Sri Guru Granth Sahib is not only a Holy Scripture. Its unique distinction lies in its status as Guru—the supreme spiritual authority of the Sikh faith. Sri Guru Granth Sahib is the Living Guru. Yet there is another remarkable dimension that deserves reflection: the Idea behind the compilation of the Holy Granth by Sri Guru Arjan Dev Ji and the bestowing of Gurugaddi upon Sri Guru Granth Sahib by Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji. Why did Sri Guru Arjan Dev Ji bring together in one Granth the Bani of the Sikh Gurus and the Bani of saints drawn from different castes, occupations, social backgrounds and even another faith? Was there a larger Idea visible in these deliberate choices? And what happened to that Idea when, more than a century later, Gurugaddi was bestowed upon this very Granth?
It Begins with Ik Onkar
The search for that Idea begins with the very opening of Sri Guru Granth Sahib: Ik Onkar. Oneness stands at the threshold. Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and the succeeding Gurus proclaimed through their Bani the unity of the Creator and creation and the dignity of the human person. If creation has one Divine source, the age-old hierarchies that divide human beings into intrinsically high and low lose their moral and spiritual authority.
When Sri Guru Arjan Dev Ji compiled the Adi Granth in 1604, this Idea acquired an extraordinary form. He did not confine the Holy Granth to the Bani of the Gurus. He deliberately incorporated the Bani of other saints. Equally revealing was the choice of those saints. They did not come from one caste, one occupation, one region or one social station. Nor were they drawn only from communities then regarded as high, or only from those placed low in the caste order. The selection reached across the social spectrum and, through Baba Farid Ji, across a religious boundary as well.
This social and spiritual breadth was not incidental. It made the Holy Granth representative of a new order: Oneness sans the barriers and inequalities that had separated human beings for generations.
A Sacred Whole of Extraordinary Breadth
The composition of Sri Guru Granth Sahib itself helps us see the Idea. In its standard form it extends to 1,430 Angs, contains 5,894 hymns and is organised principally in 31 Raags. It contains the Bani of six Gurus—Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji, Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, Sri Guru Ram Das Ji, Sri Guru Arjan Dev Ji and Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji—along with the compositions of fifteen Bhagats and eleven Bhatts.
The fifteen Bhagats are Bhagat Jai Dev Ji, Bhagat Namdev Ji, Bhagat Trilochan Ji, Bhagat Parmanand Ji, Bhagat Sadhna Ji, Bhagat Ramanand Ji, Bhagat Beni Ji, Bhagat Dhanna Ji, Bhagat Pipa Ji, Bhagat Sain Ji, Bhagat Kabir Ji, Bhagat Ravidas Ji, Baba Farid Ji, Bhagat Surdas Ji and Bhagat Bhikhan Ji. Their names are themselves a window into the breadth of the compilation. They belonged to different regions, occupations and social locations; some came from backgrounds treated as privileged in the prevailing order, while others came from communities subjected to social exclusion.
By incorporating the Bani of saints belonging to the varied social milieu of those times, Sri Guru Arjan Dev Ji gave the Holy Granth a character that embraced the breadth of society. This was not an assembly of identical voices. It was diversity brought into a sacred unity.
The Old Hierarchy Rejected
The significance of this choice becomes clearer against the social order of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Caste could govern occupation, marriage, social relations, access and notions of purity and pollution. Human beings were assigned inherited positions in a hierarchy into which they were born.
Sri Guru Granth Sahib presents a different order. The age-old hierarchy is rejected. Caste, occupation, social status or religious origin is denied the authority to determine the spiritual worth of a human being. Those whom society separated are present within the same sacred whole. The point is not that one end of the hierarchy replaces the other; the hierarchy itself loses legitimacy.
That is why the social mix matters so greatly. Had the Holy Granth contained saints only from socially privileged groups, the old order could have remained undisturbed. Had it contained saints only from socially disadvantaged groups, it might have been read principally as the assertion of one social section. Instead, the selection spans the social order. The result is transformational: a new order of Oneness in which diversity survives but inherited inequality does not command spiritual sanction.
Bhagat Ravidas Ji, Bhagat Kabir Ji and Baba Farid Ji
Bhagat Ravidas Ji makes this transformation especially vivid. He identified himself with the chamar community, placed near the bottom of the traditional caste order. His identity was neither concealed nor made a condition to be shed. Forty-one of his compositions found place in Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Society could attach a rank to his birth; the Holy Granth rejected that rank as a measure of the spiritual worth of his Bani.
Bhagat Kabir Ji, traditionally associated with the weaving community, has the largest representation among the Bhagats in Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Baba Farid Ji brings into the same sacred whole the voice of the Sufi tradition. Alongside them are Bhagats from social backgrounds regarded differently in the hierarchy of their age.
The power of the composition lies precisely here. Bhagat Ravidas Ji remained Bhagat Ravidas Ji; Baba Farid Ji remained Baba Farid Ji. Distinct identities were not erased. What was rejected was the inequality imposed upon those identities.
From the Holy Granth to the Living Guru
The story reaches its spiritual and institutional culmination more than a century after the Parkash Purb of the Adi Granth at Sri Harmandir Sahib in 1604. With the Bani of Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji incorporated in the final form, Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji bestowed Gurugaddi upon Sri Guru Granth Sahib in 1708, bringing the line of human Gurus to an end.
Sikh tradition remembers that moment in the familiar words: “Aagya bhai Akal ki, tabhi chalayo Panth; Sab Sikhan ko hukum hai, Guru manyo Granth.”
Consider the significance of that moment. The Holy Granth which had brought within one sacred whole the Bani of the Sikh Gurus and of Bhagats from across the social and religious milieu of their age—the Granth which rejected inherited hierarchy and embodied Oneness—was now bestowed Gurugaddi. For people following Guru Parampara, Sri Guru Granth Sahib became the Living Guru.
Gurugaddi was bestowed upon the Granth as a whole. The diverse Banis within it were not peripheral additions; they formed part of the sacred whole before which Sikhs would thereafter bow. The Idea announced in Ik Onkar, proclaimed through Bani and given form through the composition of the Holy Granth had reached its highest institutional expression.
When the Idea Entered Life
The same spirit can be seen in Sikh collective life. Sangat gathers people in shared devotion. Pangat and Langar bring them together to sit and partake of the same food. In the Gurdwara, all bow before the same Guru. The Khalsa gave a common identity, discipline and responsibility that challenged inherited distinctions of social status.
These institutions arose at different stages of history and should not be collapsed into a single historical event. Yet their moral affinity is unmistakable. Again and again, spiritual belief moves into social practice. Human beings may come with different names, occupations, castes and backgrounds; before the Guru, inherited rank carries no claim to greater human worth.
Oneness Without Sameness
The Guruship of Sri Guru Granth Sahib belongs to the people following Guru Parampara traditions. The Idea embodied in the Holy Granth, however, speaks to a universal human question: can humanity become one without first becoming alike?
Our world remains diverse by religion, race, language, nationality, culture and social origin. That diversity need not be feared or erased. Unity does not require uniformity. A society can recognise communities without ranking human worth. A nation can cherish different languages and faiths without creating superior and inferior citizens. Civilisations can remain distinct without imagining superior and inferior peoples.
This is where the Idea acquires enduring relevance. Sri Guru Granth Sahib offers not sameness, but Oneness; not the mere accommodation of inherited inequalities, but their rejection. It invites us to imagine a social order in which diversity enriches humanity without becoming a licence for hierarchy.
The Transformative Idea
By deliberately bringing into the Holy Granth the Bani of saints drawn from the varied social and religious milieu of the time, Sri Guru Arjan Dev Ji gave Sri Guru Granth Sahib a character that was, in a profound sense, of all, by all and for all. Sri Guru Granth Sahib is the Living Guru; in the universality of its spiritual embrace, it is also a Holy Scripture of humanity. Here lies a sublime expression of Unity in Diversity: the Unity is the Idea of Oneness; the diversity lies in its exponents—Gurus and Bhagats drawn from different castes, occupations, social backgrounds and faith traditions. Their identities remain distinct, while the age-old barriers and inequalities between human beings stand rejected. More than four centuries later, this is not merely an Idea inherited from the past; it is an Idea for the Present and future of humanity.
