The ultimate reality, God or Brahman, may well be said to outstrip the reach of thought; but if we do not try, as thoughtfully as we possibly can, to get at what Guru Nanak really says in this seminal work Japuji - a daily prayer book - how will we be able to benefit from his teaching, as he surely wanted fervently? In the entire history of mankind very few men have been so acutely sensitive to our multifarious suffering, and so keen to show us the way to transcend it for good, as Guru Nanak was. This makes the authors approach this holy work in a new perspective.
This volume tries to interpret Mul Mantra in such a way that the celestial attributes listed in it come to be interrelated, as they must be taken to be. It also attempts wherever possible to explain the order of Guru's prolific utterances, be they invocatory or just eulogistic. However ebullient the Guru's utterances may seem to be, they are always significant vehicles of some profound meaning; and also warranted by the running context.
Guru Nanak's Japuji is a great work, yet this volume is expected to do some good to every thoughtful reader. At the end, the entire text of Japuji in Punjabi, Devnagari with Roman transliteration is given, making the text accessible to the masses who live outside India and need this prayer to be read in English. |
