salok m: 1.
gaū birāhmaṇ kaü karu lāvahu gobari taraṇu na jāī.
dhotī ṭikā tai japmālī dhānu malechāṁ khāī.
antari pūjā paṛahi katebā sañjamu turkā bhāī.
choḍīle pākhanḍā. nāmi laïai jāhi tarandā.1.
This pauri (stanza), revealed by Guru Nanak Sahib, is accompanied by two saloks. The first salok comprises four lines, and the second salok comprises twenty-two. Both saloks highlight the hypocrisy of the purity culture practiced by Hindu priests (Brahmin) and officials (Kshatriya). This pauri (stanza) describes how individuals can only be liberated from this hypocrisy by remembering IkOankar. This pauri conveys that all are equal, according to IkOankar (the Divine), regardless of their caste.
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
Guru Nanak begins the first verse by calling out the Hindu officials of the time, who served as officials of the Mughal (Muslim rulers) administration. These Hindu officials, agents of the Muslim state, levy taxes on cows and Brahmins, and at the same time, believe that the sacred thread prepared by the Brahmin, and the cow dung produced by the cow, can make them pure. Guru Nanak addresses these Hindu officials and says that applying the cow dung to cooking squares to make them pure and holy will not free them from anything. The Guru goes on to say that on the one hand, these officials wear a loincloth around their waist, apply a mark on their foreheads, and hold a rosary in their hands when reciting their mantras (all of the things that denote their Hindu-ness and religiosity), but on the other hand, they eat food given to them by the same Muslims they call dirty and impure within their religious frameworks. They worship deities as per their religious tradition inside their own houses, but outside of the house, they read the Qur’an and practice Islamic discipline.
Guru Nanak says, shame on your garbs and your marks, the things you put on to fulfill the performance of your religiosity, as you benefit from the system run by the very people you consider dirty and impure. When you are among your own crowd, you invoke the highest form of your religiosity, but in the ruling class, you use their system, and bow to them, flattering your employers and attempting to display loyalty by adopting their modes of life and reading their scriptures. You practice purity in the private square and lack it in the public square. How can your uniform and your rosary (that you put on to perform purity), which was bought with impure money, ever be pure?
Guru Nanak is addressing the pretenses we all put on in our various capacities, in our various roles within our own contexts, and urges us to give up these pretenses. Our lives and certain objects or outward identifying markers or rituals will not purify us from our hypocrisies. If we are working within corrupt systems to our own benefit at the cost of others — especially at the cost of those people who we go home to at the end of the day, those we claim to identify with — if we think that those two opposing versions of us can exist, we will never be able to cleanse ourselves from the inside, no matter how many boxes we check. We will still be trapped by our hypocrisies, and pretenses, devoid of true freedom. The only way to be able to swim across this world-ocean, the only way to get free is through Identifying with 1Force (One Universal Integrative Force, also referred to as 1-Ness).
Guru Nanak says, shame on your garbs and your marks, the things you put on to fulfill the performance of your religiosity, as you benefit from the system run by the very people you consider dirty and impure. When you are among your own crowd, you invoke the highest form of your religiosity, but in the ruling class, you use their system, and bow to them, flattering your employers and attempting to display loyalty by adopting their modes of life and reading their scriptures. You practice purity in the private square and lack it in the public square. How can your uniform and your rosary (that you put on to perform purity), which was bought with impure money, ever be pure?
Guru Nanak is addressing the pretenses we all put on in our various capacities, in our various roles within our own contexts, and urges us to give up these pretenses. Our lives and certain objects or outward identifying markers or rituals will not purify us from our hypocrisies. If we are working within corrupt systems to our own benefit at the cost of others — especially at the cost of those people who we go home to at the end of the day, those we claim to identify with — if we think that those two opposing versions of us can exist, we will never be able to cleanse ourselves from the inside, no matter how many boxes we check. We will still be trapped by our hypocrisies, and pretenses, devoid of true freedom. The only way to be able to swim across this world-ocean, the only way to get free is through Identifying with 1Force (One Universal Integrative Force, also referred to as 1-Ness).
Tags
