Sacred texts · Sikhism
57 quotes from the Guru Granth Sahib in English
The Guru Granth Sahib is the scripture of the Sikhs, compiled by Guru Arjan in 1604 and completed by Guru Gobind Singh, who named it the eternal Guru. It gathers hymns of six Sikh Gurus and of saints from other backgrounds, Hindu and Muslim, arranged by musical measure (raga). Sikhs treat it with the respect due to a living teacher.
This page quotes hymns of the Gurus who followed Guru Nanak and of the bhagats Kabir, Namdev, Ravidas and Baba Farid. Guru Nanak and the Sukhmani Sahib each have their own page: Guru Nanak quotes and Sukhmani Sahib. The translation is Max Arthur Macauliffe’s, from his six-volume The Sikh Religion (1909), now in the public domain. Every line was checked word for word against scans of the 1909 edition. Macauliffe gives no page (ang) numbers, so each quote is referenced by its composition and measure.
Guru Angad, Guru Amar Das and Guru Ram Das
The second, third and fourth Gurus continued Guru Nanak’s hymns in the same spirit. Guru Angad tells the anxious not to worry over their keep; Guru Amar Das’s Anand, “the song of bliss,” calls God mother and father; Guru Ram Das sees one breath and one light in all things.
Nanak, be not anxious for thy maintenance, anxiety is for Him Who created animals in the water and also giveth them sustenance.
Nanak, feel not anxious — anxiety is for God.
Whom shall I call inferior since all have the same Master? There is one Master of all; He appointeth men to their various duties, and watcheth over them— Some to small, some to great duties; none departeth empty.
In weal repeat God’s name; in woe also remember Him.
Abide with God, O my soul; He will make thee forget all sorrow; He will accept thee, and arrange all thine affairs.
God is the mother, God is the father, who having created man showed him the world.
All this world which you behold is God’s image; God’s image appeareth in it.
O man, be a hermit in thine own home.
This world is a garden; my Lord is its Gardener: He guardeth it ever, and there is no part of it exempt from His care.
Whithersoever I look, there is the Lord. Thou pervadest every heart, Thou Searcher of hearts.
There is but one breath, one matter, and one light in all things.
Guru Arjan
Guru Arjan, the fifth Guru, compiled the first version of the scripture, the Adi Granth, in 1604, and wrote a large share of its hymns. These verses, from Rag Asa and other measures, speak of God as friend, shelter and support, and of a life lived in the world but untouched by it, like a lotus on water.
O man, by striving and earning enjoy happiness; Nanak, by meditating on God, meet Him and thine anxieties shall vanish.
God provideth every one with his daily food; why, O man, art thou afraid?
My sorrow hath fled and my doubt departed since I have taken God’s shelter.
Beside Thee, O Lord, I have none other; Thou art in my heart; Thou art my friend and my companion; why should my soul be afraid?
Where Thou, O Lord, art, what fear is there? whom shall I praise but Thee? Where I have only Thee I have everything; there is none but Thee.
Thou art my prop; Thou art my support; Thou givest me Thy hand and protectest me.
I smile on every one, But I am separate from them as a lotus from the water. I converse with everybody, But I keep my heart with God.
Thou art my life, Thou art my support. On beholding Thee I bloom like the lotus.
O Lord, Thou art the honour of the unhonoured; I put my trust in Thee.
Sitting or standing, sleeping or waking may I not forget Thee O God, at every breath I draw!
Guru Tegh Bahadur
The hymns of the ninth Guru, whom Macauliffe calls Teg Bahadur, were added to the scripture later. They return to one theme: the person who treats pleasure and pain, honor and dishonor, friend and enemy alike, who inspires no fear and has none, has found the real thing.
He who recognizeth pleasure and pain, honour and dishonour as the same, And who keepeth aloof from joy and sorrow, knoweth the Real Thing in the world.
He who in adversity heedeth it not, Who in prosperity feeleth neither affection nor fear, and who deemeth gold as dross; Who uttereth neither praise nor blame, and who suffereth not from avarice, worldly love, or pride.
As in flowers there is odour and in a mirror reflection, So God dwelleth continually in thy heart; search for Him there, O brother.
Saith Nanak, hear, O man, know that he is saved Who feeleth neither joy nor sorrow, and who treateth an enemy and a friend as the same.
Saith Nanak, hear, O man, call him a person possessed of divine knowledge, Who inspireth no fear, and who hath no fear of others.
Man shall find many companions in weal, but none in woe; Saith Nanak, worship God, O man, and He will assist thee at the last moment.
Kabir and Namdev in the Guru Granth Sahib
The Guru Granth Sahib includes poets who were not Sikh Gurus, called bhagats. Kabir, the weaver of Benares, is the most represented: his couplets (sloks), each opening with his own name, are short, blunt and often funny, against pride, caste and anxiety. One line by Namdev completes the group.
Kabir, my rosary is my tongue, on which I repeat God’s name; In every age it bringeth peace and comfort to all God’s servants.
Kabir, I am the worst of men; except myself everybody is good; He who holdeth the same opinion is my friend.
Kabir, why weep when a saint dieth, since he is merely going home?
Kabir, be not proud, let none laugh at the poor.
Kabir, become the broken stones of the road; lay aside thine intellectual pride; If such a servant there be, he shall meet God.
Kabir, I propped myself up with God’s name, and steadied myself; the true guru gave me courage.
Kabir, heart-burning ariseth from claims; he who hath no claim is without anxiety.
Where the Fearless One is, there is no fear of others; where there is fear, there God is not.
Kabir, whatever there is in me is not mine; whatever there is, is Thine, O God. If Thine own property be rendered unto Thee, what doth it cost me?
Kabir, if God do not what I desire, what availeth my desiring it; God doeth what He Himself desireth, not what I desire.
Perform all thy duties with thy hands and feet, but let thy heart be with God.
Ravidas
Ravidas, a poet-saint from a caste of leatherworkers, sings of a God who belongs to whoever loves Him, not to any lineage, and who is nearer than our hands and feet. His hymn on the Name as lamp, wick and oil is among the most loved in the collection.
Between Thee and me, between me and Thee what difference can there be? The same as between gold and the bracelet, between water and its ripples.
Now have I found an excellent abode Where ceaseless happiness doth reign, my friends.
When there was egoism in me, Thou wert not with me; now that Thou art with me, there is no egoism.
Saith Rav Das, God is nearer to us than our hands and feet.
The Supreme Ruler is no man’s heritage; He belongeth to him who loveth Him.
Thy name is the lamp, Thy name the wick, Thy name the oil I pour therein; Thy name is the light which I have applied to it, and which hath enlightened the whole world.
The lowly dost Thou exalt, my God, and none dost Thou fear.
Baba Farid
Sheikh Farid, a Sufi of the Punjab several generations before Guru Nanak, has his couplets in the Guru Granth Sahib. They advise humility, patience and gentleness: do good for evil, distress no one’s heart, since every heart is a jewel. The last one is a reply by Guru Arjan.
Farid, if men beat thee with their fists, beat them not in return; Nay, kiss their feet and go home.
Farid, if thou have acute wisdom, write not a black mark against others. Bend thy head and look beneath thy collar.
Farid, if thou long for the Lord of all, become the grass on the pathway for men to tread on.
It is in the heart God dwelleth; why seekest thou Him in the forest?
Farid, do good for evil, clothe not thy heart with anger.
Farid, I thought I alone had sorrow, but the whole world also hath sorrow; When I ascended an eminence and looked, I found the same anguish in every house.
Even if thou forget God, God will not forget thee.
This patience is the main object; if thou, O mortal, adopt it, Thou shalt become a great river and not a separate branch thereof.
Humility is the word, forbearance the virtue, civility the priceless spell.
Utter not one disagreeable word, since the true Lord is in all men. Distress no one’s heart; every heart is a priceless jewel.
All men’s hearts are jewels; to distress them is by no means good: If thou desire the Beloved, distress no one’s heart.
O Farid, the Creator dwelleth in creation and creation in the Creator; Whom callest thou bad, since there is none beside Him?
How to read these hymns
The hymns of the Guru Granth Sahib were written to be sung, and many Sikhs hear them as kirtan before they read them. Read one aloud, slowly; Macauliffe’s English is old-fashioned, with “thee” and “hath,” but it was made with Sikh scholars of his day and follows the original closely.
The couplets of Kabir and Farid are short enough to keep for a whole day. The verses of Guru Tegh Bahadur suit moments of loss or uncertainty, with their steady call to equanimity. For the meaning of a line in context, a granthi or a knowledgeable member of the sangat will help more than any translation.
In the Selfia app, the Sikhism path (Settings › Spirituality) adds passages from the Guru Granth Sahib in a separate section, in English, since no free French translation exists.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Guru Granth Sahib?
It is the central scripture of Sikhism: 1,430 pages in its standard printing, written in the Gurmukhi script and arranged by ragas. Guru Arjan compiled its first version, the Adi Granth, in 1604; Guru Gobind Singh added the hymns of Guru Tegh Bahadur and, before his death in 1708, declared the scripture the Guru of the Sikhs.
Why does the Guru Granth Sahib include Kabir and Farid?
The Gurus included the hymns of saints whose message matched theirs, whatever their caste or religion: Kabir the weaver, Ravidas the leatherworker, Namdev the tailor, and Sheikh Farid, a Muslim Sufi. These bhagats show the scripture’s refusal of caste and its openness to every seeker of the one God.
Who was Max Arthur Macauliffe?
Max Arthur Macauliffe (1841–1913) was a British civil servant in the Punjab who left his post to devote himself to Sikh scripture. He worked for years with Sikh scholars and published The Sikh Religion in six volumes in 1909, with translations of many hymns. It remains one of the classic English sources on the Sikh Gurus.