As the Sikh world cel­e­brates the Parkash Purab -Birth An­niver­sary of the Fourth Mas­ter -Guru Ram Das, World Sikh News brings for its read­ers one of the most sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions of the re­vealed word –La­van -the four Shabads which form the core of the Sikh wed­ding in a Gur­d­wara Sahib. Sikh scholar Dr Jaswant Singh and ed­u­ca­tion­ist Dr Ish­meet Kaur are en­gaged with the Guru Granth Sahib Pro­ject un­der the aegis of the Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute.  Here, they ex­plore the back­ground of the con­text in which La­van be­came a norm for Sikh wed­dings from the time of the Gu­rus and also how it pro­gressed to the nomen­cla­ture Anand Karaj.

The live­li­ness and cel­e­bra­tory spirit around these wed­dings are com­pleted only by per­form­ing a cer­e­mony in which the wed­ding cou­ple is re­quired to cir­cum­am­bu­late around the Guru Granth Sahib along with a si­mul­ta­ne­ous recita­tion of a com­po­si­tion from the Guru Granth Sahib, iden­ti­fied as La­van. In the Sikh per­spec­tive, a Sikh wed­ding is not just a meet­ing of two bod­ies but a com­ing to­gether of two hearts that unite in the spir­i­tual jour­ney to ul­ti­mately be one with the all-per­vad­ing and eter­nal Force (IkOankar).

Sikh wed­dings around the world are fa­mous for their cel­e­bra­tory, cul­tural rhythm of songs and dances, daz­zling clothes and feast­ing. At the heart of this out­ward cel­e­bra­tion is an in­nate con­nec­tion with the Spir­i­tual that sol­em­nizes the Sikh wed­dings.

La­van: An In­tro­duc­tion

The La­van com­po­si­tion com­pris­ing four stan­zas of a chant was re­vealed by Guru Ram­das, the fourth Guru of the Sikhs. These stan­zas are recorded on pages 773-774 in the Guru Granth Sahib. Chants are a form of writ­ing with spe­cific po­etic di­men­sions in which feel­ings of sep­a­ra­tion, yearn­ing, long­ing and spir­i­tual union are de­scribed. They are recorded un­der Rag Suhi, a mu­si­cal mode of de­vo­tion and love. They have pop­u­larly come to be known as La­van, pri­mar­ily be­cause the word lav gets re­peated in all of them, though they are not ti­tled as La­van per se in the Guru Granth Sahib. 

Mak­ing of The Sikh Wed­ding Tra­di­tion of La­van Phere
When did Guru Ram­das re­veal La­van? How did the singing of La­van even­tu­ally be­come a tra­di­tion amongst the Sikhs? How were wed­dings per­formed be­fore this tra­di­tion was ini­ti­ated? These are some in­ter­est­ing ques­tions that give us a peep into Sikh his­tory. 

How did Guru Ram­das re­veal La­van? Sant Kir­pal Singh¹ nar­rates a leg­end that a Brah­min priest re­fused to per­form the mar­riage cer­e­mony of a poor Sikh as he was un­able to af­ford the ex­penses re­quired for the wed­ding rit­u­als. The Sikh ap­proached Guru Ram­das and shared his anx­i­ety. In re­turn, the Guru in­vited the bride and groom’s fam­ily on the day de­cided for the wed­ding to his court. When the fam­i­lies ar­rived at the Gu­ru’s court, the Guru was giv­ing in­struc­tion to an­other Sikh, per­tain­ing to the true spir­i­tual union with IkOankar. 

It was at that mo­ment when the Guru re­vealed these stan­zas, now known as La­van, and per­formed the wed­ding of the poor Sikh’s daugh­ter and the bride­groom. There­fore, the tra­di­tion of recit­ing La­van dur­ing the Sikh wed­ding cer­e­mony must have started since the time of Guru Ram­das.  Ac­cord­ingly, the tra­di­tion of cir­cum­am­bu­la­tion around the Guru Granth Sahib must have started af­ter the com­pi­la­tion of the Guru Granth Sahib in 1604.

Fol­low­ing this tra­di­tion, Guru Har­gob­ind, the sixth Guru (1595-1644) too re­cited these stan­zas loudly in the con­gre­ga­tion gath­ered for the wed­ding of his daugh­ter Bibi Viro  (born 1615) as per ‘Gur Bi­las Pat­shahi 6.’²

Though there is enough clar­ity re­gard­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion of the La­van tra­di­tion with Guru Ram­das, it is in­ter­est­ing that some his­tor­i­cal sources sug­gest that the Sikh wed­ding tra­di­tion even be­fore Guru Ram­das had its unique­ness. 

Ac­cord­ing to Gi­ani Kar­tar Singh Khalsa, Guru Nanak had him­self writ­ten the Mul Mantra (the open­ing verse in the Guru Granth Sahib) on a piece of pa­per, placed it solemnly on a short wooden plat­form, and per­formed cir­cum­am­bu­la­tion around it. He fur­ther sug­gests that the third Guru, Guru Amar­das (1479-1574), strength­ened the tra­di­tion by per­form­ing the mar­riage of one of his Sikhs, Bhai Sachan Sach³ in ac­cor­dance with the Sikh prin­ci­ples. 

Though there is enough clar­ity re­gard­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion of the La­van tra­di­tion with Guru Ram­das, it is in­ter­est­ing that some his­tor­i­cal sources sug­gest that the Sikh wed­ding tra­di­tion even be­fore Guru Ram­das had its unique­ness.

Guru Amar­das had re­vealed the com­po­si­tion Anand. The La­van cer­e­mony is closed with a recita­tion of six stan­zas from this com­po­si­tion. In fact, in the pre­sent, it has be­come cus­tom­ary to sing Anand to­wards the clos­ing of any cer­e­mony just be­fore per­form­ing ‘Ar­das’, a sup­pli­ca­tion to IkOankar.

Prin­ci­pal Sat­bir Singh also de­scribes an in­ci­dent when the Hin­dal’s brother wanted to marry his daugh­ter. The Brah­min priest re­fused to per­form the wed­ding ac­cord­ing to the Hindu cus­tom as Hin­dal was a dis­ci­ple of Guru Amar­das. There­after, Guru Amar­das had asked Hin­dal to fol­low the new Sikh wed­ding cus­tom of Anand⁴. It may not be wrong to sug­gest that the La­van cer­e­mony is also re­ferred to as Anand Karaj; the name may have come from the cus­tom of Anand it­self. 

Bhai Vir Singh, in a way, ex­plains how the tra­di­tion moved for­ward from one Guru to an­other Guru. He sug­gests that the sec­ond Guru, Guru An­gad, had re­nounced the Vedic rit­u­als and fol­lowed the Sikh prin­ci­ples dur­ing wed­ding cer­e­monies; Guru Amar­das re­vealed Anand, and thus the cus­tom of Anand (Karaj) pre­vailed.  This was fol­lowed by the prac­tice of recit­ing La­van and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the wed­ding cus­tom as pre­scribed by Guru Ram­das. This prac­tice fur­ther be­came preva­lent dur­ing Guru Ar­jan’s time⁵. Later, the Sikhs fol­lowed the cer­e­mony in ac­cor­dance with the Sikh cus­tom as ev­i­dent from Bhai San­tokh Singh, who had mar­ried his daugh­ters Bibi Khem Kaur and Bibi Maiman Kaur by per­form­ing the tra­di­tional Sikh sup­pli­ca­tion (Ar­das) in the pres­ence of the Guru Granth Sahib⁶. 

Text and Mean­ing
What com­prises the four stan­zas of La­van? What do they sig­nify?

The four stan­zas of La­van move for­ward in a step­wise pro­gres­sion of a seek­er’s jour­ney who longs for a union with IkOankar. 

The first lav is the first step to­wards this union. The seeker takes the sup­port of the Di­vine-prin­ci­ple of Nam as af­firmed in the Guru Granth Sahib. In­ter­est­ingly, the first lav is an ini­ti­a­tion of the Sikh cus­toms, as the ter­mi­nol­ogy of the Sikh faith re­places the ter­mi­nol­ogy of the Sanatan tra­di­tion.  Words like Sa­tig­uru/​Guru, Bani, Nam sub­sti­tute words like Brahma, Ved, dharam.

ਬਾਣੀ ਬ੍ਰਹਮਾ ਵੇਦੁ  ਧਰਮੁ ਦ੍ਰਿੜਹੁ   ਪਾਪ ਤਜਾਇਆ  ਬਲਿ ਰਾਮ ਜੀਉ ॥ 

The Bani is the Ved of Brahma, em­brace dharam; (through this) sins have been caused to be for­saken; (I) de­vote to the dear­est Ram. (Lit­eral Trans­la­tion)

The eter­nal Wis­dom has af­firmed that the Bani it­self is the Di­vine scrip­ture; through this, en­shrine the Di­vine-prin­ci­ple of Nam in the mind, which re­moves all trans­gres­sions. I adore the dear­est IkOankar. (In­ter­pre­tive Tran­scre­ation)

Hav­ing taken the first step to­wards the spir­i­tual union, the seeker in the sec­ond step (lav), re­nounces ego, clears the heart, and be­gins to per­ceive IkOankar as all-per­vad­ing: 

ਨਿਰਭਉ ਭੈ ਮਨੁ ਹੋਇ   ਹਉਮੈ ਮੈਲੁ ਗਵਾਇਆ  ਬਲਿ ਰਾਮ ਜੀਉ ॥

ਨਿਰਮਲੁ ਭਉ ਪਾਇਆ  ਹਰਿ ਗੁਣ ਗਾਇਆ   ਹਰਿ ਵੇਖੈ ਰਾਮੁ ਹਦੂਰੇ ॥

Mind has be­come fear­less, (free) from fears; (the true Guru has) re­moved the filth of ego; (I) de­vote to the dear­est Ram.  

(The hu­man-bride) has ac­quired rev­er­ence (for Hari), sung the virtues of Hari; sees Hari-Ram as pre­sent (be­fore her). (Lit­eral Trans­la­tion)

The eter­nal Wis­dom has freed the seeker from all fears, and the filth of their ego has been re­moved. I adore the dear­est IkOankar. 

The seeker has cleansed their mind by cul­ti­vat­ing rev­er­ence for IkOankar and by re­flect­ing on IkOankar’s virtues. Now, the seeker per­ceives IkOankar every­where.    (In­ter­pre­tive Tran­scre­ation)

Steadily, in the third step, the seeker be­comes de­tached from ma­te­r­ial pos­ses­sions and is im­bued with the Nam in the com­pany of those who are yearn­ing to be one with IkOankar. In this lav stress has been laid on the com­pany of truth-ori­ented be­ings who are de­sirous of union with IkOankar:

ਸੰਤ ਜਨਾ ਵਡਭਾਗੀ ਪਾਇਆ   ਹਰਿ ਕਥੀਐ ਅਕਥ ਕਹਾਣੀ ॥ 

ਹਿਰਦੈ ਹਰਿ ਹਰਿ ਹਰਿ ਧੁਨਿ ਉਪਜੀ   ਹਰਿ ਜਪੀਐ ਮਸਤਕਿ ਭਾਗੁ ਜੀਉ ॥ 

Union of saintly be­ings of Hari (has hap­pened), very for­tu­nate ones have found Hari; (I) de­vote to the dear­est Ram. 

(They) have found the im­mac­u­late Hari, have sung virtues of Hari; ut­tered the Bani of Hari with the mouth. (Lit­eral Trans­la­tion)

Those for­tu­nate seek­ers have found IkOankar by meet­ing truth-ori­ented be­ings. I adore the dear­est IkOankar. 

Those seek­ers, who sang the praises of IkOankar, and re­flected on the virtues of IkOankar, have found IkOankar, who sanc­ti­fies the mind. (In­ter­pre­tive Tran­scre­ation)

In the end, the fourth lav de­scribes the fi­nal union of the seeker with IkOankar and how the seeker at­tains wis­dom and be­gins to ex­pe­ri­ence the ever-joy­ful state. The seeker now ex­cels in spir­i­tual bliss and a state of equipoise by en­shrin­ing Nam in the heart: 

ਹਰਿ ਪ੍ਰਭਿ ਠਾਕੁਰਿ ਕਾਜੁ ਰਚਾਇਆ   ਧਨ ਹਿਰਦੈ ਨਾਮਿ ਵਿਗਾਸੀ ॥

ਜਨੁ ਨਾਨਕੁ ਬੋਲੇ  ਚਉਥੀ ਲਾਵੈ   ਹਰਿ ਪਾਇਆ ਪ੍ਰਭੁ ਅਵਿਨਾਸੀ ॥੪॥੨॥

Hari-Prabhu, the Mas­ter, has cre­ated the task; with Nam in the heart, the hu­man bride has bloomed. 

Ser­vant Nanak says: Through the fourth lav, (the hu­man-bride) has found the in­de­struc­tible Hari-Prabhu. 4.2. (Lit­eral Trans­la­tion)

In this way, IkOankar has ac­com­plished the aus­pi­cious task of the seek­er’s union; with Nam in their heart, the seeker has bloomed with bliss. 

At the end of the stanza, by us­ing the sig­na­ture ‘Nanak,’ Guru Ram­das states: In the fourth step of their jour­ney, the seeker has re­al­ized the eter­nal IkOankar. 4.2. (In­ter­pre­tive Tran­scre­ation)

Though the text of Lava refers to the union of the seeker with  IkOankar, yet in the con­text of the Sikh wed­ding cer­e­mony, ‘the seek­er’ here ap­plies to ‘the wed­ding cou­ple’ tak­ing part in the cer­e­mony. Thus, ac­cord­ing to the Sikh prin­ci­ples, the wed­ding is con­sid­ered as com­ing to­gether of the wed­ding cou­ple to sing, con­tem­plate, and en­shrine the virtues of IkOankar. By do­ing so, while com­mit­ting to take the jour­ney of life to­gether, they unite and be­come one with IkOankar. Guru Ram­das, through La­van, re­minds the seek­ers that the cus­tom­ary prac­tice of mar­riage can be sol­em­nized only by con­nect­ing with IkOankar. This is the true sig­nif­i­cance of these tra­di­tional prac­tices that he re­veals to us through these com­po­si­tions. 

Chal­lenges in Trans­lat­ing the La­van
Trans­la­tion is a tool that bridges the gap be­tween lan­guages and en­ables cul­tural in­ter­ac­tion. It al­lows lan­guages to com­mu­ni­cate amongst them­selves. 

The Guru Granth Sahib Pro­ject un­der the aegis of Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute (U.S.A.) is a global ini­tia­tive in which trans­la­tion of the Guru Granth Sahib is be­ing car­ried out. While trans­lat­ing La­van sev­eral chal­lenges were met. Some of these chal­lenges have been dis­cussed as fol­lows:

One is im­mersed in feel­ings of de­vo­tion and love on lis­ten­ing to La­van be­ing sung dur­ing the wed­ding cer­e­mony or oth­er­wise. This can be ex­pe­ri­enced, in its neat­ness, only in the orig­i­nal or the source lan­guage in which the com­po­si­tion has been re­vealed. There­fore, the task of trans­lat­ing this com­po­si­tion into Eng­lish is quite in­tri­cate.  Nev­er­the­less,  ex­pres­sions like yearn­ing for the Beloved, deep emo­tions of love, and spir­i­tual bliss have been brought forth with equal pas­sion to the read­ers in Eng­lish as in the orig­i­nal. 

In the trans­la­tion cer­tain words from the In­dic cul­ture and those rep­re­sent­ing the Sikh con­texts have also been re­tained, in­clud­ing the word lav (lit­er­ally, round or cir­cum­am­bu­la­tion) so that the reader be­comes fa­mil­iar with the op­u­lent vo­cab­u­lary of the Guru Granth Sahib. 

In the trans­la­tion cer­tain words from the In­dic cul­ture and those rep­re­sent­ing the Sikh con­texts have also been re­tained, in­clud­ing the word lav (lit­er­ally, round or cir­cum­am­bu­la­tion) so that the reader be­comes fa­mil­iar with the op­u­lent vo­cab­u­lary of the Guru Granth Sahib. 

At the same time, the orig­i­nal pat­tern of the re­cur­ring words that lends its mu­si­cal­ity has been re­tained in the trans­la­tion. Ut­most care has been taken to re­tain the close­ness and au­then­tic­ity of the orig­i­nal text in the lit­eral trans­la­tion with re­spect to the lin­guis­tic and gram­mat­i­cal pat­tern of the source text. Also, the trans­la­tion of id­ioms has been closely trans­lated in or­der to pro­vide a sense of metaphor used in the source lan­guage to the reader. It has been repli­cated in its hon­esty in the tar­geted text. There­fore, the use of paren­the­ses and ad­di­tional words are vis­i­ble in places. The com­pli­cated con­cerns have been ad­dressed through an ex­haus­tive use of foot­notes ex­plain­ing any di­ver­sion, if at all, from the main text. The very idea of the in­ter­pre­tive tran­scre­ation that fol­lows the lit­eral trans­la­tion is to fill the gap be­tween the source text and the lit­eral trans­la­tion with clar­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pla­na­tions.

De­spite all these chal­lenges, the rhythm of this beau­ti­ful com­po­si­tion res­onates within the heart of the lis­tener while read­ing the trans­la­tion. Its recita­tion and re­flec­tion are ex­tremely stim­u­lat­ing and ex­alt­ing. On ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the love of IkOankar, the seek­er’s heart be­gins to re­joice in spir­i­tual bliss. This is how the wed­ding cou­ple be­gins their new life, com­pletely im­bued in Love. True mar­riage takes place when the cou­ple be­comes one, a sin­gle soul in­hab­it­ing two bod­ies.

They are not said to be hus­band and wife who get to­gether phys­i­cally and sit. Rather, those who have one soul in two bod­ies are called hus­band and wife. 

Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 788

Note: The con­tent has been ex­tracted from the trans­la­tion work in progress of La­van un­der the Guru Granth Sahib Pro­ject. This will be pub­lished soon at: https://​app.gu­ru­granth­sahib.io/ 

Foot­notes:

1. Sant Kir­pal Singh, Adi Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Da Sam­pradai Tika Sri Amir Bhan­dar, vol­ume six, page 262-263.
2. From Sri Gur Pratap Suraj: Sri Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib Da Ji­wan-Bir­tant (vol­ume two), Krit Ma­hankavi Bhai San­tokh Singh Ji, page 874.
3. Sant Gi­ani Kar­tar Singh, Khalsa Ji­van Ate Gur­mat Rahit Maryada, page 337-338.
4.  Prin­ci­pal Sat­bir Singh, Sau Saval, page 144.
5.  Kavi Churhamani Bhai San­tokh Singh, Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth, vol­ume eight, Bhai Vir Singh (ed­i­tor), page 2860.
6.  Bhai San­tokh Singh, Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth, vol­ume one, Bhai Vir Singh (ed­i­tor), page 169.

Jaswant Singh is a scholar of Sikh Stud­ies. His im­mense love for Gur­bani pro­pels him to read, re­flect, re­search, and share Gur­ban­i’s wis­dom and un­der­stand­ing with the wider com­mu­nity. He cur­rently serves as the Di­rec­tor of Gur­bani Re­search at the Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute and Con­tent Head of The Guru Granth Sahib Pro­ject. He worked at the Sikh Cen­tre (Sin­ga­pore) con­duct­ing var­i­ous courses on Guru Granth Sahib, Sikh re­li­gion and his­tory. He holds a Mas­ter’s de­gree in Re­li­gious Stud­ies and a Doc­tor­ate in the lin­guis­tics of Guru Nanak Bani.

Ish­meet Kaur is an ed­u­ca­tion­ist, au­thor, and poet. She teaches at the Cen­tre for Eng­lish Stud­ies at Cen­tral Uni­ver­sity of Gu­jarat, Gand­hi­na­gar. She is also trans­lat­ing and tran­scre­at­ing com­po­si­tions for The Guru Granth­Sahib Pro­ject of the Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute. She was nom­i­nated as an In­spired Teacher for the Pres­i­dent of In­di­a’s In­spired Teacher’s Pro­gramme in 2015. Her in­ter­est and re­search lie around the lit­er­a­ture of mar­gins, so­cial move­ments, and stud­ies of vi­o­lence and trauma. She has pub­lished sev­eral books and ar­ti­cles in many Na­tional and In­ter­na­tional Jour­nals.