paüṛī.
ture palāṇe paüṇ veg har raṅgī haram savāriā.
koṭhe manḍap māṛīā lāi baiṭhe kari pāsāriā.
cīj karani mani bhāvade hari bujhani nāhī hāriā.
kari phurmāisi khāiā vekhi mahlati maraṇu visāriā.
jaru āī jobani hāriā.17.
This pauri (stanza), revealed by Guru Nanak Sahib, is accompanied by two saloks. Both the saloks contain four lines each. The first salok references ancestor worship and satirizes charity performed using dubiously acquired money, stating only the wealth earned through honest labor is worth sharing. Through illustration and imagery, the second salok exposes the liar’s hypocrisy. While keeping the idea of the transient nature of the world at its center, this pauri expresses the futility of attachment to worldly materiality and forgetting IkOankar (the Divine).
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
Guru Nanak then addresses these same hypocrites and elites, who, upon “purifying” themselves, are expecting something in return. They might have fleets of horses as fast as the wind with golden trappings, harems full of beautiful women, incredible palaces, high towering mansions, but having all of these, they are already pleased with all of these pleasures and abundances. But these pleasure-seeking tyrants, in their vainglory, are not realizing 1Force. They issue orders to those who serve them, but they have forgotten death and what comes beyond death. On the heel of death, in seeking these pleasures, even if we are not kings and tyrants, we become like tyrants, gambling our lives away. And, the Guru warns, old age is coming — youth will be lost. It is in all of this indulgence that we do not realize our time is coming too. Guru Nanak says, if we are seriously interested in becoming pure in thought and action, we must look at our behaviors, we and make our bodies and minds the dwelling places of 1Force.
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