Jap Sahib: Book 3

By Maneshwar S Chahal

Sikhism is the youngest of the major world religions and the most modern and egalitarian in its practise. The scriptural authority for its followers is the Gurbani' in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Jap Sahib is the quintessential bani' and the key to the philosophy expounded by the Gurus. Jap Sahib: Way to God in Sikhism by Maneshwar S. Chahal is a unique presentation in that, before offering well-reasoned conclusions, it puts forth many points of view and not just any single interpretation of the verses. It will help the lay reader easily understand the Guru' s message and offer the scholar ready material for deeper study of this vast subject. Serves as a guide for spiritual teaching. Addresses the fundamental questions of human existence. Seek guidance from its teachings.Promotes the idea of finding the divine within oneself and experiencing the presence of God in all aspects of life. Celebrates diversity and encourages the acceptance of different religious and cultural perspectives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fingerprint Publishing
• Release date: Jun 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9789358569766

Book preview

In bringing this, the third book in the series ‘WAY TO GOD IN SIKHISM’, to completion, I owe gratitude to many whose help was so invaluable in various ways.

First of all, thanks is due to S. Darshan Singh, retired chief engineer, who is one of the most deeply devoted and knowledgeable Sikhs that it has been my pleasure to come in contact with. He offered many valuable suggestions and improvements, and took the trouble to go through each word of the manuscript before it was finalized.

Many thanks are due to S. Mohinder Pal Singh, who retired as a senior bank executive and is the author of many books and above all, a practicing Sikh of great merit. His knowledge of the publishing world is vast and was very helpful in this task. Also, his suggestions on the text proved to be of great help.

I must also acknowledge the contribution of my immediate family; above all, my loving wife Simrat, who was patiently supportive as I went through the gruelling drill of researching and compiling this book. Our daughters Dr. Guneet and Dr. Puneet; their spouses Dr. Amandeep Singh and Preetinder Singh, and our grandchildren Nishant, Aleena and Tara, have also been a constant motivating factor in putting together these commentaries; besides being a great source of comfort and joy.

Last but not the least, I must thank the many readers of my previous books whose feedback greatly encouraged me to try and complete this series covering at least the Bāņis that are part of the NITNEM.

Lastly, it goes without saying that the support from the team at Prakash Books was always there. Thank you, Mr. Ashwani and Ms. Shikha.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the seekers of Truth, of all faiths; for all faiths are but roadmaps which lead ultimately to the same destination – the One Lord.

This book is the third in the series ‘Way to God in Sikhism’. The first of the series dealt with Guru Nanak’s Japji Sahib, the Bāṇi that has rightly been called by that great mystic and scholar Bhai Gurdas the key to the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. That Bāṇi spells out the basic tenets of Guru Nanak’s philosophy, which then are elaborated in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS). These tenets were to become the foundation on which is built the Sikh Nation, with the tenth Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh completing the edifice on that momentous Baisakhi day in 1699 AD.

The second book dealt with the Āsa di Vār, the Bāṇi which further emphasized the Guru’s message and where the Guru offers some trenchant criticism of the way the socio-religious polity had developed in this part of the country at that time. It can be said that the Āsa di Vār makes the clearest statement of Guru Nanak’s iconoclastic vision of a simple life of devotion to the One Lord, eschewing the unthinking ritualism that had crept into the social and religious observances at that time, and offering practical comments on the way our daily lives should be lived.

The present volume deals with JĀP SAHIB, which is one of the three Bāṇis of the tenth Nanak included in the Nitnem. These are: 1) Jāp Sahib, 2) the Sawaiyye; both forming part of the morning prayers, and 3) the Benti Chaupayi, which is recited every evening as part of the Rehrās Sahib. These carry forward the teachings of Guru Nanak, using slightly different style and idiom but staying totally true to the spirit of the message.

Guru Gobind Singh, the creator of the Khalsa, was a great scholar, magnificent poet, warrior extraordinaire and an unmatched leader of men. Above anything else, the Guru was a mystical seer who was in constant touch with the Lord. His message is always with us in the form of these compositions, which every Sikh is required to recite daily. It is a reality, however, that many of us are not always aware of the meaning and the exact import of what is being recited.

Trying to explain what the Guru had intended us to understand, is a truly daunting task. Firstly, because the Guru was vouchsafed a vision of the divine, which our limitations of intellect and our flawed minds cannot, perhaps, truly grasp. Secondly, it is inevitable that any divine seer, who brings to us the Lord’s word, has perforce to resort to words, with the inevitable limitations that language imposes on the transmission of thought. It is also a fact that seers everywhere almost universally accept that the Lord is unfathomable, and is beyond the capacity of words to delineate. The master seeking to convey his vision of the Divine knows what he has experienced, but most of us can easily miss the true import of the master’s words because of the problem of putting the vision into the narrow confines of words, and then our own limitations in interpreting those words.

Luckily, there are many learned ones whose understanding of the message is clearer than the rest of us. It helps that they have left for us commentaries to make somewhat easier our task of trying to understand this divine message. Prominent among these learned ones are the great mystic and gifted poet Bhai Vir Singh, and the renowned scholars of the Guru’s message, Prof. Sahib Singh and Bhai Joginder Singh Talwāṛa. Their work is, however, in Punjabi, which is often not within the ken of a large number of those who seek the One Lord. There are hardly any detailed commentaries on these Bāṇis in the English language.

This humble effort seeks to fill that gap and to bring this divine composition to those who do not find themselves comfortable with the Punjabi language, or otherwise have problems in comprehending the concepts and the terminology used.

The learned reader may find it helpful to read this along with the ‘Japji Sahib’, the first book in the ‘Way to God in Sikhism’ series. This commentary, though, is complete by itself, and should suffice to explain the Guru’s message.

This is presented in full knowledge of the difficulty and the magnitude of the task. It has been a lot of very hard, though enjoyable, work, but this labour of love may still contain many shortcomings, or errors in interpretation. If so, these are the result of your humble interlocutor’s limitations, for which forgiveness is sought in advance.

The author of these grand compositions, Guru Gobind Singh, was a truly remarkable personality. He was born, on Poh Sudi 7th, 23rd Poh 1723 Bikrami, corresponding to 22 December 1666, at Patna, in Bihar. He was named Gobind Rai, though some scholars say the name was Gobind Das. A magnificent Gurdwara, called Harmandir Sahib, today marks his birth place at Patna Sahib. It is acknowledged as one of the five Takhats, which literally means thrones, but is used in Sikhism to indicate one of the five honoured seats of religious authority for the Sikhs. The other four Takhats are Akal Takhat at Amritsar, Kesgarh Sahib in Anandpur Sahib where the Khalsa was created, Hazur Sahib in Nanded in the state of Maharashtra where the tenth Nanak departed from this world after anointing the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS) to henceforth be the Guru for the Sikhs, and Damdama Sahib in Bathinda in the state of Punjab, where the tenth Nanak resided for some time. It is traditionally believed that it was at Damdama Sahib that he had a copy of the SGGS transcribed from memory, adding the Bāṇi of the 9th Nanak, and giving the SGGS the final form that we see today.

Principal Satbir Singh narrates that when the birth took place, a Muslim mystic named Pir Bhikhan Shah, of Sayyad clan, of Siyana in district Karnal in far away Punjab, was seen to suddenly perform the Namaz to the East, instead of the prescribed direction towards the Ka’aba in the West. When questioned, he said that he had glimpsed the Lord in the East that day. Later, he travelled to Patna and is said to have tested the infant Guru by placing before him two containers of sweets and two vessels containing water and milk, representing in his own mind Hinduism and Islam. He felt that if the Guru favoured one vessel, then it would mean he favoured that religion. The young master is said to have put his tiny hands simultaneously on the two containers and then overturned both vessels with his feet. The Pir concluded that this master would treat all alike and also that he was not just a new messiah for the Muslim or the Hindu, but would bring into existence a new and different nation and a new path to the Lord.

Many other tales are told of the magnetic persona of the Guru even as a young lad, which attracted the mighty and the poor alike. Raja Fateh Chand Mai ṇi, a rich jāgirdār, was one such devotee, and the Guru is said to have gifted a dagger, a sword and a dress to the Raja’s wife while leaving Patna.

By the time of the ninth Nanak, Guru Tegh Bahadur, teachings of Nanak had taken firm root and followers of the faith were to be found in all parts of the country. There were sizeable numbers in the Eastern states also. The Guru undertook an extended visit to that part of the country and his family accompanied him till Patna. There they were to stay in the care of his wife’s brother, Kripal Chand, and some disciples, while the Guru travelled across Bengal and Assam.The Guru was by that time much more than the spiritual preceptor for the Sikhs; he was also a politically important personage to whom even rulers turned for help and mediation.

Principal Satbir Singh narrates that Raja Ram Singh, son of the famous Mirza Raja Jai Singh, had been sent by Aurangzeb on a very difficult expedition to Kamrup, the present-day Assam, where the Ahoms had for centuries defied all attempts to subdue them. The Raja was at that time in the emperor’s bad books because Shivaji, the Maratha chief, had escaped when he had been incarcerated in the Raja’s palace. So, in a way the expedition to Assam was a punishment and success was not really expected. When Raja Ram Singh approached the Guru for his help, he agreed to accompany the Raja. They camped at Dhubri and following the Guru’s advice, the Mughal forces were able to escape an ambush with minor losses and the Ahom king felt thwarted and discouraged. It is said that at that stage the Ahom king’s mother had a vision that only the Guru could help them. The king and his mother went to the Guru, and agreed readily to his suggestion for a peaceful settlement. A Gurdwara marks the site of this event to this day. The Guru’s success in bringing about this truce helped avert much bloodshed.

Some learned ones say that he was still in Kamrup when the news of the birth of his son reached him. However, Principal Satbir Singh and some other scholars hold that he was holding discourses in Dhaka, now the capital of Bangladesh, when he got the happy news of the birth of his son on 22 December, 1666. The Guru stayed in that part of the country for some years and the young Gobind Rai spent his early childhood in Patna. It is said that in the year 1670 AD, the Guru got news that Aurangzeb had moved to Lahore from Agra. The Guru had by then spent many years in the East and must have felt that his mission there was almost complete. He also felt it necessary to be near his Sikhs in the Punjab, and decided to move back.

Principal Satbir Singh tells us in his Purakh Bhagwant that the Guru had earlier purchased three villages named Makhowal, Mataur and Lodhipur in the hill state of Bilaspur, for a sum of Rs. 2200. He had then, in June 1665 AD got Baba Gurdita, a grandson of the revered Baba Buddha, to lay the foundation of a town at that site. The town had been named Chak Nanaki after the Guru’s mother. The Guru, on his return in 1670, now busied himself with developing this area into a regular township. The following year, he sent for his family to join him. They set out from Patna in the company of faithful Sikhs, halting at many places before reaching Chak Nanaki. Principal Satbir Singh puts the date of this return as 1673 AD, though some scholars put it as March 1672. It is said that the ninth Nanak decided to change the name of the town to Anandpur Sahib, city of joy, as a mark of his delight when the young Gobind Rai, his only son, first set his foot there.

It was here that the young Gobind Rai received his early education, and precocious as he was, he soon acquired mastery in various languages, such as Punjabi, Braj, Arabic, Sanskrit and Persian. He was also trained in the martial skills, such as archery, riding and shooting; and he would, before long, face battle and be acknowledged as a great general, winning battles repeatedly against more numerous armies.

He was barely nine years of age when a great crisis arose, which was to lead to the martyrdom of the ninth Nanak and to the creation, ultimately, of the Sikh nation. At the time, Iftikhar Khan was the governor of the province of Kashmir. By this time, the tolerant regime of the great Akbar was a distant memory and Aurangzeb had embarked on a path of more rigid observance of his harsher version of the Islamic Law. Taking cue from this, many of the subalterns and governors appointed by him were enforcing the rules with varying rigour, according to their own lights. The Kashmir governor was particularly notorious for oppressing the non-Muslim subjects. The Kashmiri pandits had been the dominant community before the arrival of the Mughals on the scene. This community therefore must have faced greater oppression, because history tells us that early in 1675, a group of Kashmiri Brahmans came to Anandpur Sahib seeking help from Guru Tegh Bahadur. They said that they had been driven to desperation by the religious fanaticism of the Mughal Subedar Iftikhar Khan, who was ruthlessly forcing the Kashmiri pPandits to embrace Islam, putting the sword to those who refused.

It is said that as the Guru was reflecting on how best to respond to this request, young Gobind Rai, happening to come there, asked his father why he looked so preoccupied. The Guru replied that he was faced with a grievous problem that required a great sacrifice, and he was thinking who could be a truly worthy person to come forward to lay down his head. Gobind Rai is said to have replied that there could be none more worthy than the Guru himself. This acute observation from a young lad of 9 years probably helped clinch the matter in the Guru’s mind, and he decided to go and personally confront the situation. He proceeded accordingly to Delhi and is said to have told the Emperor that he was the leader of the Pandits, and in case he wanted to convert them to Islam, he should first deal with the leader. He was taken prisoner and subjected to intense pressure to accept Islam. He was subjected to torture along with many of his followers but he refused to bend to the will of the rulers. The Guru’s closest followers were brutally tortured to death in front of him, but he persisted in defying the emperor’s fiat and finally courted death on 11 November, 1675, when he was beheaded. His devoted followers managed to spirit away the head and the Sikhs were able to show him due honours by performing the last rites in an appropriate manner back home. The torso was also cremated by another set of followers in Delhi, who removed it to their home and then set the house on fire, thus according the body the respectful last rites.

This cruel atrocity took the focus of oppression away from the Kashmiri pandits and fixed it instead on the Sikhs. The ninth Nanak is even today renowned as Hind di Chādar, the protector and refuge of the Hindus. This sacrifice and the cruel nature of the ruler’s actions was to lead in a major way to the ultimate rise of the Sikh nation as a martial force which was to shake the very foundations of the Muslim rule in Punjab.

Following the passing of Guru Tegh Bahadur, Guru Gobind Rai was formally installed as the tenth Nanak on Maghar Sudi 5th (11 Maghar), 1732 Samvat, corresponding to 11 November, 1675 AD. He was not quite nine years of age yet. In spite, however, of his tender age, his handling of the concerns of the community was marked by a surehanded skill from the very beginning.

He also continued to give attention to the mastery of physical prowess and literary skills. He was endowed with great personal energy, and was gifted with a precocious genius in poetic accomplishments. He stayed in Anandpur Sahib till 1684, further developing the city and also acquiring a great reputation as a scholar, poet and warrior. He was also often called upon to intervene in many a dispute among the rulers of the hill states, which he successfully resolved. He shifted then to Nahan at the invitation of the Ruler, Raja Medni Prakash, of Sirmour. The Guru was accorded great honour by the ruler and he stayed for some time in Nahan. Later, in April 1685, he decided to move to Paonta Sahib, a picturesque spot on the banks of the Yamuna, where he set up a sizeable camp. A Gurdwara marks the site of his stay in Paonta Sahib, and the town is fairly flourishing even today.

It is generally accepted that much of the Guru’s creative literary work was done during his stay of about four years at Paonta Sahib. The Encyclopedia of Sikhism says that the Vār Sri Bhagauti Ji Ki, popularly called Chandi di Vār, was his first composition. The poem, mostly in Braj, describes the mythical contest between the suras and the asuras, gods and the demons.

It will be seen that the Guru’s compositions extensively revolve around martial themes, and even where the subject matter is purely spiritual, he chooses meters and rhythms which are martial. This choice of warlike themes and forms was deliberate, and intended to infuse the martial spirit among his followers, to prepare them to stand up against injustice and tyranny. He glorified the sword as the emblem of manliness and self-respect, and a means for securing justice. The sword was never meant as a symbol of aggression, and was to be used only in self-defense, that too only as a last resort. The Guru states this very clearly in his Zafarnamah, written in Persian, which translates as the ‘epistle of victory’. The relevant couplet says,

Chu kār az hama hilate dar guzasht

Halāl ast burdan ba shamshir dast

This means that when all other means have failed, it is righteous and lawful to take the sword in hand. In other words, armed resistance is the proper course when the oppressor crosses all limits and refuses to listen to reason. His philosophy does not advocate total non-violence, but does put the shackles of rightfulness on any aggressive response.

The Guru’s personal sacrifice and his reputation as a the warrior is somehow more often highlighted, and sometimes people tend to forget that his spiritual status was also of the highest and he was ever one with the Lord. His compositions, even where the tone is martial, are meant to reveal the divine