Text Summary #2 “The Hymns of Guru Nanak” (21-22) (21-22) Matthew Chung 150517070 Wilfrid Laurier University RE212: World Religions in Global Perspective Husein Khimjee November 22, 2017
In the “Hymns of Guru Nanak” (21-22), Guru Nanak splits up the hymn in six separate verses. In the first verse, Guru Nanak starts off by talking about how when an individual does good and “hears and believes and loves the Name” (Nanak , 21), they shall be made clean. In the second verse, it talks about how you must perform good deeds or else “none can aspire to adore Thee” (Nanak , 21). In the third verse, Guru Nanak talks about how nobody knows when the world was created except that only the “God Who made the world knows when He made it” (Nanak, 21). In the fourth verse, he begins to ask questions on how to approach and praise the Lord. After, he then speaks about how great the Lord is and what he ordains will come to pass. In the fifth verse, it talks about how there are hundreds of thousands of worlds around us but there is only one true principle behind them all. In the sixth verse, Guru Nanak speaks about how many people have exhausted themselves to reach God but only the Lord himself knows how great He is. One literary device that Guru Nanak uses is hubris. In the fourth verse, it says, “Nanak the man puffed up with his own wisdom; Will get no honour from God in t he life to come.” (Nanak, 21). These lines state that because Nanak the man is filled with his own wisdom instead of the Lord’s, he will get no honour from God in the next life. Hubris is an effective literary device because it relates to the entirety of the hymn. This hymn talks about how everybody falls under the one great God and using hubris as a literary device shows that when people (Nanak in this case) get too consumed in their own wisdom and knowledge, they will fall short from God. Another literary device that Guru Nanak uses is bibliomancy. In the third verse, it says, “The Pundits do not know or they would have written it in the Puranas; the Qazis do not know, or they would have recorded it in the Koran” (Nanak , 21). This states that each group has their own tools
for bibliomancy. This relates to the rest of the hymn because even with different tools for bibliomancy, their questions are answered by the one true God. If this hymn were a solution, a real community problem that it could solve is how people need to be good and kind always. In the second verse, it says “Though without performing good deeds; None can aspire to adore Thee.” (Nanak , 21) These lines show that without good deeds, you cannot worship the Lord. This is important as it ties in with the rest of the h ymn which includes praising one God. These lines also tell people the importance of being good since it leads to aspirations of adoring the Lord. Thou sands of years ago, people had less of a moral compass than they do now and this hymn would have helped provide some sort of guidance in being a better person.
References “The Hymns of Guru Nanak” 21-22, in Selections from the Sacred Writings of the Sikhs, Tercentenary Edition, trans. Trilochan Singh et al, R evised by George S. Fraser, Introduction by S. Radhakrishnan, Foreword by Arnold Toynbee, UNESCO Collection of Representative Works: Indian Series, 40-41 (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2002 [1960])
