Adi Granth
The principal sacred text of Sikhism, also called the Guru Granth Sahib, originally compiled by the fifth Sikh guru, Guru Arjan, in 1604 in Amritsar from his own hymns and those of the four preceding gurus, and expanded and fixed in its definitive form by the tenth and last human guru, Guru Gobind Singh, in 1708, at which point he solemnly declared that, after him, the text itself would become the eternal living guru of the Sikh community, ending the line of human masters. The work is an extensive anthology of devotional hymns (shabads) musically organised according to thirty-one ragas or classical Indian melodic modes, and includes not only the writings of the six Sikh gurus who contributed to it but also compositions by Hindu and Muslim devotional saints (of the bhakti and Sufi traditions), such as Kabir, Namdev and Ravidas, an unusually inclusive gesture for a sacred scripture that reflects the Sikh aspiration to spiritual unity above divisions of caste and religion. Its central message revolves around devotion to a single formless God (Ik Onkar), the radical equality of all human beings regardless of caste, gender or religion, the rejection of external rituals emptied of meaning, and selfless service to the community (seva) as a spiritual path, together with the discipline of meditating on the divine name (naam simran). Written mostly in Gurmukhi, with passages in Punjabi, old Hindi and other North Indian languages, the text holds a central and venerated place in every Sikh gurdwara, where it is treated with the utmost ceremonial honours —placed upon a throne, covered with rich cloths and ritually read from beginning to end on solemn occasions such as the akhand path— being regarded not as a book about God but as the living presence of the guru itself.