The Adi Granth first saw the light of day in 1604, a lovingly compiled anthology of hymns by Sikh Gurus and a handful of Hindu and Muslim bhagats. Guru Arjan Dev stitched together over 5,000 shabads (hymns) across some 1,430 ang (pages), weaving in voices from Nanak, Kabir, Farid and more. It laid the foundation for Sikh devotion, a beacon showing how the Divine spark shines through diverse faith traditions.

Fast-forward to 1708: the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, stood on the banks of the Sirsa River and, rather than appointing a human successor, proclaimed the Granth itself as the eternal Guru. A few hundred hymns of Guru Tegh Bahadur—his martyred father—were slipped into the existing text. With that, the Adi Granth was reborn, renamed the Guru Granth Sahib, and elevated from scripture to the living Guru of the Sikhs.

Three key shifts set them apart:

1. Content tweak: The Guru Granth Sahib contains everything in the Adi Granth plus the additional hymns of Guru Tegh Bahadur.
2. Status upgrade: Adi Granth functioned as a foundational scripture; Guru Granth Sahib is revered as the everlasting Guru, honored in daily prayers and ceremoniously “put to bed” each night.
3. Name and authority: Changing the name wasn’t just window dressing. It marked the end of the human line of Gurus and sealed the text itself as the guiding light—no more mysteries left hanging.

Today, the Guru Granth Sahib sits at the heart of every gurdwara, its verses echoing across morning and evening kirtans, from Amritsar’s Golden Temple to Sikh communities around the globe. That subtle yet powerful shift—turning a revered book into the living Guru—still shapes Sikh life and identity, proving that sometimes, a new chapter means more than just flipping the page.