The couplet
Shalok · Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 1378 ·
ਫਰੀਦਾ ਜੇ ਤੂ ਕਾਲੇ ਲਿਖੁ ਨ ਲੇਖ ॥
ਆਪਨੜੇ ਮਹਿ ਸਿਰੁ ਨੀਵਾਂ ਕਰਿ ਦੇਖੁ ॥
فریدا! جے توں ، کالے لِکھ نہ لیکھ
آپݨڑے وِچ، سِر نِیواں کر
Word by word
| Word | Gloss | Note |
|---|---|---|
| ਫਰੀਦਾ فریدا Farīdā | “O Farid” | The vocative — the poet addressing himself. You met this ending in a nursery rhyme: mundriye, in Sunder Mundriye — and you will meet it again as Bulleyā. One grammatical form, three centuries, three registers. |
| ਅਕਲਿ عقل akali | intellect, wit | Arabic ʿaql — an Arabic noun of mind, at home in a 13th-century Punjabi couplet. Evidence of how early the language's two streams merged. |
| ਲਤੀਫੁ لطیف latīfu | subtle, fine, refined | Arabic laṭīf — also one of the Names of God in Islam: the Subtle, too fine to be perceived. A word carrying enormous weight, dropped into a village couplet. |
| ਕਾਲੇ ਲਿਖੁ ਨ ਲੇਖ | “write not black writings” | Likh and lekh share a root — the sound doubles the sense (the device is called figura etymologica; the effect needs no name). |
| ਆਪਨੜੇ āpanaṛe | your own | The -ṛ- infix is an intimate, tender diminutive — “your own dear…”. This is untranslatable, and we say so rather than pretend otherwise. |
| ਗਿਰੀਵਾਨ گریبان girīvān | collar | Persian garībān. The seat of the idiom the whole couplet turns on — see below. |
| ਸਿਰੁ ਨੀਵਾਂ ਕਰਿ ਦੇਖੁ | “head lowered, look!” | The imperative dekhu — the couplet ends on a command to see. |
Why these words
“Black writings” is ledger language. Farid takes the imagery of the account-book — the scribe totting up debts in black ink — and turns it on the reader: you are keeping a ledger of other people's sins. The reproach is not that you have judged; it is that you have written it down, made it permanent. For a website that is itself an archive, this is a startling and humbling line to open with — which is exactly why it is the first poem on Punjabia.
“Look into your own collar” is an idiom, not an image. To look down into one's own collar is the Punjabi and Persian gesture of self-examination: bow your head, and what you see is yourself. English has “look in the mirror” — far less physical. The mirror is optional. The collar is worn.
Latīf is the whole argument. Farid had a plain Punjabi word for “clever” and did not use it. He used an Arabic theological term meaning subtle, fine, imperceptible — a Name of God. The line therefore says: if you are refined in the way God is refined, you will not be counting up other people's failings. The entire ethical argument sits inside one loanword. That is what “why this word” means, and it is what this module exists to show.
How it moves
A two-line shalok in a folk metre, end-rhymed lekh / dekh. It is built to be remembered, not read — a proverb with a rhyme, which is why it has survived for roughly eight centuries. Its structure is a single turn of the head: outward (writing about others) against downward and inward (looking into oneself). The couplet is that pivot, and nothing else — which is why it is complete.
Who wrote this, and into what world
Fariduddin Ganjshakar was a 12th–13th-century Chishti Sufi of Pakpattan, in what is now Punjab, Pakistan. He is credited as one of the earliest figures to compose in Punjabi rather than Persian — the language's foundational poetic act. Some two centuries later, Guru Arjan gathered his verses into the Adi Granth, where they remain: a Muslim Sufi's Punjabi poetry, inside Sikh scripture, sung daily in Amritsar. That is not a metaphor or a hope. It is a fact about a book.
Keep going
- The vocative, from the other end of life: Sunder Mundriye — a nursery rhyme that bends its nouns the same way.
- The next poet in the reader: Bulleh Shah — “How would I know who I am?”
- Where the verses live: The Adi Granth and the Harmandir Sahib.
Sources & further reading
- Shalok Farid, Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 1378 — to be verified against a standard edition before the review flag above is cleared.
- Christopher Shackle and others on Farid's language and the Pakpattan tradition; standard discussions of the Farid-bani attribution question.
- Translation and commentary here are editorial and offered with humility; the text itself is scripture and is reproduced exactly.