Shabads 137–140 | Kabir, Trilochan, Baynee, Ravi Daas
A companion document to the individual verses. Read alongside, not instead.
Who Are the Bhagats?
The Guru Granth Sahib includes compositions by fifteen Bhagats (devotees), alongside the Bani of the Sikh Gurus and other contributors. Their Bani was included in the Adi Granth compiled under Guru Arjan in 1604 — an inclusion many readers understand as significant.
Sikh readers often understand their inclusion as witnessing to the One Lord across diverse devotional backgrounds — voices from different traditions, castes, religions, and centuries, all pointing the same way.
The four Bhagats represented in Siree Raag:
Bhagat
Tradition
Caste/Background
Compositions in Siree Raag
Kabir
Sant tradition, with Sufi resonances
widely remembered as a Julaha (weaver) associated with Banaras
traditionally described as Vaishya; biographical details are uncertain
Shabad 138 (5 stanzas, 1 rahao)
Baynee
Sant tradition
Unknown
Shabad 140 P0–5 (5 stanzas, 1 rahao)
Ravi Daas
Sant tradition
traditionally associated with a Chamar (leather-working) family
Shabad 140 P6–9 (3 stanzas, 1 rahao)
The range of remembered caste and background in this list is striking. A Vaishya devotee, a weaver, a leather-worker of the lowest social caste, and a saint about whom almost nothing is known stand side by side — and all of them are saying the same thing about the Lord.
The Bhagats and the Gurus: One Light, Different Lamps
The GGS does not present the Bhagats as teachers of the Sikhs, or as people who reached the same truth as the Gurus. It presents them as voices in which the same divine light spoke — the same light that spoke through Guru Nanak, speaking through different mouths, different centuries, different traditions.
When translating the Bhagats for your children:
Their voices are different from the Gurus' voices, and the difference is part of the teaching
Kabir is sharper, more paradoxical, more willing to shock
Trilochan is measured, relentless, building slowly to his conclusions
Baynee is sung in the Pehray tune — tracing a life from the womb through old age
Ravi Daas is intimate, non-dual, speaking from radical equality with the Divine
None of them soften the truth. All of them arrive at the same Lord.
Shabad 137: Kabir I — "Ayk Su-Aan" (The One Dog)
Structure
Three numbered stanzas with two rahao refrains (Pauri1 = Pause, Pauri4 = Second Pause) — a structurally unusual composition with two rahao markers rather than one.
The Pause asks: How can people understand You when entranced by Maya? The Second Pause answers: In this association, there is no death.
Central Movement
The shabad moves from an image of Maya (the mother who says "mine" while the Messenger of Death watches) through a direct address to God about the impossibility of finding Him (P1), to Kabir's specific answer — the Bani (P2), grace doing what willpower cannot (P3), and finally the Sangat as the place where death loses its grip (P4).
What Makes Kabir Kabir
Kabir is the most prolific Bhagat in the GGS (541 compositions across all Raags). His voice is distinctive:
He addresses the pandit (religious scholar) directly, often to tell them what scholarship misses
He uses paradox and shock as teaching tools (ulatbaansee, or "reversed speech")
He has no patience for gradual paths when he thinks the house is on fire
He freely crosses traditions — yogic imagery, Sufi concepts, Vaishnav vocabulary — to say what he means
He consistently endorses the Guru's path despite coming from outside the Sikh tradition
In Siree Raag, Kabir appears twice (Shabad 137 and Shabad 139). The first shabad is personal and urgent — the Messenger laughing at the mother, the terrifying ocean, the Bani as the way across. The second shabad is mystical and experiential — the Unstruck Melody, the body as alchemical vessel, the breath as the cup.
Shabad 138: Trilochan — The Dark Path
Structure
Five numbered stanzas, one rahao refrain (Pauri1 = Pause). A complete shabad with a single arc.
The Pause anchors the whole: When the Messenger of Death comes, rare is the one who can say "O my Beloved, save me."
Central Movement
Trilochan opens with the lotus-blossoming man who has forgotten he will die (P0), establishes the rarity of the prepared soul (P1), shows the man sinking in the world-ocean while thinking he is standing on dry land (P2), describes the dark path that awaits (P3), arrives at the Righteous Judge watching everything (P4), and closes with the simplest possible prayer: teach me that You are everywhere (P5).
What Makes Trilochan Trilochan
Trilochan is measured and relentless. Unlike Kabir's rapid-fire paradoxes, Trilochan builds slowly. Each stanza adds one more layer of what a life looks like when Maya has its way. The accumulation is devastating.
Tradition describes him as a Vaishya, though his biographical details are uncertain. In this shabad, Trilochan warns against absorption in worldly attachment and asks to know the Divine as present everywhere. His closing prayer (P5) is particularly striking: after all the elaborate description of death and accountability, what he asks for is the simplest thing: teach me that God is in the forests and fields. Not a system. Just that.
Shabad 139: Kabir II — The Unstruck Melody
Structure
Four numbered stanzas, one rahao refrain (Pauri1 = Pause). Kabir's second shabad in Siree Raag — thematically very different from his first.
The Pause introduces the Anhad Shabad: The Unstruck Melody of the Sovereign Lord's Harp vibrates; by His Glance of Grace, we are attuned to the Naad.
Central Movement
This shabad is a description of mystical experience from the inside. It moves from the Wondrous Lord who cannot be described (P0) to the Unstruck Melody that plays without being struck (P1), to the body as an alchemical workshop receiving the divine essence (P2), to the breath becoming the cup (P3), to Kabir's own state of illuminated intoxication while the world remains in Maya (P4).
The Yogic Vocabulary
The shabad explicitly names anhad and naad, and uses dense alchemical imagery. Interpreters — including the English translation used in these verses — commonly read that imagery through Nath Yogi and Hatha Yoga vocabulary:
Anhad: "un-struck" — sound without a physical cause
Naad: the cosmic sound current, the vibration underlying all sound
Tenth Gate (dasam duaar): the crown center, the top of the body's energy system
Ida and Pingala: the two energy channels (naadis) running up the spine, representing the cooling and heating currents
In Sikh interpretation, this imagery is often read through divine grace rather than as an instruction to practise a yogic technique: the yogic framework becomes a language for grace, not a method for achievement. Commentators frequently read Kabir's borrowed frameworks this way — he takes what is useful and redirects it toward the Lord.
A Note for Translation
This is the most intellectually challenging of the Bhagat shabads in this Raag. The yogic terminology of the received translation should not be collapsed into vague spiritual language. For the "For Your Children" sections, the approach taken is to explain what the imagery means experientially (the body as a workshop, the crown as a distilling fire) without requiring knowledge of the yogic system. The Deeper Layer is where the technical vocabulary is explained.
Shabad 140: Baynee, Ravi Daas, and the Opening of Raag Maajh
Shabad 140 contains three distinct compositions filed together — the two shabads that close Siree Raag and the shabad that in fact opens the next Raag:
Part A (P0–P5): Baynee — The Four Watches of Life
Structure: Five numbered stanzas mapped to four life-stages: Womb (P0), Childhood (P2), Youth (P3), Old Age (P4), with a rahao refrain (P1) and a closing stanza carrying Baynee's signature question (P5).
Baynee's heading directs that it be sung in the Pehriya tune (the same tune-direction as Shabads 129–132). The hymn traces a human life from the womb through old age, and the movement is descent rather than the Pehray's mixed experience.
Baynee's arc:
Watch 1 (Womb): The person in the womb, with attention absorbed in meditation
Refrain: Remember the Lord before it's too late, fool
Watch 2 (Childhood): Sweet things, growing attachment, the five passions taking hold
Watch 3 (Youth): Lust, pride, property — God cast from the heart
Watch 4 (Old Age): Body wilted, strength gone, desire still churning, the Bani never opened
Closing question: Who has ever attained liberation by dying like this?
Almost nothing is known about Baynee historically — not his dates, his caste, his tradition, his full name. Only three compositions by him appear in the GGS. What survives is the shabad itself, which speaks clearly enough.
Part B (P6–P9): Ravi Daas — Gold and Bracelet
Structure: Three numbered stanzas, one rahao refrain (P7 = Pause). A compact shabad often read as non-dual mystical theology.
Ravi Daas (also spelled Ravidas or Raidas) is traditionally associated with a Chamar leather-working family near Varanasi — one of the communities considered "untouchable" in the caste hierarchy. Tradition places him roughly in Kabir's era (late 15th / early 16th century); the exact biographies and dates of both are uncertain. He is one of the most widely venerated Bhagats; the Ravidassia movement considers him a Guru.
The non-dual theology of Ravi Daas:
The gold-bracelet and water-wave images are among the most famous in the entire GGS. They speak of an intimate unity between the speaker and the Divine in concrete, domestic terms — not as abstract metaphysics but as things anyone can see and touch; readers may see a non-dual resonance here.
The rahao of P7 — "If I committed no sins, how would You have acquired the name 'Redeemer of sinners'?" — is a ulatbaansee move: the saint reframes his own fallibility as a structural necessity of the divine-human relationship. This is not an excuse for sin; it is a recognition that mercy and the fallen are constitutively related.
A note on caste: Ravi Daas's Bani follows Baynee's at the end of Siree Raag. Many Sikh readers see the inclusion of Bhagat Bani from varied social backgrounds as a powerful witness against caste-based spiritual hierarchy: a man traditionally remembered as working leather stands alongside a Vaishya devotee (Trilochan), a weaver (Kabir), a saint about whom almost nothing is known (Baynee), and the Sikh Gurus. All of them found the same Lord.
Part C (P10–P13): Mehl 4 — The Opening of Raag Maajh
Structure: Four numbered stanzas, headed "Raag Maajh, Chau-Padas, First House, Fourth Mehl" in the source (Ang 94).
Guru Ram Das opens Raag Maajh with the same imagery he used in the Vaar's Vanajaaraa — the merchant metaphor and the Name. P10 returns to the simplest statement: the Name is pleasing. P11 loads the merchant's pack with the Name as the only provision worth carrying. P12 speaks in the voice of a soul longing to be introduced to the Beloved. P13 closes in the voice of Servant Nanak, gathering the Lord's Name in his lap like treasure.
Siree Raag itself closes with the Bhagat Bani on Angs 91–93. Here, as Maajh begins, the Name is put in the lap. Like wealth. Like a gift.
The Bhagats' Distinctive Contribution to Siree Raag
The Gurus spend much of Siree Raag addressing internal experience — the merchant's journey, the soul-bride's longing, the Gurmukh's liberation, the Manmukh's drowning. The Bhagats add something slightly different: they address the human life in concrete, embodied terms.
Trilochan's lotus-blossoming man is living in a house, with a family, watching his neighbor's property. Baynee's soul is in a womb, then playing with sweets, then boasting about children, then dying with watering eyes and desire still churning. Ravi Daas is working with his hands. Kabir is a weaver who has been cheated by the same Maya that cheats the richest merchant.
The Gurus see all this too — but the Bhagat voices bring diverse remembered social backgrounds into the scripture. Ravi Daas is remembered from the bottom of the social order; Kabir from the artisan class. Readers may find that diversity especially meaningful when reflecting on caste and equal access to the Divine, and on the Lord's presence in every one of these voices.
Shabads 137–140 | Kabir, Trilochan, Baynee, Ravi Daas
A companion document to the individual verses. Read alongside, not instead.
Who Are the Bhagats?
The Guru Granth Sahib includes compositions by fifteen Bhagats (devotees), alongside the Bani of the Sikh Gurus and other contributors. Their Bani was included in the Adi Granth compiled under Guru Arjan in 1604 — an inclusion many readers understand as significant.
Sikh readers often understand their inclusion as witnessing to the One Lord across diverse devotional backgrounds — voices from different traditions, castes, religions, and centuries, all pointing the same way.
The four Bhagats represented in Siree Raag:
The range of remembered caste and background in this list is striking. A Vaishya devotee, a weaver, a leather-worker of the lowest social caste, and a saint about whom almost nothing is known stand side by side — and all of them are saying the same thing about the Lord.
The Bhagats and the Gurus: One Light, Different Lamps
The GGS does not present the Bhagats as teachers of the Sikhs, or as people who reached the same truth as the Gurus. It presents them as voices in which the same divine light spoke — the same light that spoke through Guru Nanak, speaking through different mouths, different centuries, different traditions.
When translating the Bhagats for your children:
None of them soften the truth. All of them arrive at the same Lord.
Shabad 137: Kabir I — "Ayk Su-Aan" (The One Dog)
Structure
Three numbered stanzas with two rahao refrains (Pauri1 = Pause, Pauri4 = Second Pause) — a structurally unusual composition with two rahao markers rather than one.
The Pause asks: How can people understand You when entranced by Maya? The Second Pause answers: In this association, there is no death.
Central Movement
The shabad moves from an image of Maya (the mother who says "mine" while the Messenger of Death watches) through a direct address to God about the impossibility of finding Him (P1), to Kabir's specific answer — the Bani (P2), grace doing what willpower cannot (P3), and finally the Sangat as the place where death loses its grip (P4).
What Makes Kabir Kabir
Kabir is the most prolific Bhagat in the GGS (541 compositions across all Raags). His voice is distinctive:
In Siree Raag, Kabir appears twice (Shabad 137 and Shabad 139). The first shabad is personal and urgent — the Messenger laughing at the mother, the terrifying ocean, the Bani as the way across. The second shabad is mystical and experiential — the Unstruck Melody, the body as alchemical vessel, the breath as the cup.
Shabad 138: Trilochan — The Dark Path
Structure
Five numbered stanzas, one rahao refrain (Pauri1 = Pause). A complete shabad with a single arc.
The Pause anchors the whole: When the Messenger of Death comes, rare is the one who can say "O my Beloved, save me."
Central Movement
Trilochan opens with the lotus-blossoming man who has forgotten he will die (P0), establishes the rarity of the prepared soul (P1), shows the man sinking in the world-ocean while thinking he is standing on dry land (P2), describes the dark path that awaits (P3), arrives at the Righteous Judge watching everything (P4), and closes with the simplest possible prayer: teach me that You are everywhere (P5).
What Makes Trilochan Trilochan
Trilochan is measured and relentless. Unlike Kabir's rapid-fire paradoxes, Trilochan builds slowly. Each stanza adds one more layer of what a life looks like when Maya has its way. The accumulation is devastating.
Tradition describes him as a Vaishya, though his biographical details are uncertain. In this shabad, Trilochan warns against absorption in worldly attachment and asks to know the Divine as present everywhere. His closing prayer (P5) is particularly striking: after all the elaborate description of death and accountability, what he asks for is the simplest thing: teach me that God is in the forests and fields. Not a system. Just that.
Shabad 139: Kabir II — The Unstruck Melody
Structure
Four numbered stanzas, one rahao refrain (Pauri1 = Pause). Kabir's second shabad in Siree Raag — thematically very different from his first.
The Pause introduces the Anhad Shabad: The Unstruck Melody of the Sovereign Lord's Harp vibrates; by His Glance of Grace, we are attuned to the Naad.
Central Movement
This shabad is a description of mystical experience from the inside. It moves from the Wondrous Lord who cannot be described (P0) to the Unstruck Melody that plays without being struck (P1), to the body as an alchemical workshop receiving the divine essence (P2), to the breath becoming the cup (P3), to Kabir's own state of illuminated intoxication while the world remains in Maya (P4).
The Yogic Vocabulary
The shabad explicitly names anhad and naad, and uses dense alchemical imagery. Interpreters — including the English translation used in these verses — commonly read that imagery through Nath Yogi and Hatha Yoga vocabulary:
In Sikh interpretation, this imagery is often read through divine grace rather than as an instruction to practise a yogic technique: the yogic framework becomes a language for grace, not a method for achievement. Commentators frequently read Kabir's borrowed frameworks this way — he takes what is useful and redirects it toward the Lord.
A Note for Translation
This is the most intellectually challenging of the Bhagat shabads in this Raag. The yogic terminology of the received translation should not be collapsed into vague spiritual language. For the "For Your Children" sections, the approach taken is to explain what the imagery means experientially (the body as a workshop, the crown as a distilling fire) without requiring knowledge of the yogic system. The Deeper Layer is where the technical vocabulary is explained.
Shabad 140: Baynee, Ravi Daas, and the Opening of Raag Maajh
Shabad 140 contains three distinct compositions filed together — the two shabads that close Siree Raag and the shabad that in fact opens the next Raag:
Part A (P0–P5): Baynee — The Four Watches of Life
Structure: Five numbered stanzas mapped to four life-stages: Womb (P0), Childhood (P2), Youth (P3), Old Age (P4), with a rahao refrain (P1) and a closing stanza carrying Baynee's signature question (P5).
Baynee's heading directs that it be sung in the Pehriya tune (the same tune-direction as Shabads 129–132). The hymn traces a human life from the womb through old age, and the movement is descent rather than the Pehray's mixed experience.
Baynee's arc:
Almost nothing is known about Baynee historically — not his dates, his caste, his tradition, his full name. Only three compositions by him appear in the GGS. What survives is the shabad itself, which speaks clearly enough.
Part B (P6–P9): Ravi Daas — Gold and Bracelet
Structure: Three numbered stanzas, one rahao refrain (P7 = Pause). A compact shabad often read as non-dual mystical theology.
Ravi Daas (also spelled Ravidas or Raidas) is traditionally associated with a Chamar leather-working family near Varanasi — one of the communities considered "untouchable" in the caste hierarchy. Tradition places him roughly in Kabir's era (late 15th / early 16th century); the exact biographies and dates of both are uncertain. He is one of the most widely venerated Bhagats; the Ravidassia movement considers him a Guru.
The non-dual theology of Ravi Daas:
The gold-bracelet and water-wave images are among the most famous in the entire GGS. They speak of an intimate unity between the speaker and the Divine in concrete, domestic terms — not as abstract metaphysics but as things anyone can see and touch; readers may see a non-dual resonance here.
The rahao of P7 — "If I committed no sins, how would You have acquired the name 'Redeemer of sinners'?" — is a ulatbaansee move: the saint reframes his own fallibility as a structural necessity of the divine-human relationship. This is not an excuse for sin; it is a recognition that mercy and the fallen are constitutively related.
A note on caste: Ravi Daas's Bani follows Baynee's at the end of Siree Raag. Many Sikh readers see the inclusion of Bhagat Bani from varied social backgrounds as a powerful witness against caste-based spiritual hierarchy: a man traditionally remembered as working leather stands alongside a Vaishya devotee (Trilochan), a weaver (Kabir), a saint about whom almost nothing is known (Baynee), and the Sikh Gurus. All of them found the same Lord.
Part C (P10–P13): Mehl 4 — The Opening of Raag Maajh
Structure: Four numbered stanzas, headed "Raag Maajh, Chau-Padas, First House, Fourth Mehl" in the source (Ang 94).
Guru Ram Das opens Raag Maajh with the same imagery he used in the Vaar's Vanajaaraa — the merchant metaphor and the Name. P10 returns to the simplest statement: the Name is pleasing. P11 loads the merchant's pack with the Name as the only provision worth carrying. P12 speaks in the voice of a soul longing to be introduced to the Beloved. P13 closes in the voice of Servant Nanak, gathering the Lord's Name in his lap like treasure.
Siree Raag itself closes with the Bhagat Bani on Angs 91–93. Here, as Maajh begins, the Name is put in the lap. Like wealth. Like a gift.
The Bhagats' Distinctive Contribution to Siree Raag
The Gurus spend much of Siree Raag addressing internal experience — the merchant's journey, the soul-bride's longing, the Gurmukh's liberation, the Manmukh's drowning. The Bhagats add something slightly different: they address the human life in concrete, embodied terms.
Trilochan's lotus-blossoming man is living in a house, with a family, watching his neighbor's property. Baynee's soul is in a womb, then playing with sweets, then boasting about children, then dying with watering eyes and desire still churning. Ravi Daas is working with his hands. Kabir is a weaver who has been cheated by the same Maya that cheats the richest merchant.
The Gurus see all this too — but the Bhagat voices bring diverse remembered social backgrounds into the scripture. Ravi Daas is remembered from the bottom of the social order; Kabir from the artisan class. Readers may find that diversity especially meaningful when reflecting on caste and equal access to the Divine, and on the Lord's presence in every one of these voices.