Brethren, friends, and lovers read the fatiha,[1] and say
prayers for the departed.
Nanak, such things are false, and God alone is true. The sinners who have committed transgressions are bound and led away.
Their luggage of sins is so heavy that they cannot lift it.
The steep road ahead is dark, while the executioner walketh behind them.
In front is a sea of fire ; how shall they cross it ? Ravens stand on men s skulls, and peck at them fast as a shower of sparks. Nanak, where shall man escape when the punishment is by God s order ?
The eyes of the sinful shall be torn out ; they shall be come blind, and terrible darkness prevail.
Their ears shall be pressed as if they were the sockets of oil-presses,[2] and storms of filth shall assail their noses.
Their tongues shall be cut out for breaking their promises and forgetting the True One.
They shall cry aloud when their skulls are burning in the fire.
No one can save the ignorant man who is covetous and hath no priest ;
But they whose demerits are pardoned through their merits shall be, O Nanak, of the elect.
As sesame is heated and pressed, or cotton carded by means of a thong, so shall sinners be punished.
Like paper they shall be beaten with mallets, and put into presses;
They shall be heated like iron; they shall burn and cry aloud;
The wretched beings heads shall be taken up with tongs and placed on anvils,
- ↑ The introductory prayer of the Quran. Its secondary meaning is prayers offered up for a deceased person.
- ↑ The Indian oil-press is a primitive machine. A beam is made to revolve in a socket in which the seeds to be pressed are placed. The meaning here is, that the ears shall be tortured as if the beams of oil-presses revolved in them as sockets.
