Sri Guru Granth Sahib
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Selection or partial work
- Authorship:
- Recorded or compiled by others
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 8 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~320,000 words · 1,542 passages
Cite this work
- APAAdi Granth. (n.d.). Sri Guru Granth Sahib. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/adi-granth/the-adi-granth-holy-scriptures-of-the-sikhs
- MLAAdi Granth. "Sri Guru Granth Sahib." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/adi-granth/the-adi-granth-holy-scriptures-of-the-sikhs.
- ChicagoAdi Granth. Sri Guru Granth Sahib. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/adi-granth/the-adi-granth-holy-scriptures-of-the-sikhs.
What it is about
The scripture of the Sikhs: hymns of the Gurus, almost all in verse and meant to be sung, arranged by the musical raga to which each is set.
Context and history
Guru Arjan compiled it in 1604, and it has a feature worth knowing: hymns by Hindu and Muslim saints — Kabir, Ravidas, Farid — stand alongside those of the Gurus, not as an appendix. In 1708 Guru Gobind Singh declared that the book itself would be the perpetual Guru, and since then the community treats it as a living teacher rather than a text.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
The true name is the creator, the Spirit without fear, without enmity, having a timeless form, not produced from the womb.1 By the favour of the Guru ! JAPU.3 At the beginning is the True one, at the beginning of the Yug is the True one.3 The True one is, 0 Nanak! and the True one also will be. 1. By meditation (and) meditation it (i.e. the knowledge of the True one) is not effected, though I meditate a hundred thousand times. By silence (and) silence it is not effected, though I keep on a continual absorption of mind. The hunger of the hungry does not cease, though I bind together the load of (all) the worlds.4 There may be acquired a thousand, a hundred thousand dexterities, not one goes with (at the time of death). How does one become 5 a man of truth (knowing the True one), how is the embankment of falsehood broken ? He who walks6 in his (i.e. God's) order and pleasure, 0 Kanak! (and) with (whom) it is (thus) written. 1 *HijAl> free from the womb (the same as JJf^T^), fh§= ^PT^> birth, production. Other forms are : 2 The Japu is composed by Baba Nanak himself. The Sikh tradition runs thus : AIAqJ ifl' ^ afrrfZ f*Tlri Tft^ & Tpfe VcTET? 5 TTVrft tfdtf I \Tg\ ft- Guru Nanak had a conversation with the Siddhs (JogTs) on the mountain Sumeru ; there the discourse of the Japu-ji was made. The Japu-ji is composed in so-called lf©fft (ladder), verses of unequal length, within which the rhyme may vary. 3 Man! Singh comments on this : nftfe 7> 3"@ ^TT^ W5 *Wl tT@ -HJ|d JUfT 3"@ >J7TH : when there was as yet no beginning of the world, Brahm was true (existing) ; when the world was made, then also Brahm was true. 4 "Ulftoftj etc. There are said to be fourteen cities, seven celestial and seven sub-terrestrial ones = the whole universe. fcJAcSI = fcJ&cM > v.a. to bind together (into a bundle). 0 is a passive form, properly : it is become, not as the Sikhs now explain it : we become. 6 ^3WcM is a verbal adjective, walking. J
What is Sri Guru Granth Sahib about?Summarize Sri Guru Granth Sahib brieflyWhat are the key ideas in Sri Guru Granth Sahib?
← Back to Adi Granth