Sacred Text · The Guru Granth Sahib

By hearing the Name

Japji Sahib · Guru Nanak

“By hearing the Name truth, contentment, and divine knowledge are obtained. Hearing the Name is equal to bathing at the sixty-eight places of pilgrimage. By hearing the Name and reading it man obtaineth honour. By hearing the Name death doth not affect one. Nanak, the saints are ever happy; by hearing the Name sorrow and sin are no more.”
Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 3 (Japji, the Suniai pauri) · 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

The Japji sings of the Naam, the Name of God: to hear it is to receive truth, contentment, and the end of sorrow and sin. Christianity treasures the Name and the Word too. The Gospel of John calls Jesus the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1), and Scripture says there is salvation in no other name under heaven (Acts 4:12). Where the Japji bids us hear the Name, the Gospel says the Word took on a face in Jesus.

Explore: Naam and the WordWhy Jesus?Read the Gospel

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