A garland of every name the world has sung, then set beneath the one True Name that was there before all names.
The Arc
Name after name for the One, many of them from the great Indian stories: Krishna with his flute, the lifter of the mountain, Raam crowned with flowers, the man-lion, the boar, the dwarf, the great fish and the tortoise, the charioteer who stays with the Sangat. Each name is a way of saying wonder. Through all of them the One stays the same. Free of hate. Never born, never ending. Close to every heart. Playing every part, and untouched by any of it. Not even a thousand tongues could finish the praise. Every name we say is a name people made, out of love. The True Name was there before all of them. So the wish at the end is small and glad: keep me among the people who serve the One. At the centre, the opening line: the One who never fades knows every heart.
Key Vocabulary
Kirtam naam / Sat Naam — the made or given names versus the True, primal Name; the hinge of the whole hymn
Aape — the One being all of it: singer and song, herder and herd
Nirankaar — the formless oneness in whose light the world blooms
Nirvair — without enmity; holding no hate for anyone
Anhad sabad — the unstruck inner music of a heart in alignment
Satsangaa — the Sangat: people gathered together to remember the One
Themes and Cross-Connections
The many names people sing across traditions and stories are honored as loving ways of pointing at one reality, and then gently gathered beneath that one reality, Ik Onkar. The 'aape' vision (the One playing every role) connects to the same motif across Maaroo and Gauree. The old names for the slayer of demons point to the undoing of harm, and the Draupadi verse shows the One protecting the vulnerable.
For Raag Maaroo
Maaroo is the raag of the battlefield and of death, yet Guru Arjan turns it here into pure wonder. The only steadiness that holds under the storm is the One whose home never shakes; the only war worth naming is the quiet mastery that lets a heart rest in that shelter.
Translation Notes
Pauri 19 holds the turn: kirtam naam are the names people have made for the One; sat naam paraa poorbalaa is the True Name, older than every one of them.
Pauri 20: daas daasan ko, the servant of the servants, is rendered "a helper to your helpers".
A garland of every name the world has sung, then set beneath the one True Name that was there before all names.
The Arc
Name after name for the One, many of them from the great Indian stories: Krishna with his flute, the lifter of the mountain, Raam crowned with flowers, the man-lion, the boar, the dwarf, the great fish and the tortoise, the charioteer who stays with the Sangat. Each name is a way of saying wonder. Through all of them the One stays the same. Free of hate. Never born, never ending. Close to every heart. Playing every part, and untouched by any of it. Not even a thousand tongues could finish the praise. Every name we say is a name people made, out of love. The True Name was there before all of them. So the wish at the end is small and glad: keep me among the people who serve the One. At the centre, the opening line: the One who never fades knows every heart.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
The many names people sing across traditions and stories are honored as loving ways of pointing at one reality, and then gently gathered beneath that one reality, Ik Onkar. The 'aape' vision (the One playing every role) connects to the same motif across Maaroo and Gauree. The old names for the slayer of demons point to the undoing of harm, and the Draupadi verse shows the One protecting the vulnerable.
For Raag Maaroo
Maaroo is the raag of the battlefield and of death, yet Guru Arjan turns it here into pure wonder. The only steadiness that holds under the storm is the One whose home never shakes; the only war worth naming is the quiet mastery that lets a heart rest in that shelter.
Translation Notes