ਸਲੋਕ ਮਹਲਾ ੯ਸਲੋਕ ਮਹਲਾ ੯

Salok Mahalla Nauvan is a set of 57 couplets by ਗੁਰੂ ਤੇਗ ਬਹਾਦਰ ਜੀ, the ninth Guru, that form the closing passage of the Guru Granth Sahib. They run across just four pages, Ang 1426 to 1429, and come immediately before the Mundavani, the seal of the scripture. Short, direct, and plain-spoken, they are among the most loved and most quoted verses in Sikh life.

What is Salok Mahalla Nauvan?

A salok is a verse of praise, and in Punjabi it has come to mean a couplet with a moral or devotional point. Salok Mahalla Nauvan means the saloks of the ninth Mahalla, the ninth Guru. Each of the 57 saloks is two lines long, written in the metre of the doha, the rhymed couplet. The heading in the scripture reads Salok Mahalla 9, and every salok closes with the line Kahu Nanak, meaning Says Nanak. Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji also left 59 shabads, longer hymns set in 15 raags, but the saloks are the part of his work that most Sikhs know by heart. The 57 saloks include one dohra, a closing couplet that ends the set.

Where does it sit in the Guru Granth Sahib?

The saloks stand at the very end of the Guru Granth Sahib, after the long raag section and just before the Mundavani, ਗੁਰੂ ਅਰਜਨ ਦੇਵ ਜੀ's seal on the scripture. They occupy Ang 1426 to 1429, four pages in a book of 1,430. Their place is not an accident. A reader who has travelled through the whole scripture meets them last, and the teaching they carry reads like a summary of everything that came before: remember God, and do not be fooled by the world. ਗੁਰੂ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀ ਨੇ, the tenth and last human Guru, added the saloks when he gave the scripture its final form.

When were the saloks written?

It is commonly believed that Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji composed the saloks while he was held in the kotwali, the prison, at Chandni Chowk in Delhi, in the days before his martyrdom. Whether they were written in those final days or earlier in his life, their mood fits the crisis of that time. The Guru had come to Delhi to defend the freedom of religion and worship, and he was executed there in 1675. The saloks speak again and again of a life that can end at any moment, and of the one thing that does not pass. That is why they are read as the words of a man who knew his death was near and still wrote about how to live.

What do the saloks teach?

The message of the saloks is the message of the whole scripture: remember God, and do not mistake the world for something lasting. The verses return to the same images. The world is like a bubble on water, there for a moment and gone. It is like a wall of sand, which cannot stand. Youth passes, strength fails, the head shakes, the feet stagger, and the eyes lose their light, yet people go on chasing wealth, praise, and power as if those things would last. The saloks do not ask the reader to give up the world. They ask the reader to give up wrong living: to enjoy what God has given without clinging to it, and to remember that none of it goes with us in the end. Alongside detachment, they describe the person who lives this way: not frightened of anyone and not frightening anyone, untouched by praise or blame, looking on gold and iron alike, and on friend and enemy alike. Such a person, the saloks say, is liberated while still living.

Why are the saloks read at the Bhog?

The saloks form an important part of the epilogue when a complete reading of the Guru Granth Sahib is brought to a close. At the bhog, the ceremony that marks the end of an ਅਖੰਡ ਪਾਠ or a sadharan path, the congregation hears the saloks read aloud before the final ardas. They are the last teaching the sangat carries home, and for that reason they are among the most familiar passages in the scripture after ਜਪੁਜੀ ਸਾਹਿਬ itself. A Sikh who has sat through a bhog has heard them, and many can recite the opening lines from memory.

What does the opening salok say?

The first salok sets the theme for all 57: Gun Gobind gaio nahin, janam akārath kīn. Kahu Nanak har bhaj manā, jih bidh jal kau mīn. In English: If you do not sing the praises of the Lord, your life is wasted. Says Nanak, meditate on the Lord, as the fish loves the water. The fish cannot live outside water, and the salok says the mind cannot live without the remembrance of God. It is the simplest possible statement of the teaching, and the saloks that follow say it again in many different ways: through old age, through wealth and loss, through fear and pride, the answer is the same.