400 Years of Guru Granth Sahib

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Light and Love

 

Swami mentions with great respect the ancient scriptures, guru Granth Saheb

and advices to study their cultural sacred heritages written hundreds years

ago.

 

"Wisdom is illumination. It is the aim of education to radiate that light of

wisdom.

How can this illumination enter man's being? By listening to and going

through great books like the Vedas, the Vedanta, the Upanishads, the Koran, the

Granth Saheb, the biographies of noble souls, books dealing with physical and

technological sciences and psychology, one gains this light. Alongside with

wisdom, discriminatory approach and logical thinking can be gained by reading

them. One should not depend entirely on knowledge derived from sacred texts but

depend upon wisdom arising from experience."(Sathya Sai Baba. Sathya Sai

Vahini. The Inner Inquery, p.120).

"It can secure invaluable guidance from the Vedas and the Sastras, the

Brahma Sutra, the Bible, the Quoran, the Zend Avesta, the Granth Saheb and

other holy texts whose number exceeds a thousand. There is no dearth in this

land (Bharath) of heads of monasteries and religious orders, exponents of

spiritual doctrines and disciplines, scholars and venerable elders. They too

are propagating and publishing on a massive scale." (Sathya Sai Baba. Vidya

Vahini. Chapter X, p. 34).

 

"Sikh-upaasana: The Preceptor (Guru), who reveals the Atma and makes one

conscious of Its Existence as one's Reality, has the highest place in this

system of worship. The collection of the teachings of the Gurus - referred to

as Granth Saheb - is extolled and revered by the Sikhs. It is derived from the

spring of Bharathiya spiritual traditions. Its ideas form the very core of

Bharathiya cultural traits." (Sathya Sai Baba. Sathya Sai Vahini. Modes of

Worship, p. 146).

These Swami's quotations complemented the article by Pranav Khullar

"Eleventh & Eternal Guru Granth Sahib" published in "The Times of India"

Editorial (The Speaking Tree),September 01, 2004

(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/833920.cms), what is

represented below.

A striking feature of the Adi Granth — popularly called the Guru Granth

Sahib — is its distinctly lilting literary flavour, eloquently described as the

"musicalisation of thought". Even as one pays homage to Guru Granth Sahib, on

the 400th anniversary of its being established as the Holy Book and as the

eternal Guru of the Sikh faith, one is struck by the rich literary

underpinnings of this compilation and the systematic manner in which each part

has been set to music.

Besides, Guru Arjan Dev, while enshrining the Guru Granth Sahib at the Har

Mandir in 1604, was also encapsulating the religious, mystical and

philosophical currents of almost four centuries.

The Adi Granth is unique in having compositions of sage-poets and mystics of

different faiths, including those of Kabir, Baba Farid, Namdev, Jaidev, Dhanna

Bhagat and Ravidas. Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth guru, later enshrined the Holy

Book as the eleventh Guru, a living testament to the bani or sayings of the

Gurus.

 

Meticulously compiled and arranged into 5,894 hymns, the Adi Granth is set

equally meticulously to 31 ragas of the classical music tradition, a "powerful

appeal to the heart as much as the mind", as writer Pearl Buck once pointed

out. This setting to music forms the underlying basis of the classification of

hymns into Ashtapadas or hymns of eight verses, Chhands or verses of six lines,

Chaupadas or hymns of four verses. This intricate division of the Adi Granth

according to ragas, the metre of the poem, the author of the poem and its ghar

in which the raga is to be sung, has a fascinating raga-mala towards the end of

the Holy Text, an index of musical measures.

 

The Adi Granth has another interesting feature, the Bhatt bani or hymns of

the bards. In the latter half of the Adi Granth are incorporated hymns by

eleven Bhatts, who were ballad singers composing martial and war poetry — Var

or heroic ballads — in the vernacular of the times in a particular form called

Swaiyya Chhand, verses of praise, where they would employ a narrative style to

describe war, exhorting warriors to action. Genealogically tracing their

lineage to the ancient Saraswat Brahmins, they were themselves called Saraswat

or learned ones, who saw all the Gurus as personifying one Light — the basic

tenet of the faith today — and articulated their poetry in praise of the

spiritual grandeur of Guru Nanak and all the Gurus.

 

Its unique catholicity and prosody apart, the Guru Granth Sahib also

engendered the Gurmukhi script, which Guru Angad Dev developed to reach out to

people in their vernacular dia-lect, refining and shaping it by use of 10

vowels. The development of the script and language reflected the casteless and

creedless socio-economic vision of society that the Sikh Gurus envisioned. This

vision also incorporated gender equality, as both genders are free to read from

the Guru Granth Sahib.

 

Guru Gobind Singh invested the title of the Guru to the Adi Granth at

Nanded in 1708, after preparing a new edition and including some hymns of Guru

Tegh Bahadur. He said, "... let him who wishes to speak to the Guru, read and

reflect on what the Granth says..." The Adi Granth is a powerful rendering of

the oneness of God, free of rituals and observances, but spelt out in

hauntingly beautiful poetry and melodies; not an abstruse work of philosophy

for the few, but something that endears itself to everyone with its musical

appeal. In fact, the musical-emotive appeal of the Guru Granth Sahib is a

potent spiritual tool to draw the faithful nearer to the cosmic Oneness of

Godhead.

 

Namaste - Reet