Books and Literature

Boundless Scripture of Guru Granth Sahib

Sri Guru Granth Sahib is a sacred scripture of the world, and it is the Eternal Guru of the Sikhs. Abortion and veneration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib is an article of faith with the Sikhs. In the year of 2008, they will celebrate the Tercentennial of the Canonization of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Similarly, in 2004, the world will celebrate the Quad-Centennial of the first compilation of Guru Granth Sahib as the sacred pothi that contained compositions of 36 holy poets from all religions of the continent in the very first compilation. Because of this extraordinary feature,
this scripture becomes suitable for a universal religion. Indeed, many world-class philosophers and holy men consider it a unique treasure and a noble heritage for all humankind. 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 put in writing in the text of Sri Guru Granth Sahib.

To the Sikhs, any scripture not integrated into 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 chosen for liturgy in Sikh congregations except 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 esteemed 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 Gurbani. 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 form, since its 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 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 only handwritten books, and they used them 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.

Guru Granth was composed in poetry, perhaps to prevent alterations or adulterations, and to reach out to the 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 long after the prophet 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 despite its interfaith nature, was dictated, edited, proofread, and signed for authenticity by the founders of the faith in their lifetime. These unique features helped preserve the Sikh religion throughout the numerous on-slaughts it endured over five centuries. The Granth proved to be a sufficiently foolproof means for continuously providing a safeguard against adulteration and extinction of the Sikh religion for centuries to come.

The fifth Sikh Guru, Guru Arjan Dev first compiled and installed this scripture in the Sikhs’ central shrine, Hari Mandar: Hari Mander means the temple of the infinite. Its foundation stone was laid by a Muslim holy man. The land was donated by a Muslim ruler. The city is popularly known as the Golden Temple and was built in Amritsar later known as the City of Golden Temple posterity.
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. 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 it 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 Anandpur Sahib and Damdama Sahib to complete this project in 1705. He founded Damdama town and established the first Sikh University to immortalize this occasion.

On October 20, 1708, Guru Gobind gave his final sermon that conferred permanent gurudom on the Damdama version of the Granth. He selected the 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
More recently, the text in its original font is available electronically on many websites for everyone to have free access. In addition to the edition in the 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 Indian languages are in preparation.

Sri Guru Granth Sahib contains 5,894 hymns. Guru Arjan Dev contributed the largest number of 2,216 hymns. Besides the hymns of other Gurus, he also included 937 hymns from fifteen other saints and eleven put 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, which evolved during the medieval period in the Indian subcontinent. Much of it is based upon the local dialects, blended with expressions from Sanskrit, and Prakrit.

Persian, Arabic, Bengali Marathi, etc.
The Guru Granth language allowed for variations and still enjoyed wide popularity 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 raggas is 31. The gurus themselves invented some of those. Under each Raag, the hymns are arranged in different meters as Chaupadas and Ashtapadas; Iong poems include Chhands, Vars, and Bhagat verses.
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 flexible discipline of the Granth’s metrics and notations. Whilst a great deal of Guru Granth 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 Guru Granth verses are often sung in a process known as kirtan. In this process, the true meaning is revealed directly to the Surat (specific consciousness and awareness of the divine) through cosmic vibrations. The body’s energetic vibrations from singers’ voices bond them to the spiritual light of universal intelligence As people chant the Granth’s verses, the universe speaks to them 1 metaphoric image The physical body experiences the essence of each word through the oscillating energy in the brain and the calming vibrations in the body. All are caused by the sound currents. They keep the mind to focus 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 a massed spiritual energy bubble before your eyes. This is how ordinary words change into logos and become auspicious

In the 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 or 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 workplace of 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’s poetry an extraordinary blend of rhythm, 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 debate. 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 the inclusion of the songs and verses composed and channeled by a wide diversity of holy souls, saints, savants, and bards. Of course, their hymns and couplets rendered in their language and idiom were so dovetailed as to find a complete correspondence with themes or motifs in the compositions of the Sikh Gurus.

The Gur 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 12th 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 exposes the corruption and degradation of the society of those times and emphasizes the need for social reform, moral rearmament, and economic uplift. Guru Granth’s verses advocate a spiritual soul for the otherwise inhumane political philosophy of the then rulers, 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 might take to reveal the glory of the One Reality.

The Sikhs in particular and the religious world in general must be congratulated for being the recipients of the unique scriptures of Guru Granth Sahib. We, the Sikhs, must be humble and grateful to be chosen by Guru Gobind Singh who assigned us the task of being the keepers of the light of Sri Guru Granth Sahib on October 20th, 1708.

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