Guru Nanak's Transcendent Aesthetics

In this immersive, engaging study of the poetic aesthetics of the first Sikh Guru, Nikky Singh explores his 974 hymns spread across the 1,430 pages of the Guru Granth Sahib. Offering authoritative analysis of Guru Nanak's foundational compositions, the author reveals a consummate lyrical art seamlessly merged with metaphysical content.

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One of the foremost exponents of the Sikh religion and of related Punjabi literature offers here a sustained exploration of the aesthetics of Sikhism's founder, understood as 'a symbiosis of his prophetic revelation, his poetic genius, and his pragmatic philosophy – embedded in his visceral expression of the transcendent One.' Drawing on a wide range of sources, Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh examines in full all the beauty, intimacy, and inclusive richness of Guru Nanak's remarkable literary art. Her subject's verses – written in simple vernacular Punjabi – are seen creatively to subvert conventional linguistic models while also inspiring social, psychological, environmental, and political change. These radical lyrics are now brought into fascinating conversation with contemporary artists, poets, and philosophers. Moving beyond conventional religious discourses and spaces of worship in its attempt to sketch a multisensory, publicly oriented reception of Sikh sacred verse, this expansive book opens up striking new imaginaries for 21st-century global society.