Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
I am devoted. I am dedicated. I am a sacrifice to Your Name.
The rahao is the simplest possible statement: total devotion. Naam kurbaan: I am a sacrifice (kurbaan — a word with Arabic roots meaning an offering, something given to God, a sacrifice in the sense of giving oneself completely) to Your Name. Not I will try to be devoted, not I hope to be dedicated — I am. Present tense. The full weight of the self placed on the Name.
Kurbaan is a striking word choice in a Punjabi devotional text. It comes from the Arabic/Sufi tradition (qurban — sacrifice, offering to God). Guru Nanak's Siree Raag compositions were sung in a culture where Sufi and Hindu devotional traditions intermingled in the Punjab, and his vocabulary draws freely from both. The soul of the Yogi, the pleasure-seeker, the devotee — all offered as sacrifice to the Name.
This rahao governs a 24-pauri composition. The heart statement is: I am yours entirely. The composition will elaborate on what that means — the Creator's vastness, the Guru's necessity, the soul-bride's condition, the Gurmukh's recognition — but the center is this one sentence of complete surrender.
What are you fully devoted to — not in theory, but in how you actually spend your time and attention? And is that what you want to be devoted to?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI