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ਪੜ੍ਹਾਈ Readings

ਕਬਿੱਤ ਸਵਈਏ ਭਾਈ ਗੁਰਦਾਸ · The Key to Gurbani, in Braj

The Kabitt Savaiye of Bhai Gurdas

Bhai Gurdas Ji · composed early 1600s  ·  16 chapters · 456 min

Alongside his forty Punjabi Varan, Bhai Gurdas wrote a second great treasure — 675 short poems in Braj, the kabitts and savaiyes. Where the Varan teach and retell, these poems sing. Each one takes a single picture — a bee at a flower, iron turning to gold at a magic stone, a drop lost in the sea, a bride waiting for the one she loves — and turns it over and over until it shines. Through them you feel the whole heart of the path: the wonder of seeing the Guru, the sweetness of the Name, the way good company slowly makes a person new, and a humble, aching longing to come close to God. Some poems are pure joy; others are a whispered, honest prayer — 'no one is fallen like me, and no one is kind like You.' They are little jewels of light. Read a few at a time, slowly, and let each one glow.

The Gurmukhi shown is the poem exactly as published; the roman line beneath it is generated by the site's transliterator, and the English below is our own loving translation. One thing to hold as you read: these poems are in Braj, not Punjabi, and they love repetition — a single word or image (light, nectar, the wonder of the vision) is turned and returned, again and again, the way a jeweller turns a gem to the light. The opening chhands restate each thought three times, in three metres; the English folds those into one flowing sense. The short numbers within the Gurmukhi are the poems' own traditional count.

Author

Bhai Gurdas Ji · c. 1551–1636

Bhai Gurdas Ji was a poet, scholar and devoted Sikh who lived in the time of the third through sixth Gurus. When Guru Arjan Dev Ji gathered the sacred hymns into the first volume of the Adi Granth, it was Bhai Gurdas who wrote them down, verse by verse, as the Guru spoke. His own poetry is not in that scripture — and tradition remembers this as his own wish: in his humility he would not set his words beside the revealed Word of the Gurus. Guru Arjan honoured that humility by calling his poetry 'the key to the Guru's Word' — and to this day his writings, with Bhai Nand Lal's, are the only words by anyone who was not himself a Guru that a Sikh sangat may sing alongside the Gurus' own sacred word (which includes both the Guru Granth Sahib and the tenth Guru's Dasam Granth). These Kabitt Savaiye are his poems in Braj, the literary language of much north-Indian devotion, sung and studied in sangats still. Tradition holds that he wished to be remembered not by any monument but only through the Guru's words; when he passed at Goindwal in 1636, Guru Hargobind Sahib performed his last rites himself, in the simplicity he had loved.

Source

Internet Archive · Sikh Digital Library (BaniDB text export)

Kabitt Savaiye Bhai Gurdas Ji (traditional text), composed early 1600s. Public Domain Mark 1.0. View the original ›

  1. 1 The Invocation The eight opening chhands — praise of the Primal Being who pervades every heart, and of the one Light passing through the six Gurus, from Nanak to Hargobind. 6 min read ›
  2. 2 The Fruit of Bliss Forty-five poems on the Gurmukh's inner experience — the sight of the Guru that undoes ordinary awareness, the unstruck music behind the tenth gate, the nectar-stream of the Name, and the wisdom that turns the base to gold and sees one Light in a world of many forms. 31 min read ›
  3. 3 Refuge at the Feet Forty-five poems on the transforming refuge of the Guru — how the touchstone of his company turns iron to gold and the foul to fragrant, how consciousness held in the Word opens the inner Light, how a single turning at the last hour decides all, and how the Lord of a million universes lies beyond all knowing yet dwells in every heart. 30 min read ›
  4. 4 The Holy Company Forty-five poems on the bond that outshines every worldly tie — the love of Guru and Sikh, and the holy company that turns the worldly into the Formless One's. Here too the even-minded soul for whom gold and clay are one, the world seen as a fleeting dream, and the saint whose single sweet word or merciful glance is worth more than a million treasures. 29 min read ›
  5. 5 The Colour of Company Forty-five poems (opening in the Jhoolna metre) on the power of company: how the mind, like water, takes whatever colour it meets — holy in the sadh-sangat, base in ill company. Here a little starter turns milk to curd and a little poison to ruin; the trained falcon and the taught parrot show a life well-bound outshines mere freedom; and the Guru-Sikh union surpasses every one-sided love and worldly tie. 30 min read ›
  6. 6 The Yearning Bride Forty-five poems in the voice of longing — the soul as the bride who pines for her Beloved, tearing paper to write letters into the dark, adorned only by his grace. Around this tender heart: the priceless gift of the discerning Word that lifts a human life above mere instinct, and the restless, wandering mind at last made steady at the one refuge of the Guru's feet. 30 min read ›
  7. 7 The One in Every Heart Forty-five poems on the boundless One held in the smallest thing — a million universes in a single pore, a whole world of wonder in one sesame-seed or one ant. Here the wandering mind that runs everywhere but the Name, the honey of a kind word against the poison of a harsh one, and the touchstone-Guru who turns iron to gold and the crow to a swan. 29 min read ›
  8. 8 Low as Water Forty-five poems on the grace of bowing low — humility that flows downward like water, seeking the depths, and so is drunk and its feet worshipped, while pride, like fire, rises and scorches. Set against the moth's and the fish's one-sided loves that end in death, the Guru-Sikh bond helps here and hereafter; the blind find their eyes in the Word, the mute their tongue, the lame their feet. 30 min read ›
  9. 9 Tended Like a Child Forty-five poems on the Guru's tending love — who keeps the Sikh as a mother keeps her child in the womb, bears its mess, feeds it medicine hidden in sweetness, and chides only for its good. Here too the saint who returns good for ill, giving fruit to the hand that stones him; the lamp whose worth is known only when it is gone; and the truth that all are called Guru's Sikhs, but rare are those who catch fire and stand unshaken. 30 min read ›
  10. 10 The Refuge of the Helpless Forty-five poems on the Guru who is the refuge of the helpless — the support of the supportless, the master of the masterless, merciful to the meek — and who tends every Sikh as a mother her babe in arms. Here the dignity of the householder's path, foremost among all dharmas; the great sinners redeemed whatever their birth; the devotee whom no stroke of fate can harm; and the longing cry, 'When will the dust of His feet touch my brow?' 30 min read ›
  11. 11 The One Support Forty-five poems on single-minded devotion — the faithfulness that fixes on the one Guru alone, as the calf will drink from no other cow, the swan will leave no Mansarovar, and the faithful wife serves one husband. Around it, the Lord who honours the least offering — Draupadi's strip of cloth, Sudama's handful of rice, the grieving elephant's lotus — and the futility of every worldly attainment without the Name. 31 min read ›
  12. 12 Your Own Nature Forty-five poems on the one refuge — how the many gods keep their fixed nature, giving only to the measure of a wish, while the Guru rains freely like a cloud of nectar; how the Unborn, Timeless One cannot be confined to any birth-story; and how base-mindedness is night to the Guru's wisdom's day. It closes on a trembling, hopeful prayer that leans not on one's own deeds but on the Lord's own compassionate nature. 31 min read ›
  13. 13 None Like You Forty-five poems of humble confession and refuge — the poet naming himself the fallen sinner, the crow among swans who lived near the Guru yet knew him not, and crying the beloved prayer: none is a Master like You, none helpless like me; none the redeemer like You, none fallen like me. Around it, the greatness of Gurbani that holds every treasure one seeks, and the ethical heart of the path: see another's wife as mother and sister, another's wealth as the flesh of the cow. 30 min read ›
  14. 14 Seeking, the Seeker Finds Forty-five poems on the seeking heart — the moth, the fish and the deer as the three vows of a love without deceit, the Sikhs gathered in the dharamsala tasting the Word, and the seeker who, like the bee from lotus to lotus, searches until some blessed moment folds him into the Word. At its centre burns the bride's separation — beating the same forehead the Beloved once adorned — and around it, the fool who hoards Maya and leaves empty-handed. 31 min read ›
  15. 15 The Thirst That Grows Forty-five poems on the love that is never sated — the miser eyes and beggar ears that drink the Beloved's form and word and only thirst the more, and the prayer to be shown what the eye still longs to see. Around it: telling the true saint from the sham as the assayer tells gold from brass, Ravidas and Kabir raised from low birth to the state above all, and the closing confession of the heart the teaching enters but cannot pierce. 31 min read ›
  16. 16 The Testing of the Soul The closing thirty-seven poems — the soul-bride at the priceless hour of union, warned that the withering flower and the passing night will not return, and repenting when she sleeps through her turn. Here too the wonder of the Ungraspable brought under love's sway, the great merit of serving a single Guru's Sikh, and the final summation: as the singer knows raga and the jeweller knows gems, so the testing of the soul only a rare discerning one can tell. 26 min read ›
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