The Guru Granth Sahib (, ) is the central holy religious scripture of Sikhism, regarded by Sikhs as the final, sovereign, and eternal Guru following the lineage of the ten human gurus of the religion.
The Adi Granth (), its first rendition, was compiled by the fifth guru, Guru Arjan (1564–1606). Its compilation was completed on 29 August 1604 and first installed inside the Golden Temple in Amritsar on 1 September 1604. Baba Buddha was appointed the first Granthi of the Golden Temple. Later, Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh guru, added hymns of Guru Tegh Bahadur to the Adi Granth and affirmed the text as his successor on 6 October 1708. This second rendition became known as the Guru Granth Sahib and is also sometimes referred to as the Adi Granth.Adi Granth, Encyclopaedia Britannica
The text consists of 1,430 angs (pages) and 5,894 shabads (line compositions), which are poetically rendered and set to a rhythmic ancient north Indian classical form of music.Anna S. King and JL Brockington (2005), The Intimate Other: Love Divine in Indic Religions, Orient Blackswan, , pp. 359–361 The bulk of the scripture is divided into 31 main rāgas, with each Granth rāga subdivided according to length and author. The hymns in the scripture are arranged primarily by the rāgas in which they are read.Christopher Shackle and Arvind Mandair (2005), Teachings of the Sikh Gurus, Routledge, , pp. xvii–xx The Guru Granth Sahib is written in the Gurmukhi script in various languages including Punjabi, Lahnda, regional Prakrits, Apabhramsa, Sanskrit, Hindi languages (Braj Bhasha, Bangru, Awadhi, Old Hindi), Bhojpuri, Sindhi, Marathi, Marwari, Bengali, Persian and Arabic. Copies in these languages often have the generic title of Sant Bhasha.Harnik Deol, Religion and Nationalism in India. Routledge, 2000. . p. 22. "(...) the compositions in the Sikh holy book, Adi Granth, are a melange of various dialects, often coalesced under the generic title of Sant Bhasha."The Making of Sikh Scripture by Gurinder Singh Mann. Published by Oxford University Press US, 2001. p. 5. "The language of the hymns recorded in the Adi Granth has been called Sant Bhasha, a kind of lingua franca used by the medieval saint-poets of northern India. But the broad range of contributors to the text produced a complex mix of regional dialects."Surindar Singh Kohli, History of Punjabi Literature. p. 48. National Book, 1993. . "When we go through the hymns and compositions of the Guru written in Sant Bhasha (saint-language), it appears that some Indian saint of 16th century...."Nirmal Dass, Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth. SUNY Press, 2000. . p. 13. "Any attempt at translating songs from the Adi Granth certainly involves working not with one language, but several, along with dialectical differences. The languages used by the saints range from Sanskrit; regional Prakrits; western, eastern and southern Apabhramsa; and Sahiskriti. More particularly, we find sant bhasha, Marathi, Old Hindi, central and Lehndi Panjabi, Sgettland Persian. There are also many dialects deployed, such as Purbi Marwari, Bangru, Dakhni, Malwai, and Awadhi."
The Guru Granth Sahib was composed predominantly by six Sikh gurus: Guru Nanak, Guru Angad, Guru Amar Das, Guru Ram Das, Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur. It also contains the traditions and teachings of fourteen Hindu Bhakti movement sants (saints), such as Ramananda, Kabir and Namdev among others, and one Muslim Sufi saint: Sheikh Farid.
The vision in the Guru Granth Sahib is of a society based on divine freedom, mercy, love, and justice without oppression of any kind.Torkel Brekke (2014), Religion, War, and Ethics: A Sourcebook of Textual Traditions (Editors: Gregory M. Reichberg and Henrik Syse), Cambridge University Press, , pp. 673, 675, 672–686Christopher Shackle and Arvind Mandair (2005), Teachings of the Sikh Gurus, Routledge, , pp. xxxiv–xli While the Granth acknowledges and respects the scriptures of Hinduism and Islam, it does not imply a moral reconciliation with either of these religions.William Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi (1995), The Sikhs: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, Sussex Academic Press, , pp. 40, 157 It is installed in a Sikh gurdwara (temple). A Sikh typically prostrates before it on entering such a temple.William Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi (1995), The Sikhs: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, Sussex Academic Press, , p. 44 The Granth is revered as eternal gurbānī and the spiritual authority in Sikhism.Torkel Brekke (2014), Religion, War, and Ethics: A Sourcebook of Textual Traditions (Editors: Gregory M. Reichberg and Henrik Syse), Cambridge University Press, , p. 675
Nomenclature The main name for the Sikh scripture is Guru Granth Sahib. Precursory names for it were Pothi Sahib and Adi Granth. Another variation is Ād Granth. Due to Sikhs considering their scripture to be a "Living Guru", its pages are referred to as an ang (meaning "limb").
History
Overview During the Kartarpur chapter of Guru Nanak's life, his compositions were seen as a source of wisdom and compiled in the form of a book, known as a pothī. This collection would later be passed onto Nanak's successor Guru Angad, with him and the later gurus expanding upon the Sikh scriptural corpus by adding their own works and that of others in-line with Sikh theology. The major expansions on the Sikh religious collection occurred in around 1570, 1604, 1675, and the 1690s, finally assuming a canonical format.
Guru period
Guru Nanak composed hymns, which were sung by his followers in rāga set to music. His successor, Guru Angad, opened centers and distributed these hymns. The community would sing the hymns and his agents collected donations. This tradition was continued by the third and fourth gurus as well. The fifth guru, Guru Arjan, discovered that Prithi Chand – his eldest brother and a competing claimant to the Sikh guruship – had a copy of an earlier pothi (palm-leaf manuscript) with hymns and was distributing hymns of the earlier gurus along with his own of hymns. Guru Arjan considered these as spurious and became concerned about establishing an authentic anthology of approved hymns.
Guru Arjan began compiling an officially approved version of the sacred scripture for the Sikh community. He sent his associates across the Indian subcontinent to collect the circulating hymns of Sikh gurus and convinced Mohan, the son of Guru Amar Das, to give him the collection of the religious writings of the first three gurus in a humble manner by singing the hymns registered in Guru Granth Sahib, 248.As his associates returned with their collections, Guru Arjan selected and edited the hymns for inclusion in the Adi Granth with Bhai Gurdas as his scribe. This effort yielded several drafts and manuscripts, some of which have survived into the modern era.
The oldest surviving manuscript version of the Adi Granth is the Guru Nanak Dev University Manuscript 1245, which has been dated to . Other early editions of the Adi Granth with some variations include the Bahoval pothi (c. 1600), Vanjara pothi (c. 1601) and Bhai Rupa pothi (c. 1603).
Another early variant manuscript is called the Guru Harsahai pothi, preserved by Sodhis and is believed to be the one that existed before Guru Arjan's compilation and one he gave to his eldest brother Prithi Chand. It was initially installed in Amritsar, then was moved in the 18th-century and preserved in Guru Harsahai (35 kilometers west of Faridkot, Punjab) till 1969, when the state government requested it be displayed for the 500 years celebrations. It was moved for the first time in over 200 years and briefly displayed in Patiala for the event. Thereafter, the Sodhis consented to transfers. In 1970, however, during another such transfer, this early version of the Adi Granth manuscript was stolen. However, photos of some pages have survived.
This manuscript is claimed by the Sodhis to be the oldest and one written in part by Guru Nanak. However, this claim is first observed only much later, in texts attributed to the 17th-century Hariji, the grandson of Prithi Chand. Based on the evidence in the surviving photos, it is unlikely that Guru Nanak wrote or maintained a pothi. The features in its Gurmukhi script and the language suggest that the hymns are significantly older, and that the pre-canonical hymns were being written down in early Sikhism and preserved by the Sikh Gurus prior to the editing by Guru Arjan. The existence of Guru Harsahai manuscript attests to the early tradition of Sikh scripture, its existence in variant forms and a competition of ideas on its contents including the Mul Mantar.
Many minor variations, and three significant Adi Granth recensions, are known; these provide insights into how the Sikh scripture was compiled, edited and revised over time. There is a fourth significant version called the Lahori bir, but it primarily differs in how the hymns are arranged and the final pages of the Adi Granth.
After Guru Gobind Singh and his followers evacuated Anandpur Sahib in 1704 due to Mughal and Pahari opposition, they left behind a corpus of literature, including manuscripts of the Ād Granth. Many of these manuscripts of the scripture were looted by the Pahari Rajas during their invasion of Anandpur. At-least some of these looted manuscripts made their way back into Sikh possession with purchases by the later Sikh-ruled polities, such as the Sikh Empire and the kingdom of Patiala.
While Guru Gobind Singh was in Nanded in the Deccan, he suffered a fatal injury and died on 6 October 1708. Shortly before his death, he proclaimed that the Ād Granth be the guru to succeed him, ending the tradition of a living (dehdhari) guruship, with the scripture being proclaimed the new guru for eternity. Sectoral groups after the death of Guru Gobind Singh attempted to continue the guruship in the form of a physical human but they were sidelined by the main faction, led by Mata Sundari and Bhai Mani Singh, whom supported Guru Gobind Singh's wish for the scripture to be the eternal-guru. Bhai Nand Lal also wrote supporting the Guru Granth tradition.
Editions
In 1604, the first edition of the Sikh scripture, Adi Granth, was complete and officially approved by Guru Arjan. It was installed at the Golden Temple, with Baba Buddha as the first granthi or reader.William Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi (1995), The Sikhs: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, Sussex Academic Press, , pp. 45–46 No hymns were added by Guru Hargobind, Guru Har Rai and Guru Har Krishan. In the Sikh tradition, Guru Hargobind is credited for adding the rāga tunes for nine out of 22 Vars. The hymns of IX Guru Tegh Bahadur, after his beheading in Delhi, were added to the scripture by his son and successor Guru Gobind Singh. Even before the installation of the scripture to guruship, the scripture was revered and respected by the Sikhs. When it was first installed in the Darbar Sahib in Amritsar in 1604 on a manji (cot) on a canopied, high pedestal with a fly-whisk attendant (chowri), Guru Arjan bowed to the work and sat at a level lower than it. Thus, the scripture was treated in the same respect as the guru even before its guruship proclamation by Guru Gobind Singh.