The Adi Granth and the Dasam Granth
There are two granths, or volumes, that stand out above all others in the Sikh religion: the Adi Granth (“First Book”)—unquestionably the greater of the two—and the Dasam Granth (“Tenth Book”). The Adi Granth, as discussed above, is believed by Sikhs to be the abode of the eternal Guru, and for that reason it is known to all Sikhs as the Guru Granth Sahib—in full, the Adi Sri Guru Granth Sahibji (“The Most Revered Granth Which Is the Guru”). The Dasam Granth is controversial in the Panth because of questions concerning its authorship and composition. No such questions concern the Adi Granth. Carefully compiled by Guru Arjan in 1603–04, it numbers 1,430 pages in its contemporary printed edition. The focus of the Adi Granth is remembrance of the divine name, and there is little commentary on historical events, apart from some references to the life of Guru Arjan.
The Adi Granth is divided into three parts and organized in accordance with specific ragas, a series of five or more notes upon which a melody is based. The brief first section (pages 1–13) contains liturgical works. The lengthy second part of the Adi Granth is devoted to 31 ragas (pages 14–1353), and the third and final part is a short epilogue containing miscellaneous works (pages 1353–1430).
The Adi Granth opens with the Mul Mantra, the basic statement of belief: “There is one Supreme Being, the Eternal Reality. [This Supreme Being] is the Creator, without fear and devoid of enmity, immortal, never incarnated, self-existent, known by grace through the Guru.” The Mul Mantra is followed by the only work in the Adi Granth that is recited rather than sung—the supremely beautiful Japji of Guru Nanak, which devout Sikhs may recite following an early-morning bathe. The culmination of its 38 stanzas describes the ascent of the spirit through five stages, finally reaching the realm of truth. The nine hymns of the Sodar (“Gate”) collection are sung by devout Sikhs at sundown each day. Finally, there is the Kirtan Sohila, a group of five hymns sung immediately before retiring for the night. Hymns that are recorded in this liturgical section also appear elsewhere in the Adi Granth.
The middle section of the Adi Granth is subdivided according to raga, and each raga is further subdivided into smaller sections. First there are the chaupad, short hymns by the Gurus beginning with those by Guru Nanak. Second there are longer hymns called ashtapadi and then a variety of longer hymns termed chhant. Next come longer works by various Gurus (such as Arjan’s Sukhmani), followed by the distinctive Adi Granth form of the var. Finally, there is the Bhagat Bani, comprising works by Kabir and other Sants whose compositions Amar Das (who was responsible for the Goindval Pothis) and Arjan regarded as sound. The inclusion of Kabir testifies to the link joining the Gurus to the tradition of the sants, most of whom were Hindus—though two were Sufi Muslims (notably Farid), both of whom composed works that were regarded by Sikhs as entirely acceptable.
This intricate but generally consistent ordering of material was characteristic of other collections of scripture by religious groups in medieval and early modern India. Guru Arjan’s collection included works by the first five Gurus, but there was relatively little by Guru Angad. Works by Guru Tegh Bahadur were added later, and the Adi Granth was then complete.
The other major work of Sikh literature, the Dasam Granth, was, prior to the emergence of the Tat Khalsa, believed to be a work of Guru Gobind Singh, and accordingly Sikhs treated it as a part of the Guru Granth Sahib. Most modern Sikh scholars, however, agree that by far the largest part of it consists of the compositions of Gobind Singh’s followers and that many of these works would never have met with the Guru’s approval. This means that the great majority of works in the Dasam Granth cannot be regarded as a part of the Guru Granth Sahib.
According to tradition, the original version of the Dasam Granth was collected by the Guru’s faithful follower Mani Singh. Another version is believed to have been assembled by Dip Singh, and a third was compiled in Patna at the end of the 18th century. The three versions are substantially the same, and none of them contains the Zafar-Nama (“Epistle of Victory”), Guru Gobind Singh’s defiant message to Emperor Aurangzeb. In 1902 Sanatan Sikhs of the Amritsar Singh Sabha published an authorized version that included the Zafar-Nama and gave it the title Dasam Granth. The contemporary printed work amounts to 1,428 pages.
Compositions that are accepted as the work of Guru Gobind Singh include the Jap (“Repeat,” which should be distinguished from Guru Nanak’s Japji, “Chant”), Bachitar Natak (“Wondrous Drama”), Akal Ustati (“Praise to the Eternal One”), and Zafar-Nama. Together these works form only a small part of the Dasam Granth. The great bulk of the volume consists of a retelling of the Rama and Krishna legends and a lengthy series of diverting anecdotes, mainly tales about the scheming ways of women. Contents of this sort were altogether unacceptable to the Tat Khalsa, which consequently rejected the Dasam Granth. Periodically, however, questions concerning its authenticity are raised, mainly by Sikhs who believe that the original tradition must be correct.
Devotional and other works
Apart from the Adi Granth and the Dasam Granth, the main works of Sikh literature can be divided into devotional works, janam-sakhis (writings on the life of Guru Nanak), rahit-namas (manuals containing the Rahit), gur-bilas (hagiographic works concerning the 6th and 10th Gurus that stress their roles as warriors), historical works, scriptural commentaries, the contribution of Vir Singh (1872–1957), and a brief anthology consisting largely of quotations from the Sikh scriptures.
The devotional works of Bhai Gurdas (1551–1637) and Nand Lal (1633–1715) are the only texts aside from the Granths that can be recited in the gurdwaras. Their compositions are more than just devotional, including social and historical commentary. This was particularly true of the works of Bhai Gurdas, whose 40 lengthy poems, composed in Punjabi, remain popular. Their popularity is vastly greater than that of his 556 brief poems in Braj, a language little read in the Panth today. The compositions of Nand Lal, who wrote in Persian, are also not well known to members of the Panth, because of the language barrier. Nand Lal joined the retinue of Guru Gobind Singh, adopting the pen name Goya (“Eloquent”). His works were greatly admired, and such was the respect accorded to him that three rahit-namas were mistakenly attributed to him.
The principal janam-sakhis are the Bala, the Puratan, the Miharban, and the influential works of Santokh Singh (1787–1853), which were published in the first half of the 19th century. Santokh Singh’s first contribution, completed in 1823, was Gur Nanak Prakash (“The Splendour of Guru Nanak”; also known as the Nanak Prakash), which treated the life of Guru Nanak and relied principally on the Bala tradition. In 1844 he published Gur Pratap Suray (“The Glorious Light of the Gurus”; widely known as the Suraj Prakash), which covered the lives of the remaining Gurus.
The earliest of the extant rahit-namas is the Nasihat-Nama (1718–19; “Manual of Instruction”), which was erroneously attributed to Nand Lal and wrongly titled the Tanakhah-Nama (“Manual of Penances”). A much longer work dating from the middle of the 18th century and bearing witness to its Brahmanic origins is the Chaupa Singh Rahit-Nama (“The Rahit Manual of Chaupa Singh”). Another lengthy rahit-nama from later in the same century is the Prem Sumarag (“The Path of Love”). The series of rahit-namas finally ended with the publication in 1950 by the Tat Khalsa of Sikh Rahit Marayada (“Sikh Custom Concerning the Rahit”), which was, unfortunately, little more than a pamphlet and poorly produced, though it remains an influential work in contemporary Sikhism.
The gur-bilas literature produced a style of hagiography that focused on the mighty deeds of the Gurus, particularly Hargobind and Gobind Singh. Unlike the janam-sakhis, the gur-bilas emphasized the destiny of the Gurus to fight against the forces of evil and their supreme courage in this struggle. The enemy against which they fought was, of course, the Mughal Empire. Some gur-bilas also attach great importance to the story of the goddess Devi as a preparation for the founding of the Khalsa. The tradition began with the writing of Bachitar Natak, which appears in the Dasam Granth. Later works include Sukkha Singh’s Gur-Bilas Dasvin Patshahi, Koer Singh’s Gur-Bilas Patshahi 10, and Sohan’s Gur-Bilas Chhevin Patshahi. All gur-bilas predate the rise of the Tat Khalsa and, apart from Bachitar Natak, have received little attention. Their general message is, however, firmly fixed in the modern traditions of the Sikhs.
Among the many works that record the history of the Panth, four are particularly important. The first is Sainapati’s Gur Sobha (1711; “Radiance of the Guru”), which provides a general account of Guru Gobind Singh’s life as well as a description of the founding of the Khalsa. A second work, Ratan Singh Bhangu’s Panth Prakash (later termed Prachin Panth Prakash to distinguish it from Gian Singh’s work of the same name), was composed in 1809 and completed in 1841; it is notable for its description and high praise of the Khalsa. The two remaining works are Gian Singh’s Panth Prakash and his lengthy Tavarikh Guru Khalsa, a labour finally concluded in 1919. These texts, however, cannot be described as works of history in the modern sense, and the works of Ratan Singh Bhangu and Gian Singh are similar to gur-bilas in their treatment of the heroic deeds of the warrior Gurus.
Several commentaries on the Adi Granth have appeared since the rise of the Tat Khalsa. The first, Faridkot Tika, was commissioned by Raja Bikram Singh of Faridkot in response to Ernest Trumpp’s translation into English of part of the Adi Granth, which Sikhs regarded as grievously insulting. Three volumes were issued during 1905–06, and a fourth volume followed some years later. This work failed to assume an important place among Sikh exegetical works. This, however, was not the fate of the four-volume Shabadarath Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, published between 1936 and 1941. Although published anonymously, it was mainly the work of Teja Singh. Vir Singh published seven volumes of commentary between 1958 and 1962 but left Santhya Sri Guru Granth Sahib unfinished. Another commentator, Sahib Singh, issued the 10-volume Sri Guru Granth Sahib Darapan between 1962 and 1964.
Among the most important and influential Sikh writers and theologians was Vir Singh, a leading member of the Tat Khalsa, who produced an extraordinary range of literary works in Punjabi prose and poetry. He first won wide popularity as a writer of novels such as Sundari (1943) and Vijay Singh (1899), which dealt with subjects such as the heroism and chivalry of the Sikhs in response to the oppression of Muslim rulers and the subservience of the Hindu masses. His novels also highlighted the excellence of the Sikh religion in comparison with all that surrounded it. Although his novels had lost their appeal by the early 21st century, they were eagerly read in their own time by a large number of Sikhs and set a useful example to other writers. Later in his career Vir Singh gave up writing novels and turned to scriptural commentary. He published a series of pamphlets through his Khalsa Tract Society and in his weekly newspaper (the Khalsa Samachar) and began work on his multivolume commentary on the Adi Granth. Meanwhile, he began to write poetry in Punjabi, including many short poems and also the longer Rana Surat Singh (1905) in blank verse. As always, the background was provided by the Sikh religion. He then turned to Sri Kalgidhar Chamatkar (1935), a life of Guru Gobind Singh, followed by Sri Guru Nanak Chamatkar (1936), and later he produced Sri Asht Gur Chamatkar (1951; “The Marvel of the Eight [Other] Gurus”), complete only as far as Guru Arjan.
A final work is the polemical treatise Ham Hindu Nahin (“We Are Not Hindus”) by Kahn Singh Nabha. First issued in 1898, it was the author’s answer to a publication by a Sanatan Sikh, Thakur Das, entitled Sikh Hindu Hain (“Sikhs Are Hindus”). Ham Hindu Nahin consists of a discussion between a Sikh and a Hindu and includes sacred Sikh texts on subjects such as the Vedas, gods and goddesses, and caste, among others. The title of the work became the slogan of the Tat Khalsa, and it remained in print throughout the 20th century.