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Summary of Question:	Translations Of Guru Granth Sahib
Category:	General Sikhism
Date Posted:	Tuesday, 3/25/2003 4:40 PM MDT

I wanted to mention a point I have come across with translations of the Guru Granth Sahib, it is to do with references to god. It appears to me that in the majority of translations God is refered to as 'he' or 'his' which can be interpreted to mean that God is a masculine figure. Now even though im a male, I think it is disrespectful to God to refer to God as masculine, as God should be considered to be 'above' sexuality. Refering to God as a 'he' or 'his' is completely a Christian concept and should in no way be incorporated in Sikhi. The most famous example of this is in the mool mantar:

Sat-naam which literally translates to true-name, however has been tanslated to Truth is HIS name. The 'is his' part has just been added in and cannot be considered to be a translation of the SGGS. Perhaps it would be better to rephrase this as 'Truth is God's name', I feel small things like this do make a difference to how people of other faiths view Sikhi and is important to Sikh ideology.