september 2026
waheguru ji ka khalsa, waheguru ji ki fateh friends,
happy fall! apologies again for the delayed mail. i’m a few weeks behind and working hard to get back on track. thank you for understanding <3
i am so glad that you’re here at your khajana page, and that you are intending on engaging with the exercise. i promise, it will be easier than you think, and it will be incredibly rewarding.
here is a compilation of resources you can use to dip your toe into gurbani translation. i encourage you to seek out your own resources as well. you can listen to kathas on youtube, find podcasts, look for online dictionaries, look for santhiya resources at your local gurdwara, and even ask a friend to do this with you.
if you are feeling a little apprehensive, i believe in you. onwards!
gurbani translation
to start engaging with a shabad, i find it most helpful to listen to it once through to get a feel for it.
what energy are you receiving from the shabad? how does it make you feel?
here are a few links to renditions of this shabad that i personally enjoyed:
feel free to send me your favorite version of this shabad! also, any tracks you like, i love sharing keertan. it’s one of my favorite love languages.
bibi gurpreet kaur ji & bhai manbir singh ji
bibi guneet kaur ji — shabad starts at roughly 16 min. i shared this track for june as well!
bhai gulbagh singh ji & bhai dilbagh singh ji
next, i would try to read the shabad (in gurmukhi or in an english transliteration if you need it). note down which words you do understand, and which you need to explore.
tip: start with just one line to just get a feel for it. i picked a shabad that feels fairly straightforward, and still quite meaningful.
my most used resources to figure out vocabulary that i am unfamiliar with have been the sikhi to the max website, and various dictionaries. the mahan kosh, by scholar kahn singh nabha, is the best dictionary that we have to help us understand gurbani. lots of gurbani search apps now have the mahan kosh integrated, so if you “long-press” a word in a shabad, often it will have a translation of the word + the rest of the words in that line that are included in the mahan kosh.
some new excellent resources that i have found for gurbani translations are the following:
chet hari - a new app for both IOS and android. this app is really something, and my best recommendation. in addition to a ton of really cool features that i suggest you explore, this app has the most extensive translation supports i’ve seen, with the most user friendly interface. i suggest you download this app on your phone as the best place to start.
to find any shabad on most gurbani search engines, enter the first letter of each word (with no spaces or accents) of a line more than 3 words long.
for this shabad, i suggest looking up ਤੂ ਕਾਹੇ ਡੋਲਹਿ ਪ੍ਰਾਣੀਆ ਤੁਧੁ ਰਾਖੈਗਾ ਸਿਰਜਣਹਾਰੁ ॥ / tu kaahe ddoleh praaniaa tudh raakhegaa sirjanhaar || using the following: ਤਕਡਪ or tkdp
from there, you can play around with the appearance. you can choose the translation that you want to see, whether or not you want an english transliteration, punjabi translations, and more!
there are a few translations by different translators that you can read, each with their own translation principles and biases. i suggest doing your own research if you want to pick one that you feel more called to.
i recommend enabling “Prof Sahib Singh - Pad Arth (Word Meanings)” as this will included vocabulary without a full translation, giving you space to figure out a translation for yourself.
long-press any word for mahan kosh translations, including most words in english as well
click the music note button to hear the shabad being read out loud to help you with pronunciation, then you can listen to a ton of recordings of the shabad sung by different keertaniye.
the guru granth sahib project: a new resource by sikhri. this is an extensive and mammoth effort on their end to translate the whole of guru granth sahib ji with not just translations, but explanations and “transcreations,” both in english and punjabi. they are in the process of working through shabads so not everything is there yet, but what is there is completely worth exploring. toggle the “english/punjabi” buttons on the top right of the page to switch between the two. they have their own dictionary as well. i find it a little hard to use, but the translations themselves are very useful and feel more modern. here is a tutorial on how to use the whole website. this shabad we are working through is not included yet, but i am still sharing this as a helpful resource.
digital dictionaries of south asia, uchicago - if you want to dive deeper on any words and learn more about them through their etymology, you can search for words in various dictionaries here. you can use your deduction skills to guess what language a word may be from, you can also look at sikhri’s dictionary which has etymology information so you can figure out which dictionaries to search through.
to review the process so far:
listen to the shabad to get a feel for its energy
read the whole shabad
note which words you know and which you wish to explore further
delve into vocabulary (start this by downloading the chet hari app, and look into further resourch)
put the words together and see what you think the line of the shabad might mean. write your translation down!
once the whole shabad is done, review the lines together as a whole.
what does this shabad mean to you?
what is the main takeaway of this shabad
what are some action points i can take away from this shabad? how can i implement these teachings in my own life?
feel free to ask if you have any questions, share if you have any suggestions — and please do send me feedback! i love to hear what you all think of the work every month. it means the most to me when we get to connect and you engage with the art.
with love,
hk.
ig: @immersedinyou
