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Guru Granth Sahib

The Guru Granth Sahib is Sikhism’s central holy scripture. Sikhs treat it as their living, eternal Guru, not just a book.

The Guru Granth Sahib, covered with a Rumala and placed on a takht in a gurdwara. Photo: Hari Singh, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

📑 Contents

The fifth Sikh Guru, Guru Arjan Dev, compiled the original text, called the Adi Granth, completed in 1604 CE. Bhai Gurdas served as scribe.
The Adi Granth was installed at the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) in Amritsar. Baba Buddha was appointed its first Granthi, or reader.
The tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, finalised the text at Damdama Sahib in 1706. He added the hymns of the ninth Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur. This finalised version is called the Damdami Bir.
In October 1708, shortly before his death, Guru Gobind Singh declared the text the eternal, living Guru of the Sikhs. He did so at Nanded, Maharashtra, ending the line of human Gurus.
From that point, the text has been known as the Guru Granth Sahib.

The text opens with the Mool Mantar, a short formula summarising core Sikh belief, followed by the Japji and Sohila compositions of Guru Nanak.
Hymns are organised by raga, or musical mode. The Guru Granth Sahib uses 31 ragas in total.
The standard printed edition runs to 1,430 pages, called Angs.
The scripture is written in Gurmukhi script. Its language content, though, is a genuine mix: Punjabi, Braj Bhasha, Old Hindi, Persian, and Sanskrit, often described together as Sant Bhasha.
Alongside the Sikh Gurus’ own writings, the Guru Granth Sahib includes the Bhagat Bani. These are hymns by 15 non-Sikh saints from Hindu and Muslim backgrounds, including Kabir, Ravidas, and Farid. This interfaith inclusion is one of the text’s most distinctive features.

Gurdwaras that follow the full ceremonial tradition treat the Guru Granth Sahib as a living presence. It is ceremonially opened each morning, a rite called Prakash, and put to rest at night, called Sukhasan.
An Akhand Path is a continuous, unbroken reading of the entire text from start to finish. It is usually completed in 48 hours, with readers rotating in shifts.
A random daily reading, called Hukamnama, is treated as the Guru’s direct guidance for that day.
The original 1604 manuscript, known as the Kartarpur Bir, still exists. It passed through Guru Hargobind’s family, then through Maharaja Ranjit Singh. The Sodhi family has held it at Kartarpur since 1850.
Ravidas, one of the Bhagat Bani poets, was a low-caste cobbler. Including his verses alongside the Sikh Gurus’ own reflects a deliberate rejection of caste hierarchy in spiritual authority.