The One lifts the overlooked, feeds the hungry, and holds ant and elephant, beggar and king, exactly the same.
The Arc
Verse 1 (P0): the One honors the dishonored, feeds the hungry, and watches over life from its very start.
The Rahau (P1): hold such a One — your help everywhere, in good times and bad.
Verse 2 (P2): beggar and king are equal to the One, who sustains ant and elephant alike.
Verse 3 (P3): no one knows the One's limit; formed and formless, the support of every heart.
Verse 4 (P4): loving the Name fills the heart full; I bow at the feet of those who live it.
Key Vocabulary
nimaanay ka-o ... maan — honor for the dishonored.
rank raa-o ayk samaan — beggar and king, all the same.
keet / hasat — ant and elephant, both fully sustained.
aap akaar aap nirankaar — the One both formed and formless.
aghaa-ay — filled full, the end of restless hunger.
Themes and Cross-Connections
This is one of Gond's strong equality shabads: the One's care is measured out impartially across every station and every size of creature. That impartiality is not coldness but the deepest fairness — the same Oneness that dissolves human hierarchy also dissolves the gap between the mighty and the tiny.
For Raag Gond
The raag's warm calling suits a shabad whose whole burden is that no one is too small to be honored; Gond's tenderness carries the lifting of the overlooked.
Translation Notes
Womb-imagery softened (P0): the literal 'protects those in the terrible womb' is rendered as the One 'watching over each life from its very beginning,' keeping the tender kernel — that we are guarded before we could ask — without any frightening picture.
Equality foregrounded (P2): beggar-and-king and ant-and-elephant are read as the shabad's central leveling.
The One lifts the overlooked, feeds the hungry, and holds ant and elephant, beggar and king, exactly the same.
The Arc
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
This is one of Gond's strong equality shabads: the One's care is measured out impartially across every station and every size of creature. That impartiality is not coldness but the deepest fairness — the same Oneness that dissolves human hierarchy also dissolves the gap between the mighty and the tiny.
For Raag Gond
The raag's warm calling suits a shabad whose whole burden is that no one is too small to be honored; Gond's tenderness carries the lifting of the overlooked.
Translation Notes
Last updated: 2026-07-09