Ten Verses on True Worship

Tav-Prasad Savaiye is a composition of ten stanzas, drawn from the longer Akal Ustat (praise of the timeless one) attributed to Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, and appointed as one of the prayers of the daily morning devotions and part of the initiation rite of the Khalsa. Its verses are given over almost entirely to the rejection of empty external religiosity: they survey the ascetics, yogis, pilgrims and devotees of many paths who mortify the body and perform outward rites without attaining God, and insist that without true love and inward devotion none of these avails. The composition thus turns the worshipper away from ritual display toward sincere love of the divine, a theme central to Sikh teaching. Preserved in the Dasam Granth, the collection associated with the tenth Guru, it is recited daily by observant Sikhs and forms part of the prayers said at the preparation of amrit for initiation, giving it a particular place in the devotional discipline of the Khalsa.

The verses' sweeping survey of ascetic practice, penance, pilgrimage and ritual observance across multiple religious traditions of the Guru's time has made the composition a frequently cited example of the broader Sikh critique of external religiosity, a theme that runs through Guru Nanak's own compositions as well and that later commentators treat as one of the tradition's most consistent teachings across its ten Gurus. Its inclusion in both the daily prayers and the initiation ceremony gives the same critique a place in both ordinary devotion and the formal entry into the Khalsa community.