Photo by Karam Singh – Flickr Creative Commons.

In its earthly form, the Siri Guru Granth Sahib is 1430 pages of sacred teachings and songs. There are a total of 36 contributors to the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. In addition to six of the Sikh Gurus, there are compositions from 30 saints from different religions, places and times.

The Siri Guru Granth Sahib is written in Gurmukhi script, but the Shabads were written in many different languages including Panjabi, Sanskrit and Persian. 

These songs are set to 60 different musical scales, called Raags (Sikher / SikhiWiki). Raags are very particular musical scales. Different Raags are meant to be sung at different times of day or at different seasons.

The Sri Guru Granth Sahib is the living Guru to whom Sikhs bow. It is the exact words spoken by the Gurus, Saints and Bards during their communion with God. When Sikhs recite from the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, they believe they are infused with the Guru’s wisdom and directly experience divine communion with the Infinite.

Sikhs believe that when spoken aloud, the words in the Siri Guru Granth Sahib are a permutation and combination of sound that stimulates the hypothalamus, giving intuition from the mother of knowledge. 

~Resources:  Living Reality (1994) by Bibiji Inderjit Kaur Khalsa and “Siri Guru Granth Sahib,” Sikh Dharma International (https://www.sikhdharma.org/sikh-history/siri-guru-granth-sahib/).