ਜਾਪੁ ਸਾਹਿਬਜਾਪੁ ਸਾਹਿਬ

Jaap Sahib is the great hymn of praise composed by Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth Sikh Guru, and it stands first in the Dasam Granth, the scripture of his compositions. In 199 verses it greets God by hundreds of names, yet insists from the first verse to the last that God has no form, no caste, no birth and no single name. Read each morning as the second prayer of Nitnem, it is the Tenth Guru's companion to Guru Nanak Dev Ji's Japji Sahib: where Japji meditates, Jaap salutes.

What is Jaap Sahib?

Jaap Sahib is a composition of 199 verses by ਗੁਰੂ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀ ਨੇ, placed at the very start of the Dasam Granth on its first ten pages and followed by Akaal Ustat. Its title comes from the word jaap, meaning recitation or meditative repetition, and the text is headed Sri Mukhwak Patshahi Dasvi, meaning from the holy mouth of the Tenth King, the traditional signature of the Guru's own utterance. It opens with Ik Onkar Satgur Prasad and the salutation Sri Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh before the verses begin.

How is Jaap Sahib structured?

The 199 verses are arranged in 22 stanzas that cycle through ten chhands, the classical poetic metres of the period. The long Bhujang Prayat metre, whose rolling rhythm is often compared to a serpent's glide, carries the largest share, while the Chachari verses strike in short, sharp beats of a few words at a time. Between them come Chhapay, Charpat, Ruaal, Madhubhar, Bhagwati, Rasawal, Haribolmana and the Ek Achhari, so the pace keeps changing under the reader, from slow procession to drumbeat.

That movement is part of the meaning. Recited aloud, the prayer is often described as a roll of honour being read out, name after name at a marching pace, and tradition links its cadence to the discipline of the Khalsa the Guru was preparing. Few Sikh compositions work so much through sound: the argument is carried not only by what the words say but by the rhythm in which they arrive.

What does Jaap Sahib teach about God?

Almost every verse is a salutation: namastan, I bow to you. God is greeted as Akaal, beyond death, as Kirpaal, merciful, as Aroop, formless, and as Ajae, unborn. God is the creator, sustainer and destroyer of all, present in every land and every language, the giver of food and the breaker of pride, and, in keeping with the Guru's martial world, the wielder of weapons who defends the good. The names are drawn from across the vocabulary of the divine known to the Guru's court: Sanskrit and Braj words stand beside Persian and Arabic names such as Rahim and Karim, and scholars count some 950 epithets in all.

The point of the catalogue is its opposite. After hundreds of names, the text still insists that no name contains God, who is Anam, without name, beyond caste, garb, lineage and description. A God greeted in the words of every tradition belongs to none of them exclusively, and that is the prayer's quiet argument for a devotion wider than any one community's claim.

Where and when was Jaap Sahib composed?

Jaap Sahib belongs to the Guru's years as a young poet and scholar in the Shivalik hills. The Chaupa Singh Rehitnama, an early Sikh code of conduct, dates its completion to 1677, while Sikh tradition commonly places its composition at Paonta Sahib on the Yamuna, where Guru Gobind Singh Ji spent four years from 1685 and gathered poets at his court. The two traditions are hard to reconcile neatly, and honest accounts keep both in view. What the text itself shows clearly is its setting: a court fluent in Braj, Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic, and a Guru shaping a community that would need courage as much as devotion.

What is the difference between Japji Sahib and Jaap Sahib?

The two prayers are a pair, and Jaap Sahib is often called the Tenth Guru's Japji. ਜਪੁਜੀ ਸਾਹਿਬ, by Guru Nanak Dev Ji, opens the Guru Granth Sahib Ji with the Mool Mantar and 38 pauris of meditation on listening, humility and the journey of the soul. Jaap Sahib opens the Dasam Granth with 199 verses of salutation. Japji is written largely in Punjabi, while Jaap moves through Braj, Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic, and at 199 verses it is the longer of the two. In the morning Nitnem they stand side by side, first and second, the founder's meditation followed by the Tenth Guru's salute.

How is Jaap Sahib recited today?

Jaap Sahib is the second of the five morning banis of Nitnem, read after Japji Sahib in the Amrit Vela, the hours before dawn. It also has a ceremonial role: at ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤ ਸੰਚਾਰ, the initiation into the Khalsa, the Panj Pyare recite it with the other Amrit banis while the Amrit is being prepared. It is printed near the front of every gutka, and its verses are among the most memorised in the Panth, quoted in gurdwaras and sung in kirtan. For many Sikhs its rolling list of names is simply the sound of morning.