Names of God in Sikhism

Meaning and usage

The various names for God in Sikhism may stem from either the Indic traditions or the Islamic one. Others are unique to the Sikh tradition, such as Waheguru, Akal Purakh, and Sarabloh. Employment of these terms does not mean Sikhs accept the religious context in which they are understood in their original sources. For example, the meaning of the words Hari or Ram as used by Sikhs does not mean the same thing as these terms do in the Hindu (particularity Vaishnav) traditions. Usage of these names does not mean Sikhs conceptualize their concept of God in the form of the incarnated devas or devis from Indic mythology, but rather they are used to describe various aspects of God as per Sikh theology.

The Sikh gurus adopted the names for the divine from various faith systems as they saw these sectarian differences in linguistics as unimportant in-comparison to the actual message they were trying to spread. On page 64 of the Guru Granth Sahib, various Islamicate terms for God are also presented freely.

Your names are countless. I do not know their end, but I am sure that there is no one else like you.

— Guru Granth Sahib, page 877

The Sikh Rehat Maryada produced by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee proposes to use the term Akal Purakh as the paramount/formal Sikh term for God, despite there being variations of this name found in the compositions authored by Guru Nanak which were employed far more commonly than Akal Purakh (used only once by Nanak), with variations being Adi Purakh (used twelve times) and Karta Purakh (used three times). Furthermore, other terms for god, sourced from Arabic or Persian, that were used by Nanak were even more commonly used, such as Sahib (hundred-and-thirty-seven times), Khasam (seventy-eight times), or Patishah (twenty-three times).