ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ।

Waheguru is the name Sikhs use most often for God: the one, formless and ever present Lord whom Guru Granth Sahib Ji describes, praised with a cry of wonder. The word is also the Sikh gurmantra, the sacred formula given at initiation and repeated in meditation, and it rings through the greeting every Sikh knows: Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.

What does Waheguru mean?

Waheguru means the Wondrous Lord. The word joins two parts: vah, an exclamation of wonder and admiration, like the English word wow, and guru, the teacher or spiritual guide. Taken together they carry the sense of a great instructor who takes away darkness and enlightens the pupil. God has many names in Sikh teaching, among them Satnam, the True Name, and Akal Purakh, the Eternal One, but Waheguru is the most common term for God in modern Sikhism. Sikhs describe this God as formless and omnipresent, the ultimate goodness into which the purified soul merges. The opening words of scripture, ਇੱਕ ਓਅੰਕਾਰ, and the ਮੂਲ ਮੰਤਰ page on Jugti, set out that same one reality phrase by phrase.

Where does the word Waheguru appear in scripture?

The striking fact is that Waheguru does not appear in the compositions of the Gurus themselves. In Guru Granth Sahib Ji it occurs in the hymns of Bhatt Gayand, a bard contemporary with Guru Arjan Dev Ji, who used it in praise of Guru Ram Das Ji, and it appears as well in the Varan of Bhai Gurdas Ji. SikhiWiki, following the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, counts the word thirteen times in the spelling Vaheguru and three times as Vahguru in the scripture. Modern scholars hold that the name is owed originally to the Gurus, most likely to Guru Nanak Dev Ji himself, whose hymns are filled with the mood the word carries: wonder at the cosmic order, sounded again and again in Japji Sahib and in Asa ki Var, where the opening verse is woven around vismad, wonder itself.

What is the Bhai Gurdas Ji explanation of Waheguru?

Bhai Gurdas Ji, in his Varan (I.49), reads Waheguru as an acrostic built from the first letters of divine names honoured in the four ages of the world: Va for Vasudev of the first age, Ha for Hari of the second, Ga for Gobind of the third, and Ra for Ram of the fourth, so that remembering the one name gathers up the devotion of every age. Later teachers gave a plainer reading of the second half of the word: Bhai Mani Singh Ji, and Bhai Santokh Singh Ji in Sri Gur Nanak Prakash, explain gu as spiritual darkness and ru as the illumination that removes it, so the whole name speaks of wonder at the Divine Light that ends darkness. ਭਾਈ ਗੁਰਦਾਸ ਜੀ। also calls Waheguru the japu mantra, the guru sabadu and the sachu mantra, the true formula to be repeated.

How do Sikhs use Waheguru in daily meditation?

Waheguru is the gurmantra: the invocatory formula received from the Guru, repeated silently or aloud, with or without a rosary, in meditation on the Supreme Reality. The ਸਿੱਖ ਰਹਿਤ ਮਰਯਾਦਾ asks a Sikh to wake in the ambrosial hours before dawn, bathe, and, concentrating on the One Immortal Being, repeat the name Waheguru, which its English rendering gives as Wondrous Destroyer of darkness. This repetition is ਨਾਮ ਜਪਣਾ, one of the three founding principles of the Sikh way of life, and its quiet, focused form is simran. At the ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤ ਸੰਚਾਰ initiation, the leader of the Panj Pyare formally imparts the gurmantra to the new initiate, and in congregations the name is often chanted aloud together as Satnam Waheguru.

Why do Sikhs greet each other with Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh?

Since Guru Gobind Singh Ji raised the ਖਾਲਸਾ ਪੰਥ in 1699, Waheguru has stood inside the Sikh salutation: Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh, the Khalsa belongs to Waheguru, and victory belongs to Waheguru. Guru Gobind Singh Ji used the name in the invocatory formula at the head of some of his compositions, Ik Onkar Sri Vahiguru ji ki Fateh, and a hukamnama of his dated 3 February 1708, pictured on this page, addresses the congregation of Varanasi not as his own but as Vaheguru ji ka Khalsa. The Rehat Maryada keeps the greeting gentle: on entering a gurdwara, after bowing before Guru Granth Sahib Ji, a Sikh bids the congregation the Fateh in a low, quiet voice. The cry ਬੋਲੇ ਸੋ ਨਿਹਾਲ, answered by Sat Sri Akal, carries the same name into the open air of Sikh gatherings.

Is Waheguru the only Sikh name for God?

No, and the variety is itself a teaching. Scripture remembers the same one God as Karata Purakh, the Creator, as Ram and Rahim, as Gopal, Rab, Parbraham and Satnam. No single name limits the One, and Sikh teaching does not claim the Divine for one community alone. The name travelled into public life too: from 1828 onwards, a golden mohur coin of the Sikh Empire, struck at the Lahore mint and nicknamed a butki, carried Waheguru inscribed three times over in Gurmukhi. Above all, Sikhs meet the name through the Guru's word itself, the subject of Jugti's page on Gurbani.