cacai cāri ved jini sāje cāre khāṇī cāri jugā.
jugu jugu jogī khāṇī bhogī paṛiā panḍitu āpi thīā.9.
-Guru Granth Sahib 432-433
The Patti composition revealed by Guru Nanak Sahib consists of thirty-five stanzas, each containing two lines. This composition is based on the thirty-five letters of the alphabet prevalent at that time. In this composition the Guru has established a foundational system based on letters. In the rahau line, by addressing his own mind, the Guru provides insights, saying, “O fool! Why do you remain forgetful? You will be considered truly educated only when you are able to settle the account of your deeds in IkOankar’s (the Divine) court.” The Guru goes on to explain the mystery of the letters, enlightening that the limits of IkOankar, the Creator, cannot be known. All beings are under IkOankar’s command, and no one else can exercise authority over them. All-pervading IkOankar is the cause of everything in the creation. An arrogant being who forgets IkOankar and is engrossed in worldly matters continues to suffer. However, if a being recognizes the eternal IkOankar through the Wisdom (Guru), they are freed from suffering. The being who understands the mystery explained through these thirty-five letters becomes one with IkOankar.
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
O mind! Why do you forget, O foolish mind? You will be considered learned only when you give the account of your deeds, O sibling! In the ninth couplet, through the letter ਚ (‘caccā,’ #11) Guru Nanak repeats the word ‘cāri,’ popularly ‘chaar,’ meaning four, and says that the One who created the four Vedas, all four sources of life, and the four ages, that One Own-Self has been the Renunciate age after age, the Relisher within the sources of life, the Educated, the Pandit. The Guru emphasizes through popularly understood Indic systems that the Creator, IkOankar (One Creative and Pervasive Force, 1Force, the One) Own-Self made the four ages or eras, the four Vedas, and the four sources of life (egg, womb, earth, sweat). The four Vedas are understood to have been created by different sages, considered scholars or Pandits – experts and intellectuals. There are different ways those Vedas are said to be heard, written, and understood in the four eras. These four systems are all about classification. Interestingly, the meaning of the sound of ‘cacca’ in Sanskrit is ‘or’ and ‘and’ and ‘other’ — this is a play on words! The Guru says that even in all these things and eras and classifications, there is only One who created them. Even in all of these things and these eras, there are all kinds of beings who relish the tastes of this world. The larger Creator is living in these forms, in these eras, in all the things we classify and divide up. There is really only the One. The Guru eradicates all classification and shows us that IkOankar alone is pervading all beings through all ages in all manifest forms. IkOankar Own-Self is relishing all materials In the transcendent form. IkOankar Own-Self as the Creator is detached from all material. IkOankar Own-Self has been the wise, the educated, and the scholar. This radical understanding of the unity of all things, of Oneness as meaning there is only the One, is a thing that must be understood experientially and not just logically. When we stay only at the logical level, we give into our inclination to divide, classify, and complicate with systems of understanding or explanation. We create otherness in an attempt to intellectualize. What would happen if we understood that there is only IkOankar? Will we overcome our forgetfulness and foolishness? Will we become truly learned through this kind of understanding?
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