Before there was earth or sky, day or night, temple or mosque, there was only the One, resting in deep stillness.
The Arc
This is Guru Nanak's great 'Arbad Narbad' hymn, a poem of the time before creation. Verse after verse names what did not yet exist: earth and sky, heaven and lower worlds, castes and genders, yogis and pilgrims, cowherds and flutes, priests and temples, Mullahs and kings, Vedas and Korans and Bibles. Out of that boundless stillness, when the One chose, the whole universe sprang forth, held up by no pillar but the One. It closes in 'bismaad', pure wonder.
Key Vocabulary
Arbad narbad: countless, uncountable ages.
Sunn samaadhi: the primal void-trance, the deep stillness before creation.
Hukam: the flow of existence, which alone holds the universe up.
Bismaad: wonder, awe, the breath-taken amazement at the heart of the word Waheguru.
Themes and Cross-Connections
This hymn is the twin of B00C2239, which tells the same cosmology through the image of 'sunn' (the Void) from which everything wells up. Its long litany of 'there was no...' is one of the most famous passages in the Guru Granth Sahib, and its even-handed pairing of Hindu and Muslim forms is a cornerstone of Sikh interfaith vision.
For Raag Maaroo
In a raag that faces death and endings, this hymn offers the widest possible frame: everything we cling to came from stillness and rests on the One. Set against that vastness, dread gives way to wonder.
Translation Notes
The whole hymn is cosmology; it is rendered as wonder for children, not as dogma.
Pauri 2: the words for a place of reward and a place of dread (heaven and hell) appear only as not-yet-existing; no threatening imagery is used, in keeping with Maaroo wellbeing care. Death-terms likewise appear only within the pre-creation litany.
Pauri 3: the origin-point where there is no male or female and no high or low caste is foregrounded as the ground of Guru Nanak's equality teaching.
Pauris 9 and 10 place Hindu forms (priest, temple, sacred verses, pilgrimage) and Islamic forms (Mullah, Qazi, Shaykh, the Mecca pilgrimage) side by side; both are honored, neither mocked. Pauri 12 does the same for all scriptures together. Flagged as landmark interfaith even-handedness.
Puranic and Nath references (Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva, Krishna and the Gopis, Gorakh and Machhindra) are named respectfully. Pauri 11: bodily terms softened to 'no bodies had been formed yet'.
Before there was earth or sky, day or night, temple or mosque, there was only the One, resting in deep stillness.
The Arc
This is Guru Nanak's great 'Arbad Narbad' hymn, a poem of the time before creation. Verse after verse names what did not yet exist: earth and sky, heaven and lower worlds, castes and genders, yogis and pilgrims, cowherds and flutes, priests and temples, Mullahs and kings, Vedas and Korans and Bibles. Out of that boundless stillness, when the One chose, the whole universe sprang forth, held up by no pillar but the One. It closes in 'bismaad', pure wonder.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
This hymn is the twin of B00C2239, which tells the same cosmology through the image of 'sunn' (the Void) from which everything wells up. Its long litany of 'there was no...' is one of the most famous passages in the Guru Granth Sahib, and its even-handed pairing of Hindu and Muslim forms is a cornerstone of Sikh interfaith vision.
For Raag Maaroo
In a raag that faces death and endings, this hymn offers the widest possible frame: everything we cling to came from stillness and rests on the One. Set against that vastness, dread gives way to wonder.
Translation Notes