REPRESENTATION OF COMMENCING VERSE (MOOL MANTRA)

Ek Oh Sat Gur Parsad OR Ek Oh Satnam Vaheguru

- Devinder Singh Chahal

The Commencing Verse (commonly called as ‘Mool Mantra’) of the Aad Guru Granth Sahib (AGGS) [1] has been represented by Guru Arjan many times throughout the AGGS before the beginning of the every Raga, every section, and subsection of the AGGS as such, without abridgement or in an abridged form. This verse is tentatively divided into three sections to make the explanation easy:

1. Complete Forms

*Ek Oh ¹33 times

Sat Naam Karta Purkh Nibhao Nirvaer Akaal Murat Ajooni Saibang ²

Gur Parsad ³ .

(* Commonly pronounced as ‘Ek Oankaar’)

“The One and Only, That, the Infinite¹;

Exists; Creator;

Without fear (Not governed by any other or not under any Laws of Universe);

Without enmity; Timeless (Without effect of time and space);

Neither takes birth nor dies (Never comes into any anthropomorphic form);

Created by Itself ²;

Enlightener; and Bounteous ³.”

2. Abridged Forms:

i) Ek Oh ¹ Sat Naam Karta Purkh ²Gur Parsad ³ . 8 Times

Here ‘Nibhao Nirvaer Akaal Murat Ajooni Saibang’ from second part has been eliminated.

“The One and Only, That, the Infinite¹.

Exists; Creator²;

Enlightener; and Bounteous³.”

ii) Ek Oh ¹Sat Naam ²Gur Parsad ³ . 2 times

Here ‘Kart Purkh’ from second part has been eliminated.

“The One and Only, That, the Infinite¹;

Exists²;

Enlightener; and Bounteous ³.”

iii) Ek Oh ¹Sat ²Gur Parsad ³ . 523 times

Here ‘Naam’ from the second part has been eliminated.

“The One and Only, That, the Infinite ¹;

Exists²;

Enlightener; and Bounteous ³.”

iv) Ek Oh ¹ 0 time

This form is not found in the AGGS, published by the SGPC.

“The One and Only, Oh, the Infinite¹.”

It is worth noting that:

· In the first abridgement {2- (i)}, "nirbhau, Nirvaer, Akaal Murt, Ajuni, Saibhang" have been eliminate from the second part.

· In the second abridgement {2 - (ii)}, "Karta Purkh' has been eliminated.

· In the third abridgement {2 - (iii)}, 'Naam', has also been eliminated.

· No word has been eliminated from the first and the third part.

Thus, the most commonly used abridgement in the AGGS is {2 - (iii)} is as follows:

Ek Oh Sat Gur Parsad.

That means Ek Oh¹from the first part, only Sat² from the second part and Gur Parsad ³ from the third part of the Commencing Verse have been retained.

The last form Ek Oh {2 - (iv)} does not exist in the present AGGS published by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). But, Nirmal Singh Kalsi [2] claims that it is found at the bottom of the page 497/2 of the Kartarpuri Bir as reported by Dr Jodh Singh [3]. But according to Dr Jodh Singh [3] there is a hartal (crossing line) on the bottom half of the page where this form appears. If it were not crossed then this form would have been included in the present volume of the Granth, published by the SGPC. Nirmal Singh Kalsi [2] again points out that it is also found on page 934/1 as reported by Dr Jodh Singh [3].

Principal Harbhajan Singh [4] also accept that Ek Oh alone should have been printed on page 1353 of the AGGS published by SGPC, after the following phrase of Guru Nanak, ‘Parh pustak sandia banding…1’ and before the next phrase, ‘Neh phaland tas janmas…2’. It is difficult to accept the presence of Ek Oh between two phrases of the same Verse of Guru Nanak. According to Guru Nanak and Guru Arjan a new Raga, a new section of the Bani or new subsection of a Bani should carry Commencing Verse either in full or in an abridged form but in no case it appears between two phrases of the same verse. There is no such example found throughout the present form of AGGS. Now the question is why this EK Oh is present between stanza number # 1 and stanza # 2 of a verse composed of four phrases. A thorough research is needed to resolve this mystery because it violates all the rules of the arrangements of the Commencing Verse in the AGGS.

There is another thing to be noted that 'Sat' is joined with 'Gur' to make 'Satgur' as one word in the AGGS published by the SGPC. Most probably the scholars, who were responsible for padshaed (separation) of joined words, failed to notice the fact that 'Sat' is a separate and independent word rather than as a prefix of 'Gur' because 'Sat' is from the second part and 'Gur' is from the third part of the Commencing Verse. Therefore, 'Sat' should be written separately from 'Gur' as:

Ek Oh Sat Gur Parsad.

The words, 'Sat', 'Gur', and 'Parsad', are three distinct independent attributes of God, therefore, the shortest abridged form of Commencing Verse, most commonly used (523 times) in the AGGS, is as follows:

Ek Oh Sat Gur Parsad.

“The One and Only, That, the Infinite ¹;

Exists ²;

Enlightener; and Bounteous ³.”

Commencing Verse Misconstrued

The irony is that the Sikhs at large do not use this form in day-to-day lives, in their Gurdwaras, and in any writings on Gurbani or Sikhism. Instead a new form, coined by somebody, is used very commonly. The new form has been created by re-introducing 'Naam' with ‘Sat’ and by replacing ‘Parsad’ with a new word ‘Vaheguru’, which has never been used by any Guru in their Bani. Now the new form is found written on the front of the podium and palanquin (palqi), and on the walls of almost every Gurdwara of the world even in the Darbar Sahib Complex (Golden Temple Complex), Amritsar. The misconstrued form is as follows:

Ek Oh Satnam Vaheguru

I could not trace out from the available literature that who could have misconstrued this shortest form of Commencing Verse. But I do understand why the Sikhs at large like to follow the things that are not found or recommended in any Bani of any Sikh Guru, incorporated in the AGGS. It is because people easily accept wrong things as has been mentioned by Guru Arjan as follows:

Jhuth baat sa sach kar jati.

Sat hovan mann lagay n rati.

AGGS, M 5, P 185.

"What is false, one takes it to be true.

What is the truth is not imbibed in one's mind.”

APPEAL

The Institute for Understanding Sikhism appeals to the Presidents of all the Gurdwaras in the world and the President of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Amritsar to revert the misconstrued form:

Ek Oh Satnam Vaheguru

To the right form:

Ek Oh Sat Gur Parsad.

REFERENCES

1. AGGS = Aad Guru Granth Sahib. 1983 (reprint). Publishers: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Amritsar. (M = Mahla, i.e., succession number of the Sikh Gurus to the House of Nanak, p = Page of the AGGS. M is replaced with the name of Bhagat or Bhatt with their Bani.)

2. Kalsi, Nirmal Singh. 1996. Beej Mantar Darshan (Punjabi). Kalsi Technologies, # 15, 7711- 128th Street, Surrey, BC.

3. Singh, (Bhai, Dr) Jodh. 1968. Sri Kartarpuri Bir de Darshan (Punjabi). Punjabi University, Patiala, India.

4. Singh, Principal Harbhajan. 1981. Vishaesh Gurmatt Laekh. (Punjabi). Satnam Prakashan. 1186 Sector 18-C, Chandigarh.