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Explore Alahania (Mahala 1)

The Guru Granth Sahib Project

Thursday
,
28
March
2024

Alahani is a mournful or sorrowful Panjabi folk song. When a person dies, friends and relatives usually visit the deceased’s family to share their sorrow and memories of their loved one’s life and deeds.

Alahani is a mournful or sorrowful Panjabi folk song. When a person dies, friends and relatives usually visit the deceased’s family to share their sorrow and memories of their loved one’s life and deeds. Expressing such feelings creates the core of the folk poetic form Alahani.


The Alahania composition revealed by Guru Nanak Sahib redirects and transforms the sorrow and grief of death and separation from loved ones into a serene state, urging the being to embrace the will of IkOankar (the Divine). By illustrating the insignificance and impermanence of the material world, this composition inspires the mind towards a perpetual connection with the eternal companion, IkOankar.

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In This Video

Jasleen Kaur

Research Associate

Jasleen Kaur is a Research Associate at the Sikh Research Institute. She has received a Religious Studies B.A./M.A. from the University of Virginia, focusing on South Asian Religions through the lens of literature and poetry.

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