Boundless scripture of the Guru Granth Sahib

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BOUNDLESS SCRIPTURE OF GURU GRANTH SAHIB

 

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.

 

Harbans Lal, PhD., D.Litt (hons)

6415 Amicable Drive, Arlington, TX 76016, USA

Phone: 817-654-0844, Fax: 707-922-7724

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