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Guru Granth Sahib
Composition, Arrangement & Layout
ਜਪੁ | Jup
ਸੋ ਦਰੁ | So Dar
ਸੋਹਿਲਾ | Sohilaa
ਰਾਗੁ ਸਿਰੀਰਾਗੁ | Raag Siree-Raag
Gurbani (14-53)
Ashtpadiyan (53-71)
Gurbani (71-74)
Pahre (74-78)
Chhant (78-81)
Vanjara (81-82)
Vaar Siri Raag (83-91)
Bhagat Bani (91-93)
ਰਾਗੁ ਮਾਝ | Raag Maajh
Gurbani (94-109)
Ashtpadi (109)
Ashtpadiyan (110-129)
Ashtpadi (129-130)
Ashtpadiyan (130-133)
Bara Maha (133-136)
Din Raen (136-137)
Vaar Maajh Ki (137-150)
ਰਾਗੁ ਗਉੜੀ | Raag Gauree
Gurbani (151-185)
Quartets/Couplets (185-220)
Ashtpadiyan (220-234)
Karhalei (234-235)
Ashtpadiyan (235-242)
Chhant (242-249)
Baavan Akhari (250-262)
Sukhmani (262-296)
Thittee (296-300)
Gauree kii Vaar (300-323)
Gurbani (323-330)
Ashtpadiyan (330-340)
Baavan Akhari (340-343)
Thintteen (343-344)
Vaar Kabir (344-345)
Bhagat Bani (345-346)
ਰਾਗੁ ਆਸਾ | Raag Aasaa
Gurbani (347-348)
Chaupaday (348-364)
Panchpadde (364-365)
Kaafee (365-409)
Aasaavaree (409-411)
Ashtpadiyan (411-432)
Patee (432-435)
Chhant (435-462)
Vaar Aasaa (462-475)
Bhagat Bani (475-488)
ਰਾਗੁ ਗੂਜਰੀ | Raag Goojaree
Gurbani (489-503)
Ashtpadiyan (503-508)
Vaar Gujari (508-517)
Vaar Gujari (517-526)
ਰਾਗੁ ਦੇਵਗੰਧਾਰੀ | Raag Dayv-Gandhaaree
Gurbani (527-536)
ਰਾਗੁ ਬਿਹਾਗੜਾ | Raag Bihaagraa
Gurbani (537-556)
Chhant (538-548)
Vaar Bihaagraa (548-556)
ਰਾਗੁ ਵਡਹੰਸ | Raag Wadhans
Gurbani (557-564)
Ashtpadiyan (564-565)
Chhant (565-575)
Ghoriaan (575-578)
Alaahaniiaa (578-582)
Vaar Wadhans (582-594)
ਰਾਗੁ ਸੋਰਠਿ | Raag Sorath
Gurbani (595-634)
Asatpadhiya (634-642)
Vaar Sorath (642-659)
ਰਾਗੁ ਧਨਾਸਰੀ | Raag Dhanasaree
Gurbani (660-685)
Astpadhiya (685-687)
Chhant (687-691)
Bhagat Bani (691-695)
ਰਾਗੁ ਜੈਤਸਰੀ | Raag Jaitsree
Gurbani (696-703)
Chhant (703-705)
Vaar Jaitsaree (705-710)
Bhagat Bani (710)
ਰਾਗੁ ਟੋਡੀ | Raag Todee
ਰਾਗੁ ਬੈਰਾੜੀ | Raag Bairaaree
ਰਾਗੁ ਤਿਲੰਗ | Raag Tilang
Gurbani (721-727)
Bhagat Bani (727)
ਰਾਗੁ ਸੂਹੀ | Raag Suhi
Gurbani (728-750)
Ashtpadiyan (750-761)
Kaafee (761-762)
Suchajee (762)
Gunvantee (763)
Chhant (763-785)
Vaar Soohee (785-792)
Bhagat Bani (792-794)
ਰਾਗੁ ਬਿਲਾਵਲੁ | Raag Bilaaval
Gurbani (795-831)
Ashtpadiyan (831-838)
Thitteen (838-840)
Vaar Sat (841-843)
Chhant (843-848)
Vaar Bilaaval (849-855)
Bhagat Bani (855-858)
ਰਾਗੁ ਗੋਂਡ | Raag Gond
Gurbani (859-869)
Ashtpadiyan (869)
Bhagat Bani (870-875)
ਰਾਗੁ ਰਾਮਕਲੀ | Raag Ramkalee
Ashtpadiyan (902-916)
Gurbani (876-902)
Anand (917-922)
Sadd (923-924)
Chhant (924-929)
Dakhnee (929-938)
Sidh Gosat (938-946)
Vaar Ramkalee (947-968)
ਰਾਗੁ ਨਟ ਨਾਰਾਇਨ | Raag Nat Narayan
Gurbani (975-980)
Ashtpadiyan (980-983)
ਰਾਗੁ ਮਾਲੀ ਗਉੜਾ | Raag Maalee Gauraa
Gurbani (984-988)
Bhagat Bani (988)
ਰਾਗੁ ਮਾਰੂ | Raag Maaroo
Gurbani (889-1008)
Ashtpadiyan (1008-1014)
Kaafee (1014-1016)
Ashtpadiyan (1016-1019)
Anjulian (1019-1020)
Solhe (1020-1033)
Dakhni (1033-1043)
ਰਾਗੁ ਤੁਖਾਰੀ | Raag Tukhaari
Bara Maha (1107-1110)
Chhant (1110-1117)
ਰਾਗੁ ਕੇਦਾਰਾ | Raag Kedara
Gurbani (1118-1123)
Bhagat Bani (1123-1124)
ਰਾਗੁ ਭੈਰਉ | Raag Bhairo
Gurbani (1125-1152)
Partaal (1153)
Ashtpadiyan (1153-1167)
ਰਾਗੁ ਬਸੰਤੁ | Raag Basant
Gurbani (1168-1187)
Ashtpadiyan (1187-1193)
Vaar Basant (1193-1196)
ਰਾਗੁ ਸਾਰਗ | Raag Saarag
Gurbani (1197-1200)
Partaal (1200-1231)
Ashtpadiyan (1232-1236)
Chhant (1236-1237)
Vaar Saarang (1237-1253)
ਰਾਗੁ ਮਲਾਰ | Raag Malaar
Gurbani (1254-1293)
Partaal (1265-1273)
Ashtpadiyan (1273-1278)
Chhant (1278)
Vaar Malaar (1278-91)
Bhagat Bani (1292-93)
ਰਾਗੁ ਕਾਨੜਾ | Raag Kaanraa
Gurbani (1294-96)
Partaal (1296-1318)
Ashtpadiyan (1308-1312)
Chhant (1312)
Vaar Kaanraa
Bhagat Bani (1318)
ਰਾਗੁ ਕਲਿਆਨ | Raag Kalyaan
Gurbani (1319-23)
Ashtpadiyan (1323-26)
ਰਾਗੁ ਪ੍ਰਭਾਤੀ | Raag Prabhaatee
Gurbani (1327-1341)
Ashtpadiyan (1342-51)
ਰਾਗੁ ਜੈਜਾਵੰਤੀ | Raag Jaijaiwanti
Gurbani (1352-53)
Salok | Gatha | Phunahe | Chaubole | Swayiye
Sehskritee Mahala 1
Sehskritee Mahala 5
Gaathaa Mahala 5
Phunhay Mahala 5
Chaubolae Mahala 5
Shaloks Bhagat Kabir
Shaloks Sheikh Farid
Swaiyyae Mahala 5
Swaiyyae in Praise of Gurus
Shaloks in Addition To Vaars
Shalok Ninth Mehl
Mundavanee Mehl 5
ਰਾਗ ਮਾਲਾ, Raag Maalaa
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Guru Granth Sahib
Jup Banee
Japji Translation Questions
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<blockquote data-quote="yayati" data-source="post: 135763" data-attributes="member: 13017"><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">yayati Ji, Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji Ki Fateh!! </span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Editorial (by SPN'er Ishna): Here's a question from the first line after Mul Mantar: </span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Raavi'">ਸੋਚੈ</span></span> <span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Raavi'">ਸੋਚਿ</span></span> <span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Raavi'">ਨ</span></span> <span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Raavi'">ਹੋਵਈ</span></span> <span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Raavi'">ਜੇ</span></span> <span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Raavi'">ਸੋਚੀ</span></span> <span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Raavi'">ਲਖ</span></span> <span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Raavi'">ਵਾਰ</span></span> <span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Mangal'">॥</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'"> </span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Soc</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma'">ẖ</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">ai soc</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma'">ẖ</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'"> na hova▫ī je soc</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma'">ẖ</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">ī lak</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma'">ẖ</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'"> vār. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">The English translation by H. McLeod (and another I have but don't have the author with me) translates the above as: </span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">"Never can you be known through ritual purity thought one cleanse oneself a hundred thousand times." </span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa and the majority of other translations I've seen translate it like this: </span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">"By thinking, He cannot be reduced to thought, even by thinking hundreds of thousands of times." </span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">So my questions is: which translation is right? And how can there be such discrepancy between translations? </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Ishna ji,</span></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'"></span></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Guru fateh</span></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Madan g gandhi in his close translation of this Pauri interpreted soc</span></span></strong><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma'">ẖ</span></span></strong><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'"> as thinking though suggested the</span></span></strong><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'"> other meaning too i.e. ritual cleansing in poetic rendering and annotation. This is evident from the following extract from the book Guru Nanak's Japuji:The Celestial Ladder</span></span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">The extract</span></span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center"><p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">first step</span></span></strong></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'MS Mincho'"> </span></span></strong></p> </p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">1. By thinking He cannot be known even if we may think of Him a million times.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">2. By practice of silence, even to the point of total self-immersion, we may not attain the State of No-mind or know Him.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">3. Un-appeased be our hunger for Truth even if we were to acquire innumerable worlds.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">4. Vain be millions of man-made devices or items of worldly wisdom, for none of them goes with us to the hereafter.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">5. How then can we become the True One? How the veil of falsehood can be rent apart?</span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">6. Only by walking in the Light of His Order-Will.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">7. O Nanak, know ye, it is inscribed within everyone’s being.</span></span></p><p> </p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center"><p style="text-align: center"> </p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Poetic Rendering</span></span></strong></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Neither through intellect</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Nor wisdom, nor wealth</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Norausterities,nor silence</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Can ever be peace achieved</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Or God realized!</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Try youmay</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">A hundred thousand time,!</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Nor through rituals</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Purity is attained </span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Even if one were to cleanse</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">A hundred thousand time</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Wealthloads of possessions </span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Sate not one’s hunger for Truth</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Of countless clever devices</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Not even one accompanies</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">To avail in the hereafter</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Obedience to the Divine Will</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Only holds the key, says Nanak.</span></span></p> </p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Annotation</span></span></strong></span></p> </p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Soche Soch Na Hovai Je Sochi Lakh Var </span></span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Soch </span></span></strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">in the Bani implies both thinking or contemplation and cleansing or purificatory rituals including Yajnas, penances, ablutions, bathing at Holy Places of Pilgrimages. One meaning is "Not by thought alone can He be known, though one think, a hundred thousand time" and the other is "Not by ritual purification can the purity be attained, even if one were to cleanse a hundred thousand times."</span></span></p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Chupai chup na hovaee, je laae rehaa liv-taar </span></span></strong></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Silence, long and deep, as practised by ascetics called Munis for whom prolonged silence is a way of spiritual discipline, of conserving energy so essential for spiritual advancement. </span></span></p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Bhukhiaa bhukh na utree, je bannaa pureeaa bhaar. </span></span></strong></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Hunger for materialistic pursuits knows no satiety </span></span></p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Sahas siaanpaa lakh hohe,ta ik Na chalai naal. </span></span></strong></p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Flights of Intellect, various clever devices and stratagems avail one not in the hereafter.</span></span></p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Clarifying this query from the traslator eminent scholar Late Mohan Singh Diwana in his foreword to The Celestial LADDER wrote IN 1980 as under:</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><strong><span style="color: black">"Let me here emphasis that I have achieved anything I have achieved is not by soche i.e. by thinking again and again over the knotty points of the Japu-it is only by living Japu more intensely i.e. ......by listening to its recitation by myself attentively and constantly praying for the flow of Hazre-karam or Nazar and Karam into me. Incidentally there is no such verb in Panjabi as </span></strong><span style="color: black">soc</span></span><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma'">ẖ</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="color: black">,</span><strong><span style="color: black"> to be clean, to be pure. Panjabi has only two words of Sanskrit origin and which are used with the auxiliary verbs or the Panjabi never uses the word. It will make no sense to maintain that Guru Nanak began his flight of the unknown by declaring , you cannot clean your body by cleansing it with water a hundred thousand times. No. His visit to the palace of God the formless was--it was pronouncement, it was an annunciation: "However much and repeatedly you may think analytically and synthetically about God you cannot comprehend Him. You can apprehend Him intuitively. You can know the unknowable through the grace of the Guru. As God himself is the Guru of the Nanak so it was God's grace that makes Nanak see the unseeable and hear the unhearable. Thereby Nanak finally put the lid on all the philosophical clay pots that were boiling at sun temperature by uttering these three lines of verse. </span></strong></span></p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">I. Only he can know the exalted Lord who is as exalted as the Lord Himself. </span></span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">II. The Lord can be great or is small as He Likes.</span></span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><strong><span style="color: black">III. Only He can and does know himself.</span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Guru Nanak Dev does debunk all philosophies, all religions, all sciences, all mysteries, all ethics, absolute monarchy etc. so for as our contact with the truth and the truth and the true and our efforts for attaining to that contact are concerned. Nanak shifts the whole burden from the seeker to the sought. At four places in four single verses he repeats that it is the structure and function of divinity to look down-wards at his creation, see it, call it good, enjoy it and prosper it. He does that again and again " He is never tired of doing it, He blesses his creation, and believe it or not, Lo! He is happy to see it, contemplate it, envelop it with his kind glance, with his infinity of gifts. Thus our hope lies not in our concepts and our practices and our offerings and our penances and our works but only in the joy that comes to HIM from perfecting his creatures with his own perfections. He chooses and to the chosen one the call comes. They feel the presence which is beyond the Mahasunya. People talk so lightly of God, of God with attributes, of God without attributes, of the formless without void, of the supreme void, of the self attained , of self generating. This is all an exercise, perhaps a vacuous exercise in relativating the absolute or absolutising the relative. In the literal sense of the word concept, no concept possible of the truth , of the ture one, the true court, the true king of kings, of the realm of true one, of the permanent abode of the true one, of the attributes that radiate from One Who has become the Lord of true Love. Nor is any concept possible as the means of truth realisation. We can't even conceive what divine sight or vision is, what Mukti is, what grace is, we always vitiate our conceptual thinking vis-a-vis God, the only One the Whole , the Full, the Perfect, the Alone by contaminating our thinking process through import or use of time-space cause or even their opposites. No that is not this, that is not this, even if you say he is all that is, and all that is not, will not suffice. So the 'poor humble bard 'at least in 30 stanzas out of 38 almost tires himself by repeating : X has not found him, Y has not described him, Z has not circumscribed him, A has not seen Him, B has not tasted HIM, C has not blended with him. </span></span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> Finally the Guru says : they go up the ladder beyond the Sunn and Maha Sunn. Who goes ? who comes back ? "</span></span></strong></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">In my humble opinion: </span></span></strong></p><p style="text-align: center"><p style="text-align: center"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">No one can translate or transcreate</span></span></strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">the Revealed Word which is Immaculate,</span></span></strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Its rhythm intricate, Its poetry sublime,</span></span></strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">None can recreate Its mystique divine.</span></span></strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> </p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Gurfateh, </span></span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">yayati</span></span></strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="yayati, post: 135763, member: 13017"] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]yayati Ji, Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji Ki Fateh!! [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Editorial (by SPN'er Ishna): Here's a question from the first line after Mul Mantar: [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Raavi]ਸੋਚੈ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Raavi]ਸੋਚਿ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Raavi]ਨ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Raavi]ਹੋਵਈ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Raavi]ਜੇ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Raavi]ਸੋਚੀ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Raavi]ਲਖ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Raavi]ਵਾਰ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Mangal]॥[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] Soc[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Tahoma]ẖ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]ai soc[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Tahoma]ẖ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] na hova▫ī je soc[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Tahoma]ẖ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]ī lak[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Tahoma]ẖ[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] vār. [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]The English translation by H. McLeod (and another I have but don't have the author with me) translates the above as: [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]"Never can you be known through ritual purity thought one cleanse oneself a hundred thousand times." [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa and the majority of other translations I've seen translate it like this: [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]"By thinking, He cannot be reduced to thought, even by thinking hundreds of thousands of times." [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]So my questions is: which translation is right? And how can there be such discrepancy between translations? [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [SIZE=3][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Ishna ji, Guru fateh[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana][/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Madan g gandhi in his close translation of this Pauri interpreted soc[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Tahoma]ẖ[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] as thinking though suggested the[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] other meaning too i.e. ritual cleansing in poetic rendering and annotation. This is evident from the following extract from the book Guru Nanak's Japuji:The Celestial Ladder[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana][/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/SIZE] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [SIZE=3][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]The extract[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana][/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/SIZE] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [CENTER][CENTER][SIZE=3][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]first step[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana][/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/SIZE][/CENTER] [CENTER][B][COLOR=black][FONT=MS Mincho] [/FONT][/COLOR][/B][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana][/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/CENTER][/CENTER] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]1. By thinking He cannot be known even if we may think of Him a million times.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]2. By practice of silence, even to the point of total self-immersion, we may not attain the State of No-mind or know Him.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]3. Un-appeased be our hunger for Truth even if we were to acquire innumerable worlds.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]4. Vain be millions of man-made devices or items of worldly wisdom, for none of them goes with us to the hereafter.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]5. How then can we become the True One? How the veil of falsehood can be rent apart?[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]6. Only by walking in the Light of His Order-Will.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]7. O Nanak, know ye, it is inscribed within everyone’s being.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [CENTER][CENTER][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/CENTER] [CENTER][SIZE=3][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Poetic Rendering[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana][/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/SIZE][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Neither through intellect[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Nor wisdom, nor wealth[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Norausterities,[B][/B]nor silence[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Can ever be peace achieved[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Or God realized![/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Try youmay[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]A hundred thousand time,![/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Nor through rituals[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Purity is attained [/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Even if one were to cleanse[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]A hundred thousand time[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Wealthloads of possessions [/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Sate not one’s hunger for Truth[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Of countless clever devices[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Not even one accompanies[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]To avail in the hereafter[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Obedience to the Divine Will[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [CENTER][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Only holds the key, says Nanak.[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER][/CENTER] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [CENTER][CENTER][SIZE=3][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Annotation[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana][/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/SIZE][/CENTER][/CENTER] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Soche Soch Na Hovai Je Sochi Lakh Var [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Soch [/FONT][/COLOR][/B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]in the Bani implies both thinking or contemplation and cleansing or purificatory rituals including Yajnas, penances, ablutions, bathing at Holy Places of Pilgrimages. One meaning is "Not by thought alone can He be known, though one think, a hundred thousand time" and the other is "Not by ritual purification can the purity be attained, even if one were to cleanse a hundred thousand times."[/FONT][/COLOR] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Chupai chup na hovaee, je laae rehaa liv-taar [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Silence, long and deep, as practised by ascetics called Munis for whom prolonged silence is a way of spiritual discipline, of conserving energy so essential for spiritual advancement. [/FONT][/COLOR] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Bhukhiaa bhukh na utree, je bannaa pureeaa bhaar. [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Hunger for materialistic pursuits knows no satiety [/FONT][/COLOR] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Sahas siaanpaa lakh hohe,ta ik Na chalai naal. [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Flights of Intellect, various clever devices and stratagems avail one not in the hereafter.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Clarifying this query from the traslator eminent scholar Late Mohan Singh Diwana in his foreword to The Celestial LADDER wrote IN 1980 as under:[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [FONT=Times New Roman][B][COLOR=black]"Let me here emphasis that I have achieved anything I have achieved is not by soche i.e. by thinking again and again over the knotty points of the Japu-it is only by living Japu more intensely i.e. ......by listening to its recitation by myself attentively and constantly praying for the flow of Hazre-karam or Nazar and Karam into me. Incidentally there is no such verb in Panjabi as [/COLOR][/B][COLOR=black]soc[/COLOR][/FONT][COLOR=black][FONT=Tahoma]ẖ[/FONT][/COLOR][FONT=Times New Roman][COLOR=black],[/COLOR][B][COLOR=black] to be clean, to be pure. Panjabi has only two words of Sanskrit origin and which are used with the auxiliary verbs or the Panjabi never uses the word. It will make no sense to maintain that Guru Nanak began his flight of the unknown by declaring , you cannot clean your body by cleansing it with water a hundred thousand times. No. His visit to the palace of God the formless was--it was pronouncement, it was an annunciation: "However much and repeatedly you may think analytically and synthetically about God you cannot comprehend Him. You can apprehend Him intuitively. You can know the unknowable through the grace of the Guru. As God himself is the Guru of the Nanak so it was God's grace that makes Nanak see the unseeable and hear the unhearable. Thereby Nanak finally put the lid on all the philosophical clay pots that were boiling at sun temperature by uttering these three lines of verse. [/COLOR][/B][B][/B][/FONT] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]I. Only he can know the exalted Lord who is as exalted as the Lord Himself. [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]II. The Lord can be great or is small as He Likes.[/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [FONT=Times New Roman][B][COLOR=black]III. Only He can and does know himself.[/COLOR][/B][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana][/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]Guru Nanak Dev does debunk all philosophies, all religions, all sciences, all mysteries, all ethics, absolute monarchy etc. so for as our contact with the truth and the truth and the true and our efforts for attaining to that contact are concerned. Nanak shifts the whole burden from the seeker to the sought. At four places in four single verses he repeats that it is the structure and function of divinity to look down-wards at his creation, see it, call it good, enjoy it and prosper it. He does that again and again " He is never tired of doing it, He blesses his creation, and believe it or not, Lo! He is happy to see it, contemplate it, envelop it with his kind glance, with his infinity of gifts. Thus our hope lies not in our concepts and our practices and our offerings and our penances and our works but only in the joy that comes to HIM from perfecting his creatures with his own perfections. He chooses and to the chosen one the call comes. They feel the presence which is beyond the Mahasunya. People talk so lightly of God, of God with attributes, of God without attributes, of the formless without void, of the supreme void, of the self attained , of self generating. This is all an exercise, perhaps a vacuous exercise in relativating the absolute or absolutising the relative. In the literal sense of the word concept, no concept possible of the truth , of the ture one, the true court, the true king of kings, of the realm of true one, of the permanent abode of the true one, of the attributes that radiate from One Who has become the Lord of true Love. Nor is any concept possible as the means of truth realisation. We can't even conceive what divine sight or vision is, what Mukti is, what grace is, we always vitiate our conceptual thinking vis-a-vis God, the only One the Whole , the Full, the Perfect, the Alone by contaminating our thinking process through import or use of time-space cause or even their opposites. No that is not this, that is not this, even if you say he is all that is, and all that is not, will not suffice. So the 'poor humble bard 'at least in 30 stanzas out of 38 almost tires himself by repeating : X has not found him, Y has not described him, Z has not circumscribed him, A has not seen Him, B has not tasted HIM, C has not blended with him. [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman] Finally the Guru says : they go up the ladder beyond the Sunn and Maha Sunn. Who goes ? who comes back ? "[/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]In my humble opinion: [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [CENTER][CENTER][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]No one can translate or transcreate[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/CENTER] [CENTER][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]the Revealed Word which is Immaculate,[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/CENTER] [CENTER][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]Its rhythm intricate, Its poetry sublime,[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/CENTER] [CENTER][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]None can recreate Its mystique divine.[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/CENTER] [CENTER][B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/CENTER][/CENTER] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]Gurfateh, [/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [B][COLOR=black][FONT=Times New Roman]yayati[/FONT][/COLOR][/B] [/QUOTE]
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Guru Granth Sahib
Jup Banee
Japji Translation Questions
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