Sikhs cel­e­brated the First Parkash Purab of Guru Granth Sahib amidst flower-be­decked en­vi­rons of Dar­bar Sahib, Akal Takht Sahib and Gur­d­waras in their re­spec­tive re­gions. The Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute –SikhRI, through its unique, in­no­v­a­tive and mon­u­men­tal The Guru Granth Sahib Pro­ject has un­der­taken to pre­sent the essence of Guru Granth Sahib in all its as­pects and ed­u­ca­tional re­sources to en­able Sikhs to lead a Guru-in­spired life. Con­tent head Dr Jaswant Singh ap­prises read­ers that with the use of mod­ern tech­no­log­i­cal tools ac­cess­ing Sabads in all its as­pects has been made pos­si­ble.  The World Sikh News pre­sents this gi­gan­tic leap by SikhRI to in­spire in­di­vid­u­als to con­nect with their roots, and or­ga­ni­za­tions to think crit­i­cally, based on Guru Granth Sahib’s par­a­digm of IkOankar, 1-Ness.

THE GURU GRANTH SAHIB PRO­JECT has been un­der­taken in earnest and with the same en­thu­si­asm and ded­i­ca­tion as all pro­jects by the global plat­form -Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute -SikhRI. The idea is to pro­vide ac­cess to Sabad for to­day and to­mor­row in Pan­jabi and Eng­lish.  Re­search, in­ter­pre­ta­tion, and tech­nol­ogy will con­verge to make Guru Granth Sahib ac­ces­si­ble to all. It is an ex­pres­sion of the yearn­ing of Sikhs since the times of the Gu­rus, to ex­plore and med­i­tate on the re­vealed teach­ings of the Gu­rus.

ਪੀਊ ਦਾਦੇ ਕਾ ਖੋਲਿ ਡਿਠਾ ਖਜਾਨਾ ॥ ਤਾ ਮੇਰੈ ਮਨਿ ਭਇਆ ਨਿਧਾਨਾ ॥੧॥
When I opened to see the an­ces­tral trea­sure, then my mind was filled with en­rich­ment.
-Guru Granth Sahib 185

Three years ago, The Guru Granth Sahib Pro­ject was en­vi­sioned as a cu­ra­tive-col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort. So far, the pro­ject has com­pleted eight dif­fer­ent Ba­nis (Com­po­si­tions).

In re­flect­ing on the pro­jec­t’s vi­sion, SikhRI Co-Founder and Pro­ject Lead of The Guru Granth Sahib Pro­ject, Harinder Singh, says, “We are dis­rupt­ing the Sikh the­o­log­i­cal space which is cur­rently caught be­tween bi­na­ries cre­ated by men. This is the first ef­fort in his­tory to in­clude the fe­male per­spec­tive in de­vel­op­ing an un­der­stand­ing of the Sikh canon­i­cal text en­throned to the Guru-Per­fec­tion. The process in­ten­tion­ally in­te­grates a di­verse ar­ray of schools of thought, ac­knowl­edges their strengths and bi­ases, and builds on the col­lec­tive knowl­edge trans­fer to ex­pand them for cur­rent times. It is for teenagers and se­niors, for the re­li­gious and the athe­ists, and so on.”

The prime tar­get is con­nect­ing the global au­di­ence with Sabad (Wis­dom) and al­low­ing it to strengthen our minds and hearts and de­velop a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of that Wis­dom. It is through the uni­ver­sal­ity of Wis­dom that we as a com­mu­nity will be able to fos­ter Sikh val­ues and con­front the chal­lenges fac­ing both the Panth and the world at large. 

ਪੋਥੀ ਪਰਮੇਸਰ ਕਾ ਥਾਨੁ ॥ ਸਾਧਸੰਗਿ ਗਾਵਹਿ ਗੁਣ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਪੂਰਨ ਬ੍ਰਹਮ ਗਿਆਨੁ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
The wis­dom in the text is the abode of 1-Supreme-Be­ing. Singing virtues of 1-Earth-Knower in the com­pany of spir­i­tual be­ings, the wis­dom about 1-Ab­solute is re­ceived. Pause-re­flect. -Guru Granth Sahib 1226

Goal
The goal is to com­plete the en­tire Guru Granth Sahib over the next two decades, thereby cre­at­ing a free, ac­ces­si­ble, and col­lab­o­ra­tive plat­form for all seek­ers glob­ally, en­abling them to move for­ward in their jour­ney with Sabad.

Roadmap
In­stead of work­ing on the Guru Granth Sahib from cover to cover, the pro­ject is fol­low­ing the tra­di­tion of work­ing by Ba­nis (Com­po­si­tions). In the 1st phase, the fo­cus has been on Guru Nanak Sahib’s Ba­nis. We have com­pleted Asa Ki Var, Barahmaha (Tukhari), Arti, Kuchaji and Suchaji re­vealed by Guru Nanak Sahib. Phase 2 con­tin­ues with Ba­nis from the other con­trib­u­tors as well. Af­ter So Dar, So Pu­rakh, So­hila, we are now work­ing on the Bani of the Ninth Guru. Anand Sahib by the third Guru, La­van by the fourth Guru and Bas­ant Ki Var by the fifth Guru are other Com­po­si­tions that we are work­ing on.

Fo­cus­ing Global Ex­per­tise
The pro­ject en­ables global col­lab­o­ra­tion for Guru Granth Sahib’s an­no­ta­tion and ex­e­ge­sis. The process, when in full rhythm, will en­com­pass the equiv­a­lent of at least fif­teen full-time sub­ject-mat­ters ex­perts to par­tic­i­pate in the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort and cu­rate con­tent.

The Guru Granth Sahib Pro­ject is mak­ing use of tech­nol­ogy to cre­ate on­line con­tent that will be freely avail­able to a global au­di­ence.

Much of the work is in mak­ing an­no­ta­tions in Pan­jabi in the Gur­mukhi script, which fu­els the tran­scre­ation in both Pan­jabi and Eng­lish. Lin­guis­ti­cally, we are work­ing word by word, pro­vid­ing mean­ing, gram­mar, and et­y­mol­ogy. Then, de­vel­op­ing mean­ing (lit­eral trans­la­tion and in­ter­pre­tive tran­scre­ation) for each stanza, so that every­thing is placed in con­text for a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing and in­ter­pre­ta­tion.

We want to stress the im­por­tance of cu­rat­ing a di­verse ar­ray of schools of thought and in­ter­pre­ta­tion be­cause if we do not dis­cuss where the di­ver­sions are, we will not be able to cre­ate a mean­ing­ful com­men­tary. His­tor­i­cal, mu­si­cal, and po­et­i­cal di­men­sions are a part of ver­sion 1 de­liv­er­ies too; other di­men­sions such as phi­los­o­phy, gov­er­nance, cos­mic in­sights, en­vi­ron­ment, in­ter­faith, and so on, will be ex­plored in the next ver­sions.

The pro­ject is mak­ing use of tech­nol­ogy to cre­ate on­line con­tent that will be freely avail­able to a global au­di­ence.

The end prod­uct of this huge col­lab­o­ra­tive work will be an au­to­mated plat­form, that pro­vides open and in­tu­itive on­line ac­cess to the in­fi­nite wis­dom of the Guru Granth Sahib, in both Pan­jabi and Eng­lish par­al­lelly.

This is an­other SikhRI mile­stone on a twenty-year jour­ney to com­plete the re­search on each word of Guru Granth Sahib: et­y­mol­ogy, gram­mar, and mean­ing. The team of sub­ject mat­ter ex­perts first carves a lit­eral trans­la­tion and an in­ter­pre­tive tran­scre­ation. Then, a com­men­tary is com­posed. All is done in con­tem­po­rary Eng­lish and Pan­jabi while in­cor­po­rat­ing mu­si­cal, po­et­i­cal, and his­tor­i­cal di­men­sions,

Process
Our team is trans­lat­ing based on re­search. They’re look­ing at the root and et­y­mol­ogy of every word of every sen­tence and from there on, they are build­ing mean­ing from con­text. We take each word, pro­vide mean­ing and con­text in ad­di­tion to de­f­i­n­i­tions. We go line by line, stanza by stanza, en­sur­ing that every in­ter­pre­ta­tion has the ut­most con­text for un­der­stand­ing.

This is just the be­gin­ning. As new sec­tions of the Guru Granth Sahib be­come avail­able through this pro­ject, in con­tem­po­rary Eng­lish and Pan­jabi with sup­port­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions and con­tex­tual con­tent, we will con­tinue to make them avail­able on­line -freely and openly for every­one, as was in­tended.

Dis­claimer
In­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Guru Granth Sahib is ex­tremely chal­leng­ing. It re­quires a team ef­fort and rig­or­ous dis­ci­pline. Every­one tries to in­ter­pret the Guru Granth Sahib ac­cord­ing to their own knowl­edge, un­der­stand­ing, and ca­pac­ity. No one can claim it to be the fi­nal in­ter­pre­ta­tion.

There can never be only one cor­rect trans­la­tion. A va­ri­ety of trans­la­tions are pos­si­ble for all texts, with­out hav­ing to con­clude that one of them must be “cor­rect” and the oth­ers are “wrong.” It is even pos­si­ble that dif­fer­ent trans­la­tions could all be “right” in dif­fer­ent ways; some can be more cor­rect or ac­cu­rate than oth­ers. Or they could all be “wrong” or in­ad­e­quate. This am­bi­gu­ity, im­pre­ci­sion, and mul­ti­va­lence of lan­guage are prob­a­bly some of the great­est chal­lenges in trans­lat­ing re­li­gious texts re­li­ably.

Core Team
Since the in­cep­tion of the pro­ject in Oc­to­ber 2018, over 127 in­di­vid­u­als have been con­tacted for work (full time, part-time, or con­tract), re­view, and con­sul­ta­tion. 18 of these are part of the team, an­other 42 are en­gaged in vary­ing ca­pac­i­ties. 

The core team mem­bers are Harinder Singh (Pro­ject Lead), Jaswant Singh (Con­tent Lead), Har­jin­der Singh (Et­y­mol­o­gist), Bhag­want Singh (Gram­mar­ian), Lakhwinder Singh (His­tory & Phi­los­o­phy Re­searcher), Ra­jin­der Singh (Po­et­ics Re­searcher), So­han Singh (Pan­jabi Ed­i­tor), Suren­der Pal Singh (Eng­lish Trans­la­tor), Jasleen Kaur (Eng­lish Tran­scre­ator),  Inni Kaur (Eng­lish Ed­i­tor), and Jashan­preet Singh (Pro­ject Man­ager).

Since the in­cep­tion of the pro­ject in Oc­to­ber 2018, over 127 in­di­vid­u­als have been con­tacted for work (full time, part-time, or con­tract), re­view, and con­sul­ta­tion. 18 of these are part of the team, an­other 42 are en­gaged in vary­ing ca­pac­i­ties. 

Promise
We will ex­pand the reach of the Sabad, mak­ing its wis­dom uni­ver­sally ac­ces­si­ble for every­one. This is just the be­gin­ning. As new sec­tions of the Guru Granth Sahib be­come avail­able through this pro­ject, in con­tem­po­rary Eng­lish and Pan­jabi with sup­port­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions and con­tex­tual con­tent, we will con­tinue to make them avail­able on­line -freely and openly for every­one, as was in­tended.

SikhRI has grad­u­ally and painstak­ingly de­vel­oped into an oa­sis for de­vel­op­ment and di­a­logue based on val­ues of ex­cel­lence, in­tegrity, and ser­vice in or­der to re­al­ize full hu­man po­ten­tial.

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, Gur­bani Re­search at the Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute. 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.