Lakshmi & Maya

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Three Scriptures, One Distinction

Across the Guru Granth Sahib, the Dasam Granth, and the Sarbloh Granth, two words for wealth appear again and again. Lakshmi — honest, righteous, freely shared. Maya — grasped, hoarded, born of falsehood. This is not a casual linguistic habit. It is a consistent moral taxonomy, woven through three centuries of Sikh scripture, and ultimately pressed into the metal of Khalsa coinage.

The Gurus did not ask Sikhs to renounce the world. Wealth, commerce, and household life are fully part of a Sikh life. But the scriptures are unambiguous: the kind of wealth matters. How it arrives. What it does to the person who holds it. Whether it flows or whether it sticks.

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I. The Guru Granth Sahib

Lakshmi — Wealth That Comes from Truth

In the Guru Granth Sahib, Lakshmi strips the goddess of her idol and leaves the principle: wealth earned through honest means, through labour, skill, and integrity — the fruit of Kirat Karni, the second foundational pillar of Sikh life. Guru Nanak puts the standard plainly:

The earning itself, done with integrity, is an act of devotion — equal to prayer. The facing page of the Guru Granth Sahib makes the connection between honest labour and spiritual radiance explicit:

The third pillar — Vand Chakna — completes the picture. Lakshmi earned through honest labour and shared freely is wealth in its righteous form. It passes through the hands without sticking. Guru Nanak, in a striking image elsewhere in the GGS, likens the Earth itself to a deg — a great cauldron from which all living beings receive sustenance. Honest wealth participates in that cauldron. It feeds, rather than hoards.

Maya — Wealth That Comes from Deception

Where Lakshmi flows and feeds, Maya accumulates and imprisons. Guru Amar Das, the Third Guru, is unsparing:

The sharpest GGS treatment of the distinction between righteous and corrupted wealth contrasts sachcha dhan — true wealth — with kacha dhan — perishable wealth:

The word bikhia — poison — is deliberate. Wealth acquired dishonestly is not neutral; it actively harms the soul that holds it. And the GGS locates the source of this corruption precisely:

The link is explicit: jhoota lalach — false greed — is what produces Maya. Dishonesty in earning is not a minor moral lapse. It is the engine that converts Lakshmi into Maya, righteous wealth into corrupted wealth.

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III. The Sarbloh Granth

Ustat Sri Maya Lakshmi Ji Ki — Redefining Wealth for the Khalsa

The Sarbloh Granth — the Scripture of All-Steel, attributed to Guru Gobind Singh and revered especially by the Nihang tradition — opens with something that at first sounds startling: a sustained praise of Maya and Lakshmi. The very first major composition is the Ustat Sri Maya Lakshmi Ji Ki — the Praise of Sri-Maya-Lakshmi.

The key is the prefix Sri. In the tradition of the Sarbloh Granth, Guru Gobind Singh explains this to Bhai Daya Singh on the occasion of Diwali. When householders cleaned their homes to welcome Lakshmi and Bhai Daya Singh asked whether the Khalsa should do the same — worship wealth and Lakshmi like the world — the Guru's answer reframes the entire question:

"The Guru's Khalsa will not worship Maya like the world does. The Khalsa will worship Sree-Maya, Sree-Lakhmee."

— Guru Gobind Singh Ji · Sri Sarbloh Prakaash tradition, on the origin of the Ustat Sri Maya Lakshmi Ji Ki

Sree-Maan means the one with honour. Sree-Mathee means the one with intelligence. Sree-Maya means not the illusion itself, but the Lord who is the master of Maya — who transcends and commands it. Sree-Lakshmi is not the goddess of fortune to be propitiated: it is the divine principle of righteous abundance that flows from living in truth. The Sarbloh Granth does not praise wealth. It praises the One who stands above Maya and commands it. And as Guru Gobind Singh promises Bhai Daya Singh: the Khalsa who worships in this way will never lack in food or sustenance.

The critical edition of the Sarbloh Granth examined in preparing this article — a scholarly textual apparatus produced at Punjabi University Patiala — confirms the manuscript tradition of these compositions across multiple historical handwritten copies. The verse tradition is robust and consistent. What the Sarbloh Granth brings to the Lakshmi–Maya question is the Khalsa identity of the sant-sipahi — the saint-soldier who wields the cauldron and the sword together, who neither renounces the world nor is consumed by it, who earns honestly, shares freely, and fights to protect the conditions that make honest earning possible for everyone.

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IV. Three Scriptures — One Coin

What the Khalsa Put on the Coin

Guru Gobind Singh's first hukam to the Khalsa: Dharam di Kirat karni — earn by righteous means. Not merely legal means. Righteous means. The standard is moral.

When the Khalsa struck their first coins, they made a choice unlike any other ruling power in history. No goddess. No ruler's face. No claim of personal sovereignty. What they put on the coin was a couplet that encoded all three scriptures' understanding of honest wealth:

Nanakshahi Couplet	ਸਿੱਕਾ ਜ਼ਦ ਬਰ ਹਰ ਦੋ ਆਲਮ ਫ਼ਜ਼ਲ ਸੱਚਾ ਸਾਹਿਬ ਅਸਤ	"This coin is struck as evidence of sovereignty in both worlds — the blessing is of the True Lord."	Struck at Amritsar from Banda Singh Bahadur's time onward
Banda Singh Bahadur's Seal, c.1710	ਦੇਗ ਤੇਗ ਫ਼ਤਹ ਨੁਸਰਤਿ ਬੇਦਰੰਗ ਯਾਫ਼ਤ ਅਜ਼ ਨਾਨਕ ਗੁਰੂ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਸਿੰਘ	"The Cauldron, the Sword, Victory and Boundless Support — obtained from Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh."	First Sikh territorial seal — encoding Deg Tegh Fateh in official authority
Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, 1765	Deg Tegh Fateh legend continued	First coin struck after decisive Khalsa victory over the Afghans. The tradition carried through the Misl era, Maharaja Ranjit Singh's fourteen-mint empire, and several Cis-Sutlej states.	Even states under British suzerainty retained the inscription

The deg on the coin is the GGS's Vand Chakna — honest wealth shared freely. The tegh is the Dasam Granth's martial justice — the sword that protects the conditions under which honest earning is possible. And fateh is the Sarbloh Granth's assurance: that the Khalsa who lives by Sri-Maya rather than Maya, by Lakshmi rather than bikhia, will never be defeated.

"No other coinage in the world puts a communal kitchen on the coin. The deg was not decorative. It was three scriptures' understanding of Lakshmi — pressed into silver."

When the Coin Stops Meaning What It Says

The integrity of a coin is, in one sense, a measure of the integrity of the state that strikes it. The Khalsa couplet was a promise: our authority comes from truth, our wealth is Lakshmi, our bounty is shared. When the Dogra ministers hollowed out the Jathedar's accountability — as explored in the Mool Mantar piece — the same drift from Lakshmi to Maya was happening inside the state. The coins continued to carry Deg Tegh Fateh. But a coin can outlast the principle it was struck to represent. By 1849, the British were melting Sikh coins to strike their own.

What the Numismatist Reads in the Metal

The Guru Granth Sahib encoded the Lakshmi–Maya distinction in the language of devotion. The Dasam Granth encoded it in the language of martial courage. The Sarbloh Granth encoded it in the language of the Khalsa's identity as saint-soldiers. And the Khalsa encoded all three — in metal.

Every Sikh coin that carries the Nanakshahi couplet or Deg Tegh Fateh is a compressed philosophical statement across all three scriptures. A question pressed in silver: was the wealth that flowed through this state Lakshmi or Maya? Was the deg still full? Was the tegh still just? Did the earning come from truth — or from the jhoota lalach, the false greed, that the GGS says is the engine of Maya?

That is the numismatist's question. And it is, at its root, the question of all three scriptures.

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