Sukhmani Sahib occupies pages 262 to 296 of the Guru Granth Sahib, one of the longest single compositions in the scripture, set in Gauri raga by Guru Arjan, the fifth Guru, at the start of the seventeenth century. Its name is usually rendered Jewel of Peace or Psalm of Peace, sukh being peace and mani jewel or mind, and its architecture is exact, twenty four ashtapadis, sections of eight stanzas, each preceded by a salok that announces its theme. The opening couplet sets the whole work's direction, remembering, remembering the Name in remembrance, I find peace, and the first sections unfold the fruits of simran, the remembrance of God's Name, as the cure of suffering and the companion of the soul.
Later sections praise the sant, the holy person in whose company the Name is found, describe the brahmgiani, the knower of God, in verses of mounting wonder, and insist that the Name upholds all creatures and all worlds. The work is contemplative rather than narrative, circling its single theme through every human condition, wealth and poverty, honour and disgrace, sickness and death, always returning to the same medicine. Sikh tradition remembers it as composed at Ramsar in Amritsar, and its poised, unhurried metre has made it the scripture's most sustained meditation on interior peace.