Here is a refreshing impartial interpretation of the Japji by a Calvinist, who looks upon the poem through a frame of references provided by his own religion. Not that one would accept as correct whatever the reviewers say about the Japji. In fact this review contains some observations which it is hard to accept. His impartiality lies in his freely and unhesitatingly conceding superiority of the Sikh view wherever the Sikh view is superior, an example is the Sikh verses the Christian view of man.
Interpretations put on certain section of the Japji by this reviewer are not correct. For instance in the second paragraph of the review, the author seems to suggest that salvation may be found “sometimes by pilgrimage.” There is no support for this opinion in Japji, which holds that pilgrimage, asceticism, kindness and distribution of alms might bring one some honor, but that, for attaining the goal one must study, contemplate, apprehend and then bathe within the sacred waters within.
Again the reviewer ascribes to the Japji the view that men’s fate is entirely beyond their control. In support of this assertion, he cites verses 33.. Now all that verse thirty-three says is that Jor or fanatical pursuits of certain practices cannot lead us any closer to our goal.
However, one would be inclined to think that such errors in the conception of any one of a poetic-philosophical compositions, where the composition is approached in translation, are inevitable. --Editor, The Sikh Review
In any study of a foreign religion, a comparison with one’s own faith is inevitable. Thus in analyzing the Japji I will compare some of the ideas which Nanak expressed with ideas from Calvinist Christianity, which are notable either to their similarity or contrast to the Guru’s teachings.
The introduction to Nanak’s morning prayer is a bold statement of what Vahiguru is, creator, supreme truth, omnipresent, eternal and so forth. In the following verses, roughly from the third stanza, Nanak seems to expand on these characteristics, bringing out the idea that his God is above all formless and indescribable, so sublime as to be totally beyond human powers of recognition, description, or conception.
His primary emphasis in the next section is in the oft-repeated refrain, “There is only one Lord of all creation, forget Him not.”1 and in the last two lines of the fourth stanza, “this need we know alone that God and Truth are two in one.”
Here, in fourth through seventh stanzas, he suggests that salvation may be found through meditation, through praising, Vahiguru as did the bhaktas (holy people) their gods, by studying the word of the Guru, and sometimes by pilgrimages, all of which are directed toward the realization of the basic truths quoted above.
Nanak emphasized that this realization was within the man, in “Thy mind, wherein buried lie precious jewels, gems” in the sixth stanza. The succeeding section, verses eight through fifteen, describes how man, hearing the word and discovering the wealth within himself, I enriched in various ways, the greatest of which is salvation: “Their souls are saved from transmigration.”
The next of the rough groups into which I have divided the Japji is stanza sixteen through twenty-six, which brings out the way in which Vahiguru is to be worshipped, and the futility of efforts to find salvation in other ways or through other gods. Emphasizing again His formless nature, Nanak rails at those who would find salvation by mere reason.
He criticizes those who pretend to have some claim to religious knowledge, for Nanak felt all were equal before Vahiguru, both Brahmin (high caste) and shudra (low caste), Hindu and Musalman. The section ends with a restatement of some of the characteristics of Vahiguru and of His greatness.
The Sodar is very difficult to fit into the context of the rest of the Japji. It appears to be a description of heaven, or possibly of the “day of judgement” to which he refers in stanza thirty-four:
There are sorted deeds that were done
And bore fruit
From those that no action could never ripen.
This, O Nanak, shall hereafter happen.
There appears to be a similar reference in the twenty-first stanza: “he who sayeth more shall hereafter regret his stupidity.”
The following stanzas are in confusing order and seem to be without cohesion, except for a passage describing the five realms: the Realm of Justice of Law ( the earth), the Realms of Knowledge or reason, bliss or meditation, action or effort, and finally the Realm of Truth where apparently, dwells the Formless One.
This juxtaposition of Realms suggests a geometrical representation. I interpret this passage as a symbolic statement that one who seeks to pass from life to heaven, escaping the Law of Transmigration, must do so by means of the three other Realms.
Since Nanak has previously explicitly repudiated the efficacy of reason or deeds such as pilgrimages, or of ascetic isolation as means to attain salvation, it seems evident that he would have one follow a path through all three Realms, a path which avoids the excesses of either Realm, the gentle path of sahaj.
In this path one uses reason to study the teachings of the Guru, action or effort in seeking spiritual wisdom (“nothing’s gained save by action” – 6th stanza), and meditation for communion with one’s God and realization of the wealth within one’s self which is the way to salvation.
The other stanzas on this section convey certain instructions for life, and praise Vahiguru for His greatness before which men are powerless. Men’s fates are entirely beyond their control Nanak seems to say in the thirty-third stanza. This seems to contradict his central message of salvation, which is achieved through “the triumph of human will over fate and predestination.” Here one encounters the concept of grace, a very important theme in Christianity and also important in Japji.
The Christian idea of grace is the generosity of God in forgiving man’s sins outside the Old Testament law, within which no one could find salvation because men are all evil.
In Sikhism it seems to be similar, but with a major point of difference: Vahiguru’s grace is His generosity to a man in revealing to him the enriching potential within himself by which he may have salvation. (“Through grace lone cometh salvation” – Fourth stanza; “By His grace some are saved” – Second stanza).
In Christianity, men must become aware of their inherent evil to achieve salvation. Sikhism teaches that men find salvation by realizing their inherent good. The crux of the matter is basic difference between the two conceptions of man.
The Slok or epilogue is a short commentary on the transitory nature of life: it is seen as a period of infancy in which “the world is our playground” (Slok) which ends when “The toils have ended of those who have worshipped Thee.”
NOTES
1 All quotations are taken from Khushwant Singh's translation to the Japji in Appendix 5, A History of the Sikhs, Vol. I.
