The courtesan was saved by repeating God's name ; that name is my support, the object of my thoughts.
All recognize that God was in the beginning, that He had no beginning, that He is unfathomable, eternal, and perfect.
The Gandharbs,2 the Yakshas, Sheshnag, the earth- dwelling serpents, the firmament, and the four quarters of the world know God.
The visible and invisible worlds, the eight directions, the demons as well as the demigods all worship God.
0 man of ignorant mind, through regard for whom hast thou forgotten the Omniscient, the Self -existent, the Treasure ?
Some fasten an idol firmly to their breasts ; some say that Shiv is God ;
Some say that God is in the temple of the Hindus ; others believe that He is in the mosque of the Musalmans ;
Some say that Ram is God ; some say Krishan ; some in their hearts accept the incarnations as God ;
But I have forgotten all vain religion and know in my heart that the Creator is the only God.
Ye say that God is unconceived and unborn ; how could He have been born from the womb of Kausalya ?
If He whom we call Krishan were God, why was he sub- ject to death ? ^
Why should God whom ye describe as holy and without enmity have driven Arjan's chariot ? ^
Worship as God Him whose secret none hath known or shall know.
Say if Krishan were the Ocean of mercy, why should the hunter's arrow have struck him ? ^
If he can save other famihes, why did he destroy his own ?
Say why did he who called himself the eternal and the unconceived, enter into the womb of Devaki ?
Why did he who had no father or mother call Vasudev * his father ?
Why call Shiv God, and why speak of Brahma as God ?
^ In this line in the original the first Kal means God, and the second death.
^ It is supposed that the hunter was an incarnation of Bali whom Ram Chandar had slain. Krishan was supposed to be an incarnation of Ram Chandar.
* Father of Krishan.
COMPOSITIONS OF GURU GOBIND SINGH 319
God is not Ram Chandar, Krishan, or Vishnu whom ye suppose to be lords of the world.
Shukdev, Parasar, and Vyas erred in abandoning the one God and worshipping many gods.^
All have set up false religions ; I in every way believe that there is but one God.
Some worship Brahma as God, others point to Shiv as God ;
Some say that Vishnu is the Lord of the world, and that by worshipping him all sins are erased.
Think on this a thousand times, O fool, at the last hour all thy gods will forsake thee.
Meditate on Him in thy heart who was, is, and ever shall be.
He who made millions of Indars, He who made and destroyed some millions of Bawans,
Demons, demigods, serpents, Sheshnags. birds and beasts innumerable,
To whom till to-day Shiv and Brahma are doing penance without finding His limit,
He whose secrets the Veds and the Quran have not penetrated, is the great Being whom the Guru^ hath shown me.
0 man, by attitudes of contemplation, matted hair, and the overgrown nails of thy hands thou deceivest all people.
Thou goest about with ashes smeared on thy face and cheatest all the demigods and the demons.
Addicted to avarice thou wanderest from house to house ; the means by which Jog is obtained thou hast all forgotten.
Thou hast lost all shame and succeeded in nothing ; with- out love God cannot be obtained.
O foolish man, why play the hypocrite ? thou losest thine honour by practising hypocrisy.
O cheat, why cheat people ? this world is lost to thee and so is the next.
Where the Compassionate to the poor dwelleth, there shalt thou find no place.
Think, O think, thou thoughtless and great fool, the Unseen is not found by assuming garbs.
Why worship a stone ? God is not in a stone.
Worship Him as God, by the worship of whom all thy sins shall be erased,
And by uttering whose name thou shalt be freed from all thy mental and bodily entanglements.
Make the meditation of God ever thy rule of action ; no advantage can be obtained by the practice of false religion.
False religion is without fruit ; by the worship of stones thou hast wasted millions of ages.
How can perfection be obtained by touching stones ? nay, strength and prosperity thus decrease, and the nine treasures are not obtained.
Time passeth away while saying to-day, to-day : thou shalt not accomplish thine object ; art thou not ashamed ?
O fool, thou hast not worshipped God, so thy life hath been passed in vain.
If for ages thou do penance to a stone, it will never rejoice thee.
O fool, it will never generously lift its arm to requite thee.
Say what confidence can be placed in it ? when trouble ariseth, it will not come to save thee.
O ignorant and obstinate man, be assured that thy false religion and superstition will ruin thee.
COMPOSITIONS OF GURU GOBIND SINGH 321
All are bound in the meshes of Death ; no Ram or Moslem prophet was able to save himself.
God having created destroyed, and will again create and destroy demons, demigods, and Sheshnags.
They who were called incarnations in the world at last died before men's eyes^ in remorse.
O fickle man, why not run to touch the feet of God above.
Brahma appeared by God's order and taking his staff and waterpot wandered upon earth.
We know that Shiv was born at the appointed time, and visited all countries.
The world was created and destroyed at the appointed time ; wherefore let all recognize God.
Renouncing all the subtleties of the Veds and the Quran, I worship God alone, the Treasury of mercy.
O blockhead, thy life hath passed in thy present occupa- tions; thou hast not thought in thy heart of the merciful God.
Abandoning shame thou hast grown shameless, and leaving thy proper work hast done useless work for thyself.
When thou hadst horses and great royal elephants, thou foolishly thought est to ride on donkeys .2
Thou didst not worship God, O fool, and so didst shame- fully spoil thy good business.
Thou hast for long read the Veds and the books of the Musalmans, but not found a secret in them.^
Thou hast wandered in various places to worship, but the one God thou hast never seated in thy heart.
Thou hast bowed thy head to stones and cemeteries, but obtained naught.
^ Literally — on earth.
SIKH. V Y
. O foolish man, forsaking the manifest God, why art tliou entangled in thine obstinacy?
If any one go to a monastery of Jogis, they will ask him to repeat the name of Gorakh ;
If any one go to a monastery of Sanyasis, they will say that only Dattatre is true, and they will give him his name as the spell of initiation ;
If any one go to the Musalmans, they will seize and convert him to the faith of Muhammad —
Every sect deemeth that the Creator is with itself alone ; but no one can disclose the Creator's secrets.
If any one go to the Jogis they will tell him to give every thing — ^house and property — to them ; ,
If any one haste to the Sanyasis, they will tell him to part with his house in the name of Dattatre ;
If any one go to the masands, they will tell him to bring all his property at once and give it to them.
Every one saith, * Bring me, bring me,' but nobody will show me God.
If any one serve the masands, they will say, * Fetch and give us all thine offerings.
* Go at once and make a present to us of whatever pro- perty is in thy house.
* Think on us night and day, and mention not others even by mistake.'
If they hear of any one giving, they run to him even at night,^ they are not at all pleased at not receiving.
They put oil into their eyes to make people believe that they are shedding tears.
^ Also translated — The night long they pretend to \vorship.
COMPOSITIONS OF GURU GOBIND SINGH 323
If they see any of their own worshippers wealthy, they serve up sacred food and feed him with it.
If they see him without wealth, they give him nothing, though he beg for it ; they will not even show him their faces.
Those beasts plunder men, and never sing the praises of the Supreme Being.
They close their eyes like cranes and offer the world a spectacle of deceit.
They go about with their heads bowed down like poachers ; cats on seeing such attitudes would be ashamed.
The more they go about clinging to the hope of wealth, the more they lose this world and the next.
Thou hast not repeated God's name, 0 fool ; why art thou entangled in thy domestic affairs ?
Why impress false religion on the world ? It will be of no service to it.
Why run about for the sake of wealth ? thou shalt not be able to fly from Death's myrmidons.
Son, wife, friends, disciple, companions — none of these will bear witness for thee.
Think, O think, thou thoughtless and great brute, thou shalt at the last moment have to depart alone.
Hear, O fool, when life leaveth thy body, thy wife crying out ' Ghost, ghost ', will flee thee.
Thy son, thy wife, thy friends, and companions will give orders to remove thee quickly.
When life leaveth thy body all thy mansions, storehouses, lands, and forts ^ will become the property of others.
Think, 0 think, thou thoughtless and great brute, thou shalt at the last moment have to depart alone.
Also translated — hoarded and buried savings. Y 2
Hazare Shabd
O man, practise asceticism in this way : —
Consider thy house altogether as the forest, and remain an anchoret at heart.
Make continence thy matted hair, union with God thine ablutions, thy daily religious duties the growth of thy nails,
Divine knowledge thy spiritual guide ; admonish thy heart and apply God's name as ashes to thy body.
Eat little, sleep little, love mercy and forbearance.
Ever practise mildness and patience, and thou shalt be freed from the three qualities.
Attach not to thy heart lust, wrath, covetousness, obsti- nacy, and worldly love.
Thus shalt thou behold the Real Soul of this world, and obtain the Supreme Being.
O man, practise Jog in this way : —
Make truth thy horn, sincerity thy necklace, and apply meditation as ashes to thy body ;
Make restraint of thy heart thy lyre, and the support of the Name thine alms ;
Play the primal essence as thy strings, and thou shalt hear God's sweet song.
By the practice of the songs of divine knowledge, waves of melody and exquisite pleasure shall be produced.
The demons and the demigods in their celestial chariots will be astonished and the munis intoxicated with delight.
Admonish thy heart, don the garb of self-restraint, and utter God's name inaudibly.
So shall thy body ever remain like gold, and Death never approach thee.
O mortal, touch the feet of the Supreme Being.
Why sleepest thou the sleep of worldly love ? be some- j
times wakeful and alert. ,
Why instruct others, O beast, since thou hast no know- \
ledge thyself ? '
COMPOSITIONS OF GURU GOBIND SINGH 325
Why ever accumulate sin ? even now lay aside the love of it.
Deem such things simply as errors and love truly religious acts.
Ever lay up the remembrance of God ; renounce and flee from mortal sin.
By this means shalt thou not encounter sorrow or sin, and escape from Death's noose.
If thou desire ever to have happiness of every kind, be absorbed in God's love.
It is Thou who art the blue-throated, man-lion, moving in the water, blue-robed, wearing a necklace of flowers .^
It is Thou who art the primal Being, supreme God, Lord, pure, living on air ;
It is Thou who art the Lord of Lakshmi, great Light, Destroyer of the pride of Madhu, Bestower of salvation. Destroyer of Mur.^
It is Thou who art changeless, undecaying, sleepless, without evil passions. Preserver from hell,
Ocean of mercy, Seer of the past, present, and future, Effacer of evil acts.
It is Thou who hast the bow in the hand, who art patient, Supporter of the earth, changeless, Wielder of the sword.
1 of feeble intellect have taken the protection of Thy feet ; take my hand and save me.
0 man, worship none but God, not a thing made by Him. Know that He who was in the beginning, unborn, in- vincible, and indestructible is God.
What if Vishnu coming into this world killed some of the demons.
And exercising great deceit induced every one to call him God ?
How can he who himself did not escape from the stroke of the sword of death,
Be deemed God the Destroyer, the Fashioner, the Omni- potent, the Eternal ?
Hear, O fool, how can he who was drowned in the ocean of the world save thee ?
Thou shalt only escape from Death's noose when thou seizest the feet of Him who existed before the world. ^
When the Guru left Damdama, his disciples sent a messenger after him to tell him of their sad phght. The following is the complaint as versified by the Guru. Others say that the hymn was addressed to God by the Guru himself : —
Tell the dear Friend the condition of His disciples—
Without Thee the wearing of our blankets is a disease to us, and dwelling in our houses is as if we dwelt with serpents.
Our water-pots are stakes of torture, our cups are daggers ; Thy turning away from us is like what animals endure from butchers.
Our Beloved's pallet would be pleasant to us ; living in towns is like living in a furnace.
God alone is the Creator,
The beginning and the end of all things, endless, the Fashioner, and the Destroyer,
To whom blame and praise are the same, who hath no enemy, no friend.
What necessity had He to become the driver of Arjan's chariot ?
The Bestower of salvation hath no father, mother, caste, son, or grandson.
Why should He have come into the world to be called the son of Devaki ?
When He who created demigods, demons, the eight directions, and all extension,
Is called by the name of Murar, what glory is it to Him ?
^ That the Guru was a decided monotheist is proved by all his
COMPOSITIONS OF GURU GOBIND SINGH 327
How can God be in human form ?
Sidhs have grown weary sitting in contemplation of Him, but they have not been able to see Him in any way.
Such persons as Narad, Vyas, Parasar, and Dhru have deeply meditated on Him.
The Veds and the Purans have grown weary and aban- doned their purpose, since they could form no conception of Him.
Demons, demigods, fiends, sprites, describe Him as in- describable.
The faithful consider Him as the subtilest of the subtile, and again pointed Him out as the largest of the large.^
The one God having made the earth, the heaven, and all the nether regions they call many.
He who entereth God's asylum shall be saved from Death's noose.
I recognize none but the one God :
I know God as the Destroyer, the Fashioner, the Omni- potent and Eternal Creator.
What availeth it to men to worship stones in various ways with great love and devotion ?
The hand groweth weary by touching stones, and no spiritual power is obtained.
Rice, incense, lamps are offered to stones, but they eat nothing.
What spiritual power is in them, 0 fool ? what blessing can they bestow on thee ?
If they had life, they might give thee something ; be assured of this in thought, word, and deed —
Except in the protection of the one sole God nowhere is salvation.
Without God's name thou canst not be saved. How shalt thou flee from Him who holdeth the fourteen worlds in His power ?
Ram and Rahim whose names thou repeatest cannot
save thee.
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiv, the sun and moon are all in the power of Death.
The Veds, the Purans, the Quran, all sects, Indar, Shesh- nag, the kings of the Munis,
Meditated for many ages on Him who is called the In- describable, hut could form no conception of Him.
Why should He whose form and colour are not known be called black ? i
When thou shalt seize and chng to God's feet, thou shalt be freed from the noose of Death.
Prayer Chaupai
And all my desires shall be fulfilled.
May my heart be ever attached to Thy feet !
Deem me Thine own and cherish me ;
Destroy all mine enemies ;
O Creator, may my family and all my servants and disciples live in peace !
Destroy all mine enemies to-day,
And all my hopes shall be fulfilled.
May the thirst for repeating Thy name abide with me ;
And m.ay I not, forsaking Thee, meditate on any one besides !
May I obtain from Thee whatever boon I crave !
Save my servants and my disciples ;
Single out mine enemies and smite them.
Remove from me the fear of the hour of death.
Be Thou always on my side ;
Beloved Lord, Protector of the saints, Friend of the poor. Destroyer of tyrants — Thou art Lord of the fourteen worlds. At the proper time Brahma obtained a body. At the proper time Shiv became incarnate,
COMPOSITIONS OF GURU GOBIND SINGH 329
At the proper time ^ Vishnu appeared — That was all the play of God. My obeisance to that God Who made Shiv a Jogi, Who made Brahma the king of the Veds, And who fashioned all the world. Know that He is my Guru Who made the whole world, Who created demigods, demons, and Yakshas, Who is the only God incarnate from beginning to end, My obeisance to Him alone Who Himself adorneth all His subjects. Who bestoweth divine attributes and happiness on His servants,
Who destroy eth their enemies in a moment,
Who knoweth what is within every heart,
And the sufferings of the good and bad.
He is pleased as He casteth a look of favour on all
From the ant to the huge elephant.
He is grieved when His saints are grieved.
And happy when His saints are happy.
He knoweth every one's sufferings
And every secret of man's heart.
When the Creator projected Himself,
His creatures assumed endless shapes ;
Whenever Thou drawest creation within Thyself, 0 Lord,
All embodied beings are absorbed in Thee .2
All creatures endowed with speech ^
Speak of Thee according to their understanding.
Thou dwellest apart from everything ;
2 'The universe comes from God, lives in Him, and returns to Him ' is an expression commonly used in the Upanishads and MahabhCirat. In ihe Bhagavat Glta creation is represented as evolving from God as the world at the approach of day slowly emerges from the darkness of night, and again dissolving or vanishing in Him as the world disappears after evening twilight.
The wise and the learned know the secret of this.*
O Formless One, Thou art changeless and independent ;
Thou art the Primal One, stainless, without beginning, self -existent.
The fool boasteth that he knoweth the secrets of Him
Whose secrets are not known even to the Veds.
The great fool supposeth that God is a stone,
And knoweth not the difference between them ;
He ever calleth the Eternal God Shiv,
And knoweth not the secrets of the Formless One.
Men according to their different understandings
Give different descriptions of Thee, 0 God.
Thine extension cannot be conceived,
Nor how Thou didst first fashion creation.
Thou hast but one form, and that form is incomparable.
Thou art in different places a poor man, a lord, or a king ;
Thou madest life from eggs, wombs, and perspiration,
And again Thou madest a mine of vegetables.
Sometimes Thou sittest as monarch on the lotus flower ,2
Sometimes as Shiv Thou gatherest up creation.
Thou didst display the whole creation as a miracle ;
Thou art the Primal One from the beginning of time ; Thy form was uncreated.
Save those who are my disciples.
And destroy those who are not.