Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Great is the Greatness of the Lord — and great is the Kirtan of His Praises.
Great is the Lord's Justice — completely righteous, without exception.
Great is His generosity — people receive the fruits the soul actually needs.
Great is His refusal to hear the back-biters — those who slander others find no audience in the Lord.
Great is His gift-giving — He gives even without being asked.
The fivefold greatness
The Pauree constructs its praise by repeating vaḏā (great) five times, each time adding a different aspect of the Lord's greatness:
1. Greatness and Kirtan — the Lord's greatness is inherently connected to praise. The two cannot be separated.
2. Righteous Justice — nyā'u sach — the justice is completely righteous. Not human justice, which is imperfect. The Lord's justice is an absolute.
3. Fruits of the soul — the Lord's giving reaches to what the soul actually needs, not just what is requested.
4. Not hearing back-biters — nindā na sune — the Lord has a specific unresponsiveness to slander. Those who slander have no audience with Him.
5. Gifts without being asked — māngai vinu de'e — this is the theological claim about prevenient grace: the Lord gives before being asked. The gift precedes the request. This is grace at its most fundamental: not a response to prayer but an initiative from the divine.
Connecting to the Shaloks that precede
The preceding Shaloks criticized empty reading and duality-oriented writing. The Pauree responds by pivoting to the Lord's nature — here is what is actually great, as opposed to the false greatness of scholarship and status that the Shaloks dismissed.
*Has anyone ever given you something you needed before you asked? What was that like?*
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI