Japji Sahib : An Interpretation in Humility

A layperson's understanding of the First Composition of the Sikh Holy Scriptures. More

Guru Nanak Dev, founder of the Sikh faith, uttered the holy Japji Sahib through songs of ecstasy after enlightenment at age 30. It was compiled later- mostly in Gurmukhi.

To Jap, is to chant, recite, and understand wisdom. Ji is added as an expression of respect.

Japji Sahib contains 38 verses, or stanzas, or hymns. It begins with a Mool Mantra (the essential hymn, the fundamental prayer) and ends with a sloka (a song, a 4-line stanza in Sanskrit metre.) Mool Mantra is the first Shabd that is oft repeated through the scriptures. A shabd is a hymn, or a speech, a sound used in religio-philosophical context. It has two aspects, the permanent one of meaning, and the ephemeral one of sound. It denotes an utterance, a cosmic vibration like Aum that can only be heard by the inner ear. Shabd is a mystical, indivisible word-whole. It is the verbal testimony of revealed scriptures.

Japji Sahib is the first composition to appear in the Sikh Holy Book, the Guru Granth Sahib (a compilation of the teachings of the Sikh Gurus). Sikhs treat the Guru Granth Sahib as the tenth and final Guru, and there are to be no more Gurus after this. The Guru Granth Sahib is composed of several chapters of Ragas, each containing Shabds, of which the first one is the Mool Mantra.

So why would I pick the Sikh faith’s first composition to write about? Having got married into a Sikh family, where everyone recited, or chanted the Japji Sahib daily, and I too got my own Hindi translated copy, I felt reading and repeating the holy script without a true understanding was downright blasphemy. I was not the only one not to grasp the Mool of the Mantras, there were many, but they would not ask, either out of sheer laziness, or shame, or because there was hardly any Guru out there who could explain it properly.

After many years of trying to keep a promise to myself to decipher the essence of the word of God, I finally got round to scraping for knowledge. It is a personal act of faith, a humble attempt by a layperson at understanding the divine word, and not an expert’s treatise on the Holy Scriptures. And I hope it helps many out there like me who have with a shut mind spent a lifetime rocking and chanting the Shabds without pausing to imbibe their true spirit.