Sacred Text · The Guru Granth Sahib

Ik Onkar, the Mul Mantar

Japji Sahib, the Mul Mantar · Guru Nanak

“There is but one God whose name is True, the Creator, devoid of fear and enmity, immortal, unborn, self-existent, great, and bountiful. The True One was in the beginning; the True One was in the primal age. The True One is, was, O Nanak, and the True One also shall be.”

Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 1 (preamble of the Japji) · Guru Nanak

Translation: Max Arthur Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion: Its Gurus, Sacred Writings and Authors, Volume I (Oxford University Press, 1909), public domain (author died 1913), via the Internet Archive. We use Macauliffe rather than the modern Sant Singh Khalsa translation, whose redistribution licensing is not clearly established. Ang (page) numbers cite the fixed standard pagination of the printed Sri Guru Granth Sahib; a few well-known lines from Guru Nanak’s hymns are cited to Macauliffe’s volume rather than to a specific Ang. Obvious scanning artefacts were corrected against Macauliffe’s printed wording; passages are reproduced in context.

Christian comparison

How this connects to Jesus

Sikhi begins with Ik Onkar, one God: the Creator, without fear or enmity, immortal and unborn, the True One who was, is, and shall be. Christians confess one God as well, eternal and self-existent, who told Moses, I AM WHO I AM (Exodus 3:14). The Gospel says this one God drew near in Jesus, who could say, before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58). One God stands at the head of both faiths; compare how each says he is known.

Explore: Ik Onkar and the one God Why Jesus?Read the Gospel

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