Japji Sahib

Structure

The Japji consists of the Mul Mantar, an opening invocation, thirty-eight stanzas called pauris, and a closing salok. It is the only major composition in the scripture not set to a raga, being intended for recitation rather than song.

Its argument moves from the nature of the divine, through the futility of ritual and ascetic attempts to reach it, to the practice of remembrance and submission to the divine order, hukam. The middle stanzas describe five stages, the khands, through which the seeker passes — realms of duty, knowledge, effort, grace and truth.

Themes

The opening lines state that the true one was in the beginning, through the ages, and is now — a formulation of an eternal, uncreated, formless divine reality that governs the whole. Nanak then dismisses the standard means of approach: bathing at pilgrimage places, silence, fasting, and cleverness are each declared insufficient.

What is left is living in accordance with hukam and remembering the name. The composition is insistent that this is available to anyone, without priest, language or ritual qualification.

Use

The Japji is the first of the daily prayers, recited at dawn, and is among the first texts a Sikh child learns. Its opening, the Mul Mantar, functions as the community's creed. Because it stands at the head of the scripture and states the theology of its founder in compressed form, it is the text most often used to introduce Sikhism to those outside it.