In the first place, there is life in water by which everything is made green.

How shall we avoid impurity? It falleth on our kitchens.

Saith Nanak, impurity is not thus washed away: it is washed away by divine knowledge.[3]

Guru Nanak

Impurity of the heart is greed, impurity of the tongue is falsehood;

Impurity of the eyes is gazing on another's wealth, his wife, and her beauty;

Impurity of the ears is listening to slander.

[1. Har rangi. Literally--with every colour.

2. In India cow-dung, besides being used for religious purposes, is ordinarily used as fuel by poor people.

3. In the current Janamsâkhis it is stated that this slok was composed on the proposed purification of the Guru's house after the birth of his son, Sri Chand.]

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Nanak, even the pretended saint who practiseth such things, shall go bound to hell.

All impurity consisteth in Superstition and attachment to worldly things.

Birth and death are ordained; as it pleaseth God, we come and go.

The eating and drinking which God sent as sustenance are pure.

Nanak, the Pious persons who know God have no impurity,

PAURI XVIII

Magnify and praise the True Guru in whom there is all greatness.

If the Guru cause us to meet God, we shall behold His greatness.

If it please the Guru, he will cause God's praises to dwell in the heart.

He putteth his hand on our foreheads; and when he giveth the order, removeth evil from within us.

When God is pleased the nine treasures are obtained.

SLOK XIX

The Brahman having first purified himself sitteth in a purified square.

The purified food is placed before him; no one may touch it.

Being thus purified, he beginneth to eat and read Sanskrit verses.

If it is thrown into a filthy place; whose fault is that?

The corn was holy, the water was holy, the fire and salt

were holy; when the fifth ingredient, ghi,[1] was added,

Then the food became holy.

When the food entereth a sinful body, it becometh impure as if spat upon.

The mouth which uttereth not the Name, and eateth even delicacies without the Name,

Consider, O Nanak, as if spat upon.

[1. Clarified butter, always deemed pure by Hindus and kindred sects.]

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The following was Guru Nanak's remonstrance to a man who reviled the female sex:--

Guru Nanak

In a vessel[1] man is conceived, from a vessel he is born, with a vessel he is betrothed and married.

With a vessel he contracteth friendship; with a vessel he goeth through the world.

When one vessel dieth, another is sought for; to a vessel he is bound.

Why call her bad from whom are born kings?

From a vessel a vessel is born; none may exist without a vessel.

Nanak, only the one True God is independent of a vessel.