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The Guru Granth Sahib is a sacred
scripture of the world and is the Eternal Guru of the Sikhs. Because
it is a scripture suitable of a universal religion, many world class
philosophers and holy men consider it a unique treasure and a noble
heritage for all humankind. Because, it is the Guru of the Sikhs,
its adoration or veneration is an article of faith with the Sikhs.
In the year 2004, the world will celebrate the Quad-Centennial of
the Granth’s First Compilation. In 2008, the Sikhs will celebrate
the Tercentennial of the Canonization of the Granth as the Sri Guru
Granth Sahib.
The sacred verses of Sri Guru Granth Sahib are called Gurbani, which means
the Guru's word or the song messages enshrined in Sri Guru Granth Sahib. In
Sikhism, the Guru is the 'Wisdom of the Word' and not a human or a book. God
revealed the Word through the holy men and women from time to time, and the
most recent revelations were entered in the text of Sri Guru Granth Sahib.
To the Sikhs, any scripture not included in the Guru Granth is unacceptable
as the Guru’s word or authority behind their theology, and it is not
allowed to be recited, sung, or discussed in Sikh congregations with only exception
for the compositions of Guru Gobind Singh, Bhai Gurdas and Bhai Nand Lal. These
were considered to elucidate the Guru Granth verses. Those who explain the
scripture or teach the doctrines contained in the scripture are respected as
teachers, granthi, missionaries, saints or enlightened souls in the Sikh religion.
The Sikhs regard Sri Guru Granth Sahib as a complete, inviolable and final
embodiment of the message for them. There is to be no word beyond the Word.
And that's how their last guru, Guru Gobind Singh, spoke to the congregation
on October 20, 1708 shortly before his ascension.
"Those who desire to behold the Guru should obey the Granth Sahib. Its contents
are the visible body of the Guru."
Sri Guru Granth Sahib contains hymns of 36 composers written in twenty-two
languages employing a phonetically perfected Gurmukhi script on 1430 pages
in 511,874 words, 1,720,345 characters, and 28,534 lines. It has been preserved
in its original format since its last completion by Guru Gobind Singh in 1705.
 It is well known that religious institutions protect themselves from erosion
by enshrining their tenets and doctrines in some tangible form. The best and
the most modern form of preserving the doctrinal purity today is the use of
printed media and electronic storage. At the time of the Granth’s compilation,
the Sikh gurus could make use of only handwritten books, and they used this
medium wisely. If available, all of the founders and the followers of great
religions would have liked to compile one volume of their scriptures, as the
Sikh gurus did, to preserve their scriptures for posterity.
Guru Granth was composed in poetry perhaps to both prevent alterations or adulterations,
and to reach out to human heart. According to some writers, “its power
is the power of the puissant and winged word, and no exegesis or commentary
or translation can ever convey the full beauty of its thought and poetry.” Further,
poetry can be left to the culture and the times that follow to best interpret
the message.
Thus the Guru Granth incorporates all of the features to place it alongside
the world's greatest scriptures. Besides, this is the only scripture which
in spite of its interfaith nature was dictated, edited, proof-read, and signed
for authenticity by the founders of the faith in their life time. These unique
features helped preserve the Sikh religion throughout the numerous onslaughts
it endured over the period of five centuries. The Granth proved to be a sufficiently
foolproof means for continuously providing safeguard against adulteration and
extinction of the Sikh religion for centuries to come.
The fifth Sikh Guru, Arjan Dev first compiled the Guru Granth in I604 in the
city of Amritsar. Guru Gobind Singh prepared the second edition, which he completed
at Damdama, a town in the State of Punjab in India in 1705. Since then, his
authorized version has been transcribed and printed numerous times; it always
conforms to the Damdama edition in every respect. More recently the text in
its original font is available electronically on many web sites for every one
to have free access. In addition to the edition in original Gurmukhi script,
the Guru Granth on the web is available in Hindi, Sindhi, and roman English
transliterations. Whereas translations in English, French, Spanish, Punjabi,
Hindi, Sindhi and German are already available, those in Thai, Urdu, Hebrew
and many Indic languages are in preparation.
The Granth compiled by Guru Arjan contained the hymns of the first five Gurus
along with most of the saints and holy men of medieval India and the Far East.
He installed this scripture in the Sikhs’central shrine, Hari Mandar,
at the City of Golden Temple in 1604. Later, this copy was taken into possession
by guru’s rivals who would not wish to share it freely with the mainstream
Sikhs. Guru Gobind Singh took upon himself to recreate the entire Granth. He
dictated to a Sikh scholar, Bhai Mani Singh, all verses he considered revealed
including the hymns written after Guru Arjan. It took him nearly five years
at Anadpur Sahib and Damdama Sahib to complete this project in 1705. He founded
Dandama town to immortalize this occasion.
On October 20, 1708 Guru Gobind Singh gave his final sermon that conferred
permanent gurudom on the Damdama version of the Granth. He selected town of
Naderh several hundred miles away from Damdama for this event. Since that day,
the Granth has come to be known as Sri Guru Granth Sahib.
Sri Guru Granth Sahib contains 5894 hymns. Guru Arjan contributed the largest
number of 2216 hymns. Besides the hymns of other Gurus, he also included 937
hymns of fifteen other saints and eleven poet laureates of the Guru’s
court whose compositions tallied with the gospel of the Sikh faith. Here, the
Hindu, the Muslim, the Brahmin, and the untouchable, all meet in the same congregation
of holy souls to create a truly universal scripture for our world.
From the linguistic point of view, Sri Guru Granth Sahib is a treasury of the
languages of its times that communicated well with every segment of the society.
The language principally employed is the language of the saints, evolved during
the medieval period. Based upon the local dialects, it was leavened with expressions
from Sanskrit, Prakrit, Persian, Arabic, Bengali and Marathi etc. This language
allowed for variations and still enjoyed wide currency in Southeast Asia. Its
appeal is found in its directness, energy and resilience. In addition, the
Guru designed a phonetically complete gurmukhi font to meet the need of inscribing
the multi-linguistic scripture that is also musical.
The poetry of the Granth is in itself a subject worthy of the highest consideration.
Music forms the basis of the rhythms and classification of the hymns. They
follow a definite metrical system called raags. A raag in Indian classical
music means a pattern of melodic notes. This form is not only used to preserve
the originality of the composition, as the poetry written in this form is difficult
to imitate, but more so to provide the divine experience through the medium
of music and the sounds of God’s creation. The total number of ragas
is 31. The gurus themselves invented some of those. Under each Raag, the hymns
are arranged in different meters as Chaupadas and Ashtapadas; long poems include
Chhands, Vars, and Bhagat verses.
Another outstanding feature of the Guru Granth is the rescission and beauty
of its prosody. Whilst a great deal of it is cast in traditional verse forms
(e.g. shlokas and paudis), and could best be understood in the context of the
well-known classical raags, several hymns and songs make use of popular folklore
and meters (e.g. alahanis, ghoris, chands, etc.). The inner and integral relationship
between music and verse has been maintained with scholarly rectitude and concern.
The complete musicalization of thought was accomplished in a scientific and
scholarly manner so that it makes for the unusually vigorous yet supple discipline
of the Granth's own metrics and notations.
The Guru Granth verses are often sung in a process known as kirtan. In this
process true meaning is revealed directly to the Surat (consciousness and awareness)
through cosmic vibrations. The body’s energetic vibrations from our voices
bond us to the spiritual light of universal intelligence. As we chant the Granth’s
verses the universe speaks to us in metaphoric images. The physical body of
the singer experiences the essence of each word through the lightening energy
in the brain and the calming vibrations in the body, all caused by the sound
currents. They keep the mind to stay focused on the Word. They heal the physical
body and cleanse inner thoughts. The sound waves of the Gurmat Raags connect
the mind, body, and spirit by alignment of the physical, emotional, mental,
and spiritual entities. They implant in the psyche the basis for both spiritual
and mental growth. To see a Sikh congregation chant the sacred hymns in unison
is to see massed spiritual energy bubble before your eyes. This is how the
ordinary words change into the logos and become auspicious.
Reading of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, known as Gurbani paath, is a sacred rite
for every Sikh that permits a connection to the Guru for spiritual guidance.
It is more than a simple ritual or a complex scholarly endeavor; intellectual
deliberation is engaged to seek wisdom while faith is cultivated in the process
to receive the inner light. Reading the rhythmic poetry of Guru Granth is considered
by some as healing in itself. Its chant is frequently prescribed to patients
for relief of their symptoms and to reduce illnesses. It seems to facilitate
understanding of pain and pleasure by “mindfulness” or “being
in the moment”.
In mystic literature of Guru Granth the appeal of the numinous becomes ineffable,
if not inexplicable. And yet the great Sikh scripture is not a knot of metaphysical
riddles and abstract theorizing. For the most part it employs the idiom of
the common people, and draws its imagery and metaphors from the home, the street
and the work place. The hymns of the Guru Granth show an admirable use of the
current figures of speech apart from their metrical richness and sweetness.
Imagery was taken from everyday life and common occurrence to simplify subtle
thoughts and profound concepts. The Gurus were keen lovers of nature and as
such, have written glowing descriptions of panoramic environmental beauty,
changes in the times of day, and the changes of seasons to inculcate love for
the One Creator. Thus they made Guru Granth poetry an extraordinary breed of
divinity, mysticism, immediacy, concreteness and urgency with which it touches
the human heart.
One of the greatest glories of the Guru Granth is its all-embracing character.
It is a scripture completely free from bias, animus and controversy. Indeed,
the uniqueness of the Granth in this respect is all the more astonishing when
we think of the obscurantism, factionalism and religious fanaticism of the
periods in which it was composed. They were all counterbalanced by inclusion
of the songs and verses of a wide diversity of holy men, saints, savants and
bards. Of course, their hymns and couplets rendered in their own language and
idiom were so dovetailed as to find a complete correspondence with themes or
motifs in the compositions of the Sikh Gurus.
The Guru Granth, then, is unique in that it formed the first interfaith and
still universal scripture. It is indeed a magnificent compendium of the religious,
mystic and metaphysical poetry written or recited between the I2th and 17th
centuries in different parts of the Mid-Eastern and Far-Eastern continents.
It is also at the same time a reflection of the sociological, economic and
political conditions of the day. The satire on the reactionary rulers, the
obscurantist clergy, the fake fakirs and the like is uncompromising and telling.
In showing the path to spiritual salvation, the Guru Granth does not ignore
the secular and creative life of living beings. In addition to its mysticism
and spiritual depth, the poetry of the Gurus throws light on their contemporary
situations. It lays bare the corruption and degradation of the society of those
times and underscores the need of social reform and economic uplift. Guru Granth
verses advocate a spiritual soul for their otherwise inhumane administration
of the then rulers.
Obviously, the idea of Guru Arjan Dev was to celebrate the diversity in all
religions and mystic experiences, and, at the same time, establish the fundamental
unity of spirituality and faith through the scripture of Sri Guru Granth Sahib.
In this scripture he founded an integral congress of all minds and souls operating
on the same spiritual vibration. He elevated the songs of the saints, the Sufis
and the bards to the elevation of the logos to salute the power of the Word
whatever form it might take to reveal the glory of the One Reality.
The Sikhs in particular and the religious world in general must be congratulated
to be the recipients of the unique scripture of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. We,
the Sikhs, must be humble and grateful to be chosen by Guru Gobind Singh who
assigned us the task of the keepers of the light of Sri Guru Granth Sahib on
this Day of October 20, 1708.
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