Dhan Dhan Guru Amar Das Ji

Dhan Dhan Guru Amardas Sahib Ji

At the very heart of Sikh thought lies a radical spiritual vision:
Akal Purakh alone is spoken of as male, and every human being—without exception—is spoken of as female.

This is not a statement about biology or social roles. It is a statement about relationship. In Gurbani, the human soul is the bride, and the Divine is the Husband (ਕੰਤ / ਪਿਰ). All longing, devotion, and union flow in this direction alone. No human being stands between another and the Eternal.

Nothing more decisively dissolves claims of male spiritual superiority than this. If all humans are, in essence, feminine before the Divine, then no gender can claim dominance, ownership, or moral authority over another. Equality is not argued for; it is assumed. It is from within this spiritual framework that Guru Amar Das Ji speaks.

Guru Sahib begins not with condemnation, but with clarity and States on ਅੰਗ 787 of Guru Granth Sahib states:

ਸਲੋਕ ਮਃ ੩ ॥

ਸਤੀਆ ਏਹਿ ਨ ਆਖੀਅਨਿ ਜੋ ਮੜਿਆ ਲਗਿ ਜਲੰਨਿੑ ॥

ਨਾਨਕ ਸਤੀਆ ਜਾਣੀਅਨਿੑ ਜਿ ਬਿਰਹੇ ਚੋਟ ਮਰੰਨਿੑ ॥੧॥

ਅੰਗ 787

With these words, spoken in the mid-sixteenth century, a deeply entrenched belief was quietly dismantled. The Guru does not debate fire or ritual. He questions something far more fundamental: what virtue truly means.

In a society where a woman’s honour was increasingly tied to her willingness to die with her husband, Guru Amar Das Ji states—without hesitation—that death proves nothing. Burning the body does not make one pure. What matters is not how one dies, but how one lives—and how one loves. Guru Sahib refer to love to allmighty. To understand the weight of this statement, one must pause and look at the world into which it was spoken.

The World That Normalised Suffering

By the sixteenth century, the practice of sati existed as a social reality in parts of the Indian subcontinent. It was not universal, nor uncontested, but where it existed, it was wrapped in the language of devotion and honour. A widow’s life, stripped of autonomy, dignity, and social belonging, was made deliberately narrow. Survival was stigmatised. Remarriage discouraged. Suffering sanctified. Manusmriti is hindu's equivalent to sharia law in Muslim. Texts such as the Manusmriti, though not commanding sati directly, had long shaped this moral landscape. By defining women as permanently dependent—on father, husband, then sons—and by framing widowhood as a life of renunciation and restraint, they created a world in which death could be reimagined as virtue. When life is made unlivable, sacrifice begins to look noble.

This is how social structures work. They do not always instruct; they condition. Over time, what begins as expectation hardens into morality. Guru Amar Das Ji does not argue within this framework.

A Different Moral Centre

After rejecting the idea that virtue lies in burning, Guru Amar Das Ji on ਅੰਗ 787 of Guru Granth Sahib states:

ਮਃ ੩ ॥

ਭੀ ਸੋ ਸਤੀਆ ਜਾਣੀਅਨਿ ਸੀਲ ਸੰਤੋਖਿ ਰਹੰਨ੍ਹਿ ॥
ਸੇਵਨਿ ਸਾਈ ਆਪਣਾ ਨਿਤ ਉਠਿ ਸੰਮ੍ਹਾਲੰਨ੍ਹਿ ॥੨॥

Here, sati is redefined—not as a woman who dies, but as a human being who lives with ethical restraint (ਸੀਲ), contentment (ਸੰਤੋਖ), and constant remembrance.

Virtue is no longer a dramatic moment. It is a daily discipline. It requires life.

He then exposes the hollowness of performative sacrifice: if devotion did not exist when the husband was alive—if hardship was avoided and responsibility fled—what meaning can ritual suffering after death possibly hold?

In one quiet sequence, Guru Amar Das Ji removes the moral reward that sustained cruelty.

The Deeper Coherence of Gurbani

Within the Sikh vision, this teaching is not an isolated social comment. It is spiritually inevitable.

If Akal Purakh alone is the Husband, then no mortal man can be the ultimate reference point of a woman’s worth. If every soul is the bride, then devotion cannot be proven through violence against the body. Fire cannot create union. Union happens through living—through awareness, ethical conduct, remembrance, and grace.

In such a framework, sati does not merely become cruel. It becomes meaningless.

A Broader Human Pattern

History shows that sati was not an isolated aberration. Across cultures—whether through ritual death, enforced chastity, or social erasure—women have repeatedly been asked to disappear once their relationship to a man ended. Sometimes the body was destroyed. Sometimes the life was quietly reduced. The logic remained the same.

Women have resisted this logic for as long as it has existed. Often silently. Often without recognition. Survival itself was an act of defiance.

What makes Guru Amar Das Ji extraordinary is that he did not ask women to fight. Guru Ji withdrew moral permission from the system that oppressed them. Guru ji declared that dignity was never conditional.

Standing in Truth, While Time Lagged Behind

Guru Amar Das Ji was born in the late fifteenth century¹ and assumed the Guruship in the mid-sixteenth century²—an age when such clarity was rare, and such calm refusal rarer still. He did not shout reform. He did not attack traditions by name. He redefined virtue so completely that cruelty could no longer hide behind it. Shabad saved lives of many women and changed the discriminatory course against women.

Footnotes

¹ Guru Amar Das Ji was born on 5 May 1479 (Gregorian calendar).
² He assumed the Guruship on 26 March 1552 and served until his Jyoti Jot on 1 September 1574.