the Punjabi language to enrich itself with the
much-needed
vocabulary drawn from the Persian-Arabic as well as Sanskrit
sources.
If today,
Punjabi is used by its scholars to articulate themselves on
metaphysical, theological, scientific and literary issues, and
Punjabi occupies a place among the first ten spoken languages of the
world, much of the credit goes to the vision of the Gurus and to
those inspired by their faith.
MOOL MANTRA
The creed that
is embodied in the pages of the holy Granth and which is enunciated
right at the opening in the Mul Mantra, is an uncompromising
monotheism, which is the basic creed of Sikhism. The creed, a mantra
or chant of powers, is an affirmation of faith like the Kalima
of Islam, the Gayatri of theistic Hinduism, the
Om Padmane hum
of
Buddhism and similar creeds of other faiths.
There is no
denying the fact that Sikhism bears essentially the character of an
India
born religion. Ek Onkar stands at the head of the Mul
Mantra is the holiest name of the Supreme Being. The other
attributive names of the Supreme Being include Waheguru and
Karta or Kartar, i.e. creator, which are also
the other extremely used words.
In the
holy Granth and sacred Sikh writings, deities out of Hindu
pantheon
and from the epics and the Puranas find mention, but
their existence is very
clearly not to be assumed literally, nor are they objects of
Worship.
They are
mentioned only symbolically and metaphorically. The conception of
the Supreme Being is pervasive all over the Book and forms the core
of the Sikh faith.
In order to have
a reasonable assessment of the Sikh religion, it is necessary to
understand the Indian religious, moral and spiritual traditions as
contained in the gospel, the Guru Granth Sahib.
 SAHAJ
In the ambit of
Sikh faith, centrality has been given to sahaj, the path of
prayer and meditation, in the process of Spiritual ascent. Its
reintroduction into Indian mystic lore by the Sikh faith signified a
new turn in history of this term. Sikhism invested it with a new
breadth and import. Here there is nowhere the slightest trace of any
kind of tantric yogic practice. What there is, is a religious
and spiritual discipline or yoga of the simplest and yet the
most difficult kind, a discipline of self-purification of love and
devotion, of concentration and meditation on God.
For the Gurus,
man’s original nature was of the nature of light or intuitive
knowledge.
SHABAD
In distinctive
Sikh usage, Shabad means a hymn or sacred word from Guru Granth
sahib. In the theological sense, it stands for ‘word’ revealed by
the Guru. The shabad is connected with both sound and voice.
In Guru Nanak’s usage, and in that of his successor gurus, shabad
means the word of divine revelation or any aspect of Akal
Purakh’s revelation to mankind.
GRIHASTA
The ideal life
commended by the holy Gurus is that of the householder
engaged in beneficial activity, keeping his mind absorbed in
contemplation and devotion. This synthesis between the spiritual and
the secular is meant to reject the monastic or ascetic kind of life.
CASTE
On the prominent
features of the teachings of Sikhism is the overwhelming presence in
it of a humanitarian compassionate attitude towards all humanity and
the establishment of a just society. About the institution of caste,
the universal prevalent evil in the Indian society, Guru Nanak Dev,
in Guru Granth Sahib has imparted powerfully effective
teaching.
Know all human
beings to be repositories of Divine Light;
Stop not to enquire about their caste;
In the hereafter are there no castes.
The holy Gurus
raised their voice against the arrogance of the Brahaman,
particularly who arrogated holiness to himself.
MUKTI
Also written in
Gurubani as mokh (moksha) is the end to be striven for as a
result of a life lived according to the teachings of religion. Its
true conception is the annulment of the cycle of births and deaths,
that is transmigration, and the self-abiding ever in bliss of
God-consciousness.
There is no
visible, palpable heaven or hell according to Sikh belief, as would
be in the belief of Puranic Hinduism.
TRUTH
The Sikh
epistemology is one Sikh with the general Indian approach that
knowledge of the scriptural texts enlightens the mind, dispelling
darkness and delusion. The ideal of knowledge, according to
Gurbani, is Truth.
In abstract terms, the truth of Guru Nanak’s vision is the Absolute,
or the formless undifferentiated reality. In the theological terms,
the same truth is presented as the True one, the Divine being.
MYSTICISM
Mysticism draws
its sustenance from the mystical emotion, without which the feelings
that are prized in life would be out of question. It is the mystical
emotion that generates a faith to live life. According to the Sikh
faith, it is not the prerogative of prophets and holy men to have
mystical vision of reality. One can always hope for the creation of
a society of Brahmgianis by inculcating the values that are
divine in character.
Detailed studies
of symbolism and terminology (e.g., Grihastha, Caste, Mukti,
the cosmic vision, the Guide, the Holy perception, or Guru, imagery
and esoteric symbols) as well as the intellectual, aesthetic,
ethical, and spiritual values enshrined in the Adi Granth are
being undertaken by individual scholars in various universities and
private centres of education.
To conclude, Sri Guru Granth Sahib has and, shall henceforth
remain, for all times to come, a lighthouse and a Guru for the Sikhs
and other seekers of Truth.
Sikhism
undoubtedly stands for a catholic faith, which is meant for all,
without any distinction of race or creed, and without any limits of
time and space. In these days of globalization, the lofty ideals of
unity of God and brotherhood of mankind can secure the prerogative
of equal rights for the entire human race and serve as the most
effective basis for a new universal human civilization of love,
peace and harmony at a time when the world is talking of war on
terror and divisiveness seems to be the reining political and social
reality.
(Adapted
from the author’s paper published as part of a special issue of
journal Punjab Past and Present on Sources On Guru Granth Sahib)
29
October 2008
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