Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, is unquestionably the nucleus of the Sikh Religion. It's 1430 pages written in Gurmukhi Language forms the very basis of its existence. But, what exactly is this language ?
Language is a powerful piece of social technology. It conveys our thoughts as coded puffs of air [pad in Gurmukhi for the formation of shabd, meaning, sound] or dozens of drawn symbols, to be decoded by someone else. It can move information about the past, present, future and beyond, formalise ideas, trigger action, persuade and much more.
Today, there are several thousands of such codes spoken around the world. All human societies have language, and no language is “better” than any other; all can communicate the full range of human experience. Those of us who study human evolution, this incredible universality suggests that our species has had language right from when Homo sapiens left Africa and migrated to the rest of the world.
Our species arrived from around the Middle East and brought with them a language, the language that we're trying to decode and interpret. What was that language, the developed form of which underpins Sikhi's core fundamentals ? How often has that question been asked ?
We may know our parents, our grand parents, even our great grand parents, not far beyond that, for most of us the trail begins to disappear into thin air. But each one of us carries a message from our ancestors in every cell of our body. It is in our DNA, the genetic material that is handed down from generation to generation. The trail of our ancient past is written within the DNA, and not only our histories as individuals but the whole history of the human race.
To understand Sikhism and the language of its scriptures, knowledge of human exodus as social beings is important.
Language is a powerful piece of social technology. It conveys our thoughts as coded puffs of air [pad in Gurmukhi for the formation of shabd, meaning, sound] or dozens of drawn symbols, to be decoded by someone else. It can move information about the past, present, future and beyond, formalise ideas, trigger action, persuade and much more.
Today, there are several thousands of such codes spoken around the world. All human societies have language, and no language is “better” than any other; all can communicate the full range of human experience. Those of us who study human evolution, this incredible universality suggests that our species has had language right from when Homo sapiens left Africa and migrated to the rest of the world.
Our species arrived from around the Middle East and brought with them a language, the language that we're trying to decode and interpret. What was that language, the developed form of which underpins Sikhi's core fundamentals ? How often has that question been asked ?
We may know our parents, our grand parents, even our great grand parents, not far beyond that, for most of us the trail begins to disappear into thin air. But each one of us carries a message from our ancestors in every cell of our body. It is in our DNA, the genetic material that is handed down from generation to generation. The trail of our ancient past is written within the DNA, and not only our histories as individuals but the whole history of the human race.
To understand Sikhism and the language of its scriptures, knowledge of human exodus as social beings is important.
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