Virsa — Sikh Heritage & Stories

Virsa is a mobile-friendly, accuracy-first guide to Sikh history, traditional accounts, Gurbani, Sikh teachings, and daily Nitnem practice.

Live website: https://subchibeats.github.io/sikh-virsa/

ੴ Virsa (ਵਿਰਸਾ) means heritage / inheritance — our roots, passed on.

What is inside

Section	What it does
Home	A daily reflection, practice streak, and the Ten Gurus at a glance.
Gurus & Figures	The Ten Gurus, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, and key historical figures.
Stories	Historical events and traditional accounts, labelled separately.
Wisdom	Gurbani lines, Ardas, teachings, and jaikara, each labelled by type and source.
Nitnem	Seven commonly recited banis, listening links, and a local practice tracker.
More	Festivals, the Five Ks, a glossary, historical Gurdwaras, and source notes.

Kids mode, light/dark themes, keyboard access, and responsive layouts are built in. The core app is static and has no project backend or analytics.

Optional Google Fonts, maps, audio, and external references use the network. Nitnem progress and settings stay in the browser's local storage.

Accuracy approach

Virsa is a doorway, not an authority.

• SGGS lines link to the relevant ang for reading in context.
• Ardas, jaikara, and Sikh principles are never labelled as SGGS verses.
• Stories distinguish historical events from traditional accounts.
• Disputed chronology is shown rather than hidden.
• Historical links are further-reading starting points, not proof by themselves.
• Translations and historical interpretations remain open to correction.

Read CONTENT-NOTES.md before changing or publishing content. Corrections supported by strong sources are welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Run locally

There is no build step and no package dependency.

python -m http.server 8125

Then open http://localhost:8125.

Validate content

The validator uses Node.js built-ins only:

node scripts/validate-content.mjs

It checks syntax, IDs, relationships, supported evidence/type labels, required fields, HTTPS source links, and SGGS ang references. GitHub Actions runs it on every push and pull request.

Content structure

All content lives in plain JavaScript data files:

assets/js/
  data-figures.js
  data-stories.js
  data-gurbani.js
  data-paaths.js
  data-fives.js
  data-festivals.js
  data-glossary.js
  data-gurdwaras.js

The interface is in assets/js/app.js and assets/css/styles.css.

Deploy

The repository can be served by any static host, including GitHub Pages or Netlify. No server-side configuration is required.