There is one God. He is the Supreme Truth." This is the central belief, the mool mantra, of the Sikh religion, founded in Punjab by Guru Nanak (1469-1539), who drew upon the teachings of Muslim Sufis and Hindu Bhaktas. The common basic factor of the Sikh community is belief in the ten Gurus and the authorized version of the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture. In its purest form, Sikhism is about unity, simplicity, equality and surrender (to God), and the verses of the Gurus—most of them included in the Granth Sahib—articulate this beautifully. This volume contains a selection of verses by seven of the ten Gurus, culled from the Guru Granth Sahib and other sacred texts like Guru Tegh Bahadur’s Vairagmayi Bani and the Dasam Granth of Guru Gobind Singh. The hymns of the Sikh Gurus constitute some of the most moving mystical poetry ever composed, and the brilliant translations by Khushwant Singh, a leading scholar of Sikh history and culture and best-selling author, retain the immediacy and lyricism of the originals.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 in Hadali, Punjab. After university education in Lahore and London, he practiced at the Lahore High court before joining the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. He began a distinguished career as a journalist with all India Radio in 1951. Since then he has been founder-editor of Yojana, editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India and the Hindustan Times and chief editor of New Delhi. Today he is India’s best known columnist. Khushwant Singh has also had an extremely successful career as a writer. His published works include the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs, the novels Train to Pakistan, Delhi and The Company of Women, his autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, and a number of translated works and non-fiction books on Delhi, nature, Sikh history and religion, and current affairs. Khushwant Singh was Member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. Among other honours he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 by the President of India (he returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the Union Government’s siege of the Golden Temple, Amritsar).
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