Skip to content
← CatalogueTheology250 levelCreated by AI

Theology

The Manglacharan and Opening Invocations of the Sarbloh Granth

Professor: Sikhi University Source: SikhLibrary

The Manglacharan of the Sarbloh Granth is an extended opening invocation of extraordinary breadth, moving through praise of Waheguru manifested as Maja Lakshmi, Bhavani, Narayan, Kali, Sarasvati, and Ganpati before arriving at the foundational monotheistic declaration. This course provides close textual reading of the Manglacharan's structure, theology, and literary technique as preserved in the published edition of the Buddha Dal.

Begin course12 lessons · 10-question test · 80% to pass
Created by AI. Drafted with AI and reviewed for accuracy. Spotted an error? Tell us.
Prerequisite recommended.

What you'll learn

  • Identify the major divine invocations present in the Manglacharan and their theological function
  • Explain how the Manglacharan frames Puranic mythology within a Gurmat monotheistic worldview
  • Analyze the literary technique of divine name-enumeration (namavali) as used in the opening sections
  • Compare the Manglacharan's theological structure to the opening invocations of the Dasam Granth
  • Interpret specific passages from the Manglacharan with reference to their theological meaning
  • Evaluate how the Manglacharan establishes the theological program of the entire Sarbloh Granth

Key terms — ਸ਼ਬਦਾਵਲੀ

ਮੰਗਲਾਚਰਣ

Auspicious invocation; the opening benedictory verses of a sacred composition

ਮਾਜਾ ਲਕਸ਼ਮੀ

Maja Lakshmi; the divine as the sustaining, grace-giving power, invoked in the Sarbloh Granth opening

ਭਵਾਨੀ

Bhavani; a name for the divine mother/Shakti, the power of existence itself

ਨਾਮਾਵਲੀ

Namavali; a garland of divine names, the technique of stringing together epithets to praise the One

ਸ਼ਕਤੀ

Shakti; divine power or energy, particularly in its creative and protective manifestation

ਕਾਲ

Kaal; time, death, and the all-consuming divine reality; a key divine epithet in the Guru's compositions

ਸਰਸਵਤੀ

Sarasvati; the divine as the power of speech, learning, and sacred wisdom

ਚੌਪਈ

Chaupai; a four-line poetic metre used extensively in the Manglacharan and throughout the Sarbloh Granth

ਦੋਹਰਾ

Dohra; a two-line rhyming couplet metre, a primary vehicle for didactic and narrative poetry

ਇੱਕ ਓਅੰਕਾਰ

Ik Onkar; One Creator God; the foundational affirmation of Sikh theology, the opening of the Mool Mantar written as the symbol ੴ

Lessons

1. What Is a Manglacharan?

Full course contents
  1. What Is a Manglacharan?
  2. The Opening Verses: Ek Onkar and the Invocation of Maja Lakshmi
  3. Praise of Maja Lakshmi: Theological Meaning
  4. The Dohra Form and Its Use in the Manglacharan
  5. Bhavani, Ishwari, and the Unity of Divine Names
  6. Bisnupad Verses: The Cosmic Hymn
  7. The Creator as Master and the Creation as Spectacle
  8. Narayan, Kali, and the Warrior Divine
  9. Sarasvati and the Power of Sacred Speech
  10. The Technique of Divine Name Enumeration
  11. The Manglacharan as Theological Program
  12. Comparison with Other Sikh Opening Invocations

The Sanskrit and Indic Tradition

In classical Sanskrit and vernacular Indic literary tradition, the ਮੰਗਲਾਚਰਣ — the auspicious beginning — is the ritual opening of a text that invokes divine blessing upon the composition and its reception. The word combines mangala (auspiciousness, good fortune) with acharana (conduct, practice). By beginning a text with invocation and praise, the author acknowledges the divine source of all wisdom, places the composition in a devotional frame, and signals to the reader that what follows is sacred utterance deserving receptive attention (Hawley and Juergensmeyer 1988, 5). This convention is shared across Sanskrit, Hindi, and Punjabi literary traditions.

Manglacharan in Sikh Scripture

The Guru Granth Sahib Ji opens with the Mool Mantar — the foundational declaration of divine attributes — which functions as its Manglacharan. The Dasam Granth opens with invocations to the divine before proceeding into its various compositions. The Sarbloh Granth follows this pattern with its own extended Manglacharan, which is notably more expansive than either of these, moving through multiple divine invocations in several different poetic metres before settling into its main compositions. Understanding the Manglacharan is thus the gateway to the entire text.

The Published Edition's Opening

The published Buddha Dal edition notes that the Bani of the Guru begins at page 10. The Manglacharan thus occupies the opening section of the text proper. Its length and elaborateness signal that the Sarbloh Granth intends to establish its theological framework comprehensively before proceeding to its narratives and hymns. Each section of the Manglacharan introduces and develops a different aspect of the divine, building toward the unified understanding of ਏਕੰਕਾਰ that underlies the entire composition.

2. The Opening Verses: Ek Onkar and the Invocation of Maja Lakshmi

The Foundational Affirmation

The Sarbloh Granth opens, as recorded in its published translation, with: "One Universal Creator God. Victory to Sri Waheguru. May Sri Bhavani be helpful. May Sri Maja Lakshmi be helpful. Praise of Sri Maja Lakshmi." This opening encapsulates the text's theological method: the affirmation of ਏਕੰਕਾਰ — One Creator — is followed immediately by multiple divine names and invocations that are understood as facets of that One. The progression is not from monotheism to polytheism; it is an elaboration within monotheism of the many ways in which the One manifests (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 1).

Maja Lakshmi as Divine Manifestation

The text then proceeds to "Praise of Sri Maja Lakshmi" with the heading "The Holy Word of the Tenth Patshahi" — explicitly attributing what follows to Guru Gobind Singh Ji. The first Dohra reads: "Assuming the form of a shadow, Sri Gopal wanders. He Himself embodies the form of Lakshmi, the sustainer of all living beings." This verse is remarkable in its theology: the divine (Gopal — literally 'cow-herder,' a name for Vishnu/Krishna) both wanders as a shadow-form and embodies Lakshmi as the sustaining power of all beings. The divine is presented as simultaneously transcendent (wandering, elusive) and immanent (the very sustaining force within creation).

The First Chaupai

The Chaupai that follows reads: "One who utters the name of Sri Maja, may He rescue them from the ocean of poverty." This verse introduces a practical and devotional dimension to the theological reflection: praising the divine name brings liberation from the poverty of separation and suffering. The phrase ਭਵਸਾਗਰ (ocean of existence/poverty) is a classical metaphor in Indian devotional literature for the suffering condition of the ego-bound soul. The Sarbloh Granth's invocation of ਮਾਜਾ ਲਕਸ਼ਮੀ as a power that rescues from this ocean places the text within the devotional tradition of salvation through divine name and grace.

3. Praise of Maja Lakshmi: Theological Meaning

Who Is Maja Lakshmi?

In the Puranic tradition, Lakshmi is the divine consort of Vishnu, the goddess of prosperity, grace, and sustaining care. The epithet ਮਾਜਾ (Maja) appears to be a regional or specialized name carrying similar connotations. In the Sarbloh Granth, the text establishes that "Adi Bhavani, Ishwari, and Maja are all names of the One. Without Them, not a single moment passes, nor is any task fulfilled." This declaration makes the theological intention clear: these are not multiple goddesses but multiple names of the single divine reality (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 1–2). The apparent polytheism of the invocations is explicitly dissolved by the text itself into a monotheistic framework.

Attributes of the Sustaining Divine

The subsequent verses develop an elaborate portrait of Maja Lakshmi's divine attributes: "The giver of peace, the bringer of auspiciousness, the sustainer in many forms. Victory, victory to Sri Jagmati Maja, who grants true wisdom." The text describes the divine as the destroyer of calamities, the remover of poverty, the bestower of the nine forms of wealth, the friend of the humble, and the savior of the world. These attributes are not merely those of a Puranic goddess; they describe the divine in its most compassionate and sustaining aspect — the ਕਿਰਪਾ (grace) of Waheguru extended toward creation.

The Devotional Response

The Manglacharan's praise of Maja Lakshmi culminates in a devotional posture of complete dependence: "I have no other support; I have fallen at the door of the joyful Hari. There is no other place; to whom should a human turn but to Hari?" (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 2). This surrender to the divine — expressed in language drawn from bhakti devotionalism — is entirely consistent with the Gurmat theology of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, which consistently emphasizes that the divine is the only true refuge and that the ego's independence is the root of suffering. The Manglacharan thus establishes a devotional posture appropriate to receiving the remainder of the text.

4. The Dohra Form and Its Use in the Manglacharan

The Dohra as Poetic Form

The ਦੋਹਰਾ is one of the most ancient and widely used metres in classical Hindi and Punjabi devotional poetry. A Dohra consists of two lines (hence its name, from do, two), each with a specific syllable count and a distinctive caesura. The brevity and symmetry of the form make it ideal for aphoristic, devotional, and narrative statements — memorable compressed utterances that can be recited and recalled easily. It is the metre of Kabir's famous dohas, and its use in the Sarbloh Granth Manglacharan connects that text to the broader north Indian devotional literary tradition (Hawley and Juergensmeyer 1988, 47).

Examples from the Manglacharan

Several Dohras in the Manglacharan demonstrate the form's power. The verse "Pain and pleasure are like two garments; such is the conduct of human existence. Virtue and sin accompany the soul; the Divine Decree is beyond all measure" encapsulates a complete philosophy of human existence in two lines: existence is characterized by duality (pain/pleasure, virtue/sin), but the divine will (ਹੁਕਮ) is beyond these dualities (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 3). This is a classic Gurmat teaching delivered in a classical poetic form.

Theological Function of the Dohra in the Manglacharan

Within the longer Manglacharan, the Dohras function as theological anchor points — brief, clear statements of principle that are elaborated in the longer Chaupai and Bisnupad sections. They punctuate the elaborate mythological imagery with direct doctrinal clarity. This alternation between expansive mythological narrative and compressed doctrinal statement is a distinctive literary technique of the text, and it models a way of holding together poetic grandeur and theological clarity that is characteristic of Guru Gobind Singh Ji's compositions in the Dasam Granth as well (Fenech 2008, 89).

5. Bhavani, Ishwari, and the Unity of Divine Names

The Declaration of Unity

The Manglacharan contains an explicit statement that might easily be missed by a reader approaching the text for the first time: "Adi Bhavani, Ishwari, and Maja are all names of the One. Without Them, not a single moment passes, nor is any task fulfilled." This statement is the hermeneutical key to the entire opening section. What appears to be a series of invocations to different deities is in fact a sustained meditation on the different names of the single divine reality. ਭਵਾਨੀ (the power of existence), ਈਸ਼ਵਰੀ (the sovereign mistress), and ਮਾਜਾ are all facets of the one Waheguru (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 1).

The Adi Qualifier

The adjective Adi — primordial, original, first — applied to Bhavani is significant. ਆਦਿ ਭਵਾਨੀ is the primordial Shakti, the power that existed before creation and through which creation manifests. This concept of primordial divine power is not foreign to Gurmat theology; the Guru Granth Sahib Ji's Mool Mantar begins with ਆਦਿ ਸਚੁ — the True One from the beginning. The Sarbloh Granth invokes this same primordial truth through the lens of Shakta devotionalism, consistent with the Dasam Granth's use of Chandi imagery as a vehicle for theological reflection.

Practical Implication: Reciting Many Names

The unity of divine names has a practical implication for how the Manglacharan is to be received: the devotee who recites these verses is not engaging in polytheistic worship but in an expansive meditation on the One divine reality through its many manifestations. This understanding, explicit in the text itself, is important for Sikh students who may approach the Manglacharan with concern about its compatibility with the strictly monotheistic thrust of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. The text itself anticipates and addresses this concern by declaring the unity of all these names at the outset of the devotional sequence.

6. Bisnupad Verses: The Cosmic Hymn

The Bisnupad Form

The Bisnupad is a longer stanzaic form traditionally associated with panegyric — the elaborate praise of a lord or deity. Originating in the devotional tradition of Vishnu worship (Vishnupada means "verse at Vishnu's feet"), the form was adapted by poets of the Braj Bhasha tradition for both Vaishnava and Shakta devotional contexts. In the Sarbloh Granth Manglacharan, the Bisnupad sections present the most expansive and cosmologically ambitious hymns, describing the divine as encompassing all of creation (Singh and Mann 2015, 31).

The First Bisnupad of the Manglacharan

The Bisnupad Sarang Chhapay in the Manglacharan reads: "The worshipper of the world, the Lord of the world, the protector of the world, Hari and Ambai. The Lord of all beings, the Lord of the world, the servant and protector, Jagdamba. O Savior of the world, chant the name of Hari, the creator, Adi Bhavani. By assuming the form of Maja in the world, the Unseen becomes seen" (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 1). The verse moves from the divine as cosmic lord to the divine as Adi Bhavani manifesting as Maja — the Unseen becoming visible. This is a profound theological statement about the nature of divine manifestation: the formless takes form so that created beings can encounter and praise the divine.

Cosmological Vision

The verse continues: "The destroyer of calamities, the giver of peace, the protector of servants, Hari Maja. He controls all three worlds, His state is infinite, and His nature is manifest." The three worlds (ਤ੍ਰਿਭਵਨ) — heaven, earth, and the underworld — represent the totality of created existence in the Indic cosmological framework. The divine as Sarbloh is the sovereign of this entire cosmos, whose nature is simultaneously infinite (transcendent) and manifest (immanent). This cosmic sovereignty is the theological foundation for the Khalsa ideal: a community that serves a sovereign whose dominion encompasses all of existence.

7. The Creator as Master and the Creation as Spectacle

The Kanak Dohra Section

Among the most philosophically rich sections of the Manglacharan is the Kanak Dohra section, which presents a compressed cosmogony: "Caste after caste was..." followed by a description of how "Gold, Mount Meru, the snows, and the earth were created. Animals, birds, aquatic creatures, fire, and the expanse of the sky were made. Those born from eggs, from wombs, from sweat, and those that spontaneously manifest — all were brought forth. Hells, heavens, the four ages, night, day, moments, and months were formed. Wind, water, and fire; the Master, the servants, and the slaves" (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 3). This cosmological catalog is both literary and theological: it enumerates creation to celebrate the creative power of the divine.

The Four Types of Life

The Sarbloh Granth's reference to those "born from eggs, from wombs, from sweat, and those that spontaneously manifest" is a classical Indic schema for the four types of living beings (andaj, jeraj, setaj, utbhuj) that also appears in the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. The Sarbloh Granth's use of this schema places it in the same theological tradition: the divine creates all forms of life, and all life is the expression of divine creative power. The human being is not uniquely privileged in this cosmology but is one form among the infinite forms through which the divine expresses itself.

Creation as Divine Play

The verse "He Himself, detached, creates the spectacle. As His command unfolds, so does the manifestation" articulates the Gurmat concept of creation as divine ਖੇਲ (play or spectacle). The divine creates not from need but from the inexhaustible abundance of its own nature — and yet remains detached from the creation, not bound by it. This teaching — that the divine is both the creative ground of existence and the witness to that existence — is central to Sikh theology and appears consistently across the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, the Dasam Granth, and here in the Sarbloh Granth's Manglacharan.

8. Narayan, Kali, and the Warrior Divine

The Soratha Verses

The Manglacharan includes a section of Soratha verses — an inverted Dohra form — each dedicated to a different divine name or manifestation. The Narayan Soratha reads: "Narayan, the Formless, Narasingh, the Man-Lion, the Ever-New. Without flaw, without one who removes, the joy of Nanda, the lotus-eyed." The Girdhar Dohra follows: "Girdhari, Gobind, the Guru, Govardhan Gopal. The Master, th[e sustainer of all]" (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 4). These verses enumerate Vaishnava divine names and attributes, but they do so in a context that subordinates them to the monotheistic framework: these are all names of the One.

Kali and the Warrior Dimension

The invocation of ਕਾਲੀ (Kali) and other warrior manifestations of the divine represents a crucial dimension of the Sarbloh Granth's theology. The verse "Victory, victory to the Embodiment of Auspiciousness; eternal victory to the Eternal Kali" (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 6) presents Kali not as a goddess to be feared but as the eternal divine power that destroys what must be destroyed and protects what must be protected. The same divine reality that sustains and nourishes in the form of Maja Lakshmi destroys tyranny and oppression in the form of Kali. This double aspect of the divine — creator and destroyer, sustainer and annihilator — is the theological basis for the saint-soldier ideal of the Khalsa.

The Warrior-Saint Theological Basis

The Manglacharan's sustained meditation on divine manifestations as both sustaining and warrior powers provides the theological foundation for the ਸੰਤ-ਸਿਪਾਹੀ (saint-soldier) ideal. The Khalsa is not a paradoxical combination of incompatible roles; it is a community that embodies the full nature of the divine as revealed in this text — both the compassionate sustainer and the sovereign warrior who protects the righteous and destroys oppression. The Manglacharan thus reads as both praise of Waheguru and as a theological charter for the Khalsa.

9. Sarasvati and the Power of Sacred Speech

The Sarasvati Invocation

After the extended warrior imagery of the Kali and Durga invocations, the Manglacharan turns to an invocation of ਸਰਸਵਤੀ (Sarasvati), the divine as the power of speech, wisdom, and learning: "The Giver of all knowledge and wisdom, victory to Sarasvati. The servant of the Protector, the elephant-faced one, sings Her praise; victory to the Sovereign. The Unshakable, the Unreachable, the Giver of speech, victory to the Possessor of Fame. She who grants liberation and wealth, eternal victory, victory to Sarasvati" (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 6). This invocation is significant in context: a text attributed to the Tenth Guru, who was himself a poet and scholar, would naturally invoke the divine as the source of sacred speech before proceeding with its compositions.

The Connection to Bani

In Sikh theology, ਬਾਣੀ — sacred utterance — is not merely human speech about the divine but divine speech itself flowing through the Guru. When the Manglacharan invokes Sarasvati as "the Giver of speech," it participates in this theological understanding: the composition that follows is possible only because the divine has given the capacity for sacred speech. The invocation of Sarasvati is thus an act of theological humility — the author acknowledges that the wisdom contained in the text is a divine gift, not a personal achievement.

Ganpati and the Completion of the Manglacharan

The Chhapay Chhand section that follows invokes Ganpati (Ganesha), saying: "Worship Ganpati, the son of Ga[uri]..." (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 6). In classical Indic literary tradition, Ganesha is the remover of obstacles, and his worship before beginning any major undertaking is standard practice. By invoking Ganpati in the Manglacharan, the text again draws on classical Indic literary convention while maintaining its monotheistic framework: Ganpati, Sarasvati, Kali, and Maja are all aspects of the one divine reality whose blessing is being invoked for the composition that follows.

10. The Technique of Divine Name Enumeration

The Namavali Tradition

The ਨਾਮਾਵਲੀ tradition — the stringing together of divine names and epithets in extended praise — has a long history in Sanskrit and Hindi devotional literature. The Vishnu Sahasranama (Thousand Names of Vishnu) and similar texts demonstrate the power of this technique: by multiplying names and attributes, the devotee acknowledges that no single name or concept can contain the divine, while simultaneously asserting that the divine has revealed itself through all these names and forms to created beings (Hawley and Juergensmeyer 1988, 8). The Sarbloh Granth's Manglacharan employs this technique extensively, moving through hundreds of divine names across its opening sections.

Function in Devotional Practice

The namavali technique serves multiple functions simultaneously. Devotionally, it is an act of praise that acknowledges divine abundance and multiplicity. Cognitively, it prevents the mind from reducing the divine to any single concept or form — the relentless multiplication of names keeps the understanding of the divine expansive. Spiritually, the recitation of divine names is itself understood as a form of Naam Simran — remembrance of Waheguru — in which each name functions as a doorway into awareness of the divine presence. This understanding is consistent with the Guru Granth Sahib Ji's teaching that the divine name is the supreme treasure and that its recitation liberates the soul.

Example: The Verse on Divine Incomprehensibility

One of the most remarkable passages in the early sections of the Manglacharan reads: "How can the state of the Lord be described? He is invisible and infinite. The Vedas and the wise speak of Him, yet Your end cannot be reached. What deliberation can a mere creature make to utter Your virtues? Even if the seven seas became ink and the entire forest became pens, and the earth became paper, the praises of Hari could not be written" (Baba Santa Singh 1973, 7). This passage — asserting the incomprehensibility of the divine even while continuing to praise — is a masterful example of apophatic theology within a context of elaborate devotional praise. It models the appropriate epistemological humility before the divine infinite.

11. The Manglacharan as Theological Program

From Many Names to One Reality

Read as a whole, the Manglacharan of the Sarbloh Granth constitutes a systematic theological argument by poetic means. It begins with ਏਕੰਕਾਰ — the foundational Sikh affirmation of One Creator — and then unfolds an elaborate demonstration of how that One manifests in infinite forms of sustaining grace (Maja Lakshmi), warrior power (Kali, Durga), cosmic sovereignty (Narayan), sacred wisdom (Sarasvati), and compassionate care (Bhavani). The closing of each section returns to the unity from which it began, so that the entire Manglacharan is a sustained movement from the One through the Many back to the One.

Setting the Stage for the Text

The Manglacharan also functions as a kind of preface that establishes the interpretive framework for the mythological narratives that follow in the Sarbloh Granth. When the reader subsequently encounters stories of divine combat, the slaying of demons, and the protection of the righteous, they are equipped by the Manglacharan to understand these as theological parables about the divine's sovereign power over evil — not as polytheistic mythology but as expressions of the single divine sovereignty of ਸਰਬਲੋਹ.

A Charter for the Khalsa

Finally, the Manglacharan reads as a theological charter for the Khalsa. A community that opens its ceremonial life with this extended invocation of the divine as sustaining, warrior, wise, and incomprehensible is a community that has internalized a rich and nuanced theology — one that refuses simplistic reductions of the divine to a single attribute and that equips its members to embody multiple dimensions of divine purpose simultaneously. The ਸੰਤ-ਸਿਪਾਹੀ ideal is not a contradiction; it is a natural expression of a theology that holds all these dimensions of the divine together in creative unity.

12. Comparison with Other Sikh Opening Invocations

The Mool Mantar as Manglacharan

The Guru Granth Sahib Ji opens with what scholars have recognized as its Manglacharan: the Mool Mantar, followed by the Ik Onkar declaration and the opening Salok of Japji Sahib. The Mool Mantar is characteristically Sikh in its theological precision: it enumerates divine attributes in noun-form (True Name, the Creator, without fear, without enmity, timeless form, unborn, self-illumined) without mythological narrative. It is apophatic and cataphatic in balance, establishing a clear theological foundation in minimal words (Pashaura Singh 2000, 45). The Sarbloh Granth's Manglacharan, by contrast, is expansive, mythological, and multi-layered — a different mode of achieving the same theological aim.

The Dasam Granth Opening

The Dasam Granth opens with the Jaap Sahib, a prolonged namavali of divine epithets drawn from both Indic and Semitic traditions — Hari, Ram, Gobind, Allah, Khuda, Rahim. Like the Sarbloh Granth Manglacharan, the Jaap Sahib employs the technique of divine name enumeration to assert that the One divine reality is named and worshipped across all traditions. The similarity in technique between these two texts is one of the arguments for a common authorial tradition, though scholars acknowledge that a sophisticated later poet familiar with the Dasam Granth could have employed the same technique (Singh and Mann 2015, 43).

What Makes the Sarbloh Manglacharan Distinctive

The Sarbloh Granth Manglacharan is distinctive in its length, its use of multiple metres in sequence, and its extended treatment of the feminine divine as sustainer and warrior. While the Dasam Granth's Chandi compositions also celebrate the warrior goddess, the Sarbloh Granth Manglacharan integrates this celebration into its opening invocation, making the warrior-divine aspect foundational rather than a distinct compositional unit. This structural choice signals that the warrior-divine is not a special topic within the Sarbloh Granth but the very starting point of its theological vision — the lens through which all that follows is to be read.

From the Granth — ਮੰਗਲਾਚਰਣ

ਮੰਗਲਾਚਰਣ · Manglacharan · Ang 1–12, rendered verbatim from the reader corpus. Tap any line for its published translation and ਅਰਥ.Read with Santhya audio →

References & further reading

  1. Baba Santa Singh, ed. Sampooran Sri Sarbloh Granth Sahib Ji. Sri Anandpur Sahib: Panth Akali Buddha Dal, 1973.
  2. Singh, Kamalroop, and Gurinder Singh Mann. The Granth of the Tenth King. Amritsar: Singh Brothers, 2015.
  3. Fenech, Louis E. The Darbar of the Sikh Gurus: The Court of God in the World of Men. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  4. Hawley, John Stratton, and Mark Juergensmeyer. Songs of the Saints of India. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
  5. Singh, Nikky-Guninder Kaur. The Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh Gurus. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995.
  6. Mandair, Arvind-Pal Singh. Religion and the Specter of the West: Sikhism, India, Postcoloniality, and the Politics of Translation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.

Flashcards — ਕਾਰਡ ਅਭਿਆਸ

Click a card to flip it and reveal the definition.

Click to reveal

Course test

Pass with 80% or higher to complete the course and unlock the next one.

1. What does the Manglacharan's statement 'Adi Bhavani, Ishwari, and Maja are all names of the One' establish for the reader?
2. What is the theological significance of invoking Sarasvati in the Manglacharan?
3. What is the namavali technique?
4. According to the Manglacharan, what happens to one who utters the name of Sri Maja?
5. The phrase 'Pain and pleasure are like two garments; such is the conduct of human existence' appears in which poetic metre?
6. How does the Manglacharan present the divine as both Maja Lakshmi and Kali?
7. What does the verse about seven seas of ink and forests of pens convey?
8. The Bisnupad metre in the Manglacharan is traditionally associated with what literary function?
9. What theological concept does the phrase 'He Himself, detached, creates the spectacle' express?
10. How does the Sarbloh Granth Manglacharan differ from the Mool Mantar?

Read the source texts

Read the primary sources for yourself — the Gurbani in our read-along reader, and the original works in the source library.

Read Gurbani (reader)SikhLibrary dataset ↗Dig deeper in the Sikh Archive →

Rate this course

…

Discussion & Q&A

Sign in to post.