Anand — bliss, in the middle of an ordinary day.
Guru Amar Das opens his composition by telling his mother he is in bliss, and gives the cause as finding the Guru rather than any change in circumstance. Sikhs hear the word at every wedding, since the marriage rite is named after it.
Anand is the state Guru Amar Das names and the Sikh wedding takes its name from — Anand Karaj, the act of bliss. The composition opens with him telling his mother he is in bliss because he has found the true Guru, and the whole forty stanzas locate the cause there rather than in any change of circumstance. Sikhs hear the first five and last stanzas at the end of nearly every ceremony, which means the word is attached to weddings, funerals, house blessings and business openings alike. That is deliberate: bliss in this vocabulary is not elation and does not require a good day. Guru Amar Das was in his seventies when he wrote it, which Punjabi commentators mention often, on the reasonable ground that it is not the composition of someone who has had an easy life.
The same ground, other faiths
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