Namdev: Thou art the Creator
Sri Harmandir Sahib (The abode of God), informally referred to as the "Golden Temple", is the holiest Gurdwara of Sikhism, located in the city of Amritsar, Punjab, India. Amritsar (literally, the tank of nectar of immortality) was founded in 1577 by the fourth Sikh guru, Guru Ram Das. The fifth Sikh Guru, Guru Arjan, designed the Harmandir Sahib to be built in the center of this holy tank, and upon its construction, installed the Adi Granth, the holy scripture of Sikhism, inside the Harmandir Sahib. The Harmandir Sahib complex is also home to the Akal Takht (the throne of the timeless one, constituted by the Sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind). While the Harmandir Sahib is regarded as the abode of God's spiritual attribute, the Akal Takht is the seat of God's temporal authority.
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Thou art the Creator,
Thou alone art my friend;
Thou, O Lord, art all-pervading.
True meditation revealeth Thee
in all Thy perfection;
And the snares of illusion
are rendered ineffective.
Vast and vicious is this mesh of illusion,
Whose intricate tentacles suck one dry.
Sing with all thy heart, the Name of the Lord;
It costs thee nothing, O Nama,
to repeat His Name.
(Namdev)
Thou alone art my friend;
Thou, O Lord, art all-pervading.
True meditation revealeth Thee
in all Thy perfection;
And the snares of illusion
are rendered ineffective.
Vast and vicious is this mesh of illusion,
Whose intricate tentacles suck one dry.
Sing with all thy heart, the Name of the Lord;
It costs thee nothing, O Nama,
to repeat His Name.
(Namdev)
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Recommended Reading:
'Songs of Saints from Adi Granth'
By Nirmal Dass (Translator, Introduction)
Purchase Book:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Description:
This complete and accessible translation of the songs of the saints from the Sikh holy book, the Adi Granth, provides access to the hymns written by Hindu and Muslim devotional writers of north India, who flourished from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries.
The songs of the saints hold a unique position in Sikhism in that they provide the faith with a prehistory that reaches back to the dawn of north Indian Bhakti and Sant traditions. These works provided a ground upon which Sikh gurus laid the foundations of their faith.
The songs also mark the earliest beginnings of Hindi literature. Although the literary output of these saints comes down to us in various stages of corruption, the works which appeared in the Adi Granth are unchanged since their inclusion in that work in the early 1600s.
'This book is important for many fields: It is not only vital for understanding Sikhism, but also crucial for the study of the saints (sants). It is thus significant for understanding the early development of Hindi literature, which began with the sants, and the study of north Indian religion, in which the sants figure prominently.'
(Daniel Gold, Cornell University)
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'Songs of Saints from Adi Granth'
By Nirmal Dass (Translator, Introduction)
Purchase Book:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Description:
This complete and accessible translation of the songs of the saints from the Sikh holy book, the Adi Granth, provides access to the hymns written by Hindu and Muslim devotional writers of north India, who flourished from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries.
The songs of the saints hold a unique position in Sikhism in that they provide the faith with a prehistory that reaches back to the dawn of north Indian Bhakti and Sant traditions. These works provided a ground upon which Sikh gurus laid the foundations of their faith.
The songs also mark the earliest beginnings of Hindi literature. Although the literary output of these saints comes down to us in various stages of corruption, the works which appeared in the Adi Granth are unchanged since their inclusion in that work in the early 1600s.
'This book is important for many fields: It is not only vital for understanding Sikhism, but also crucial for the study of the saints (sants). It is thus significant for understanding the early development of Hindi literature, which began with the sants, and the study of north Indian religion, in which the sants figure prominently.'
(Daniel Gold, Cornell University)
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