Composed in vernacular languages, the Gināns are devotional hymns that have served to embody the essentials of Ismāʿīlī doctrine in literary forms accessible on a popular level to the Nizārī communities of India and Pakistan. This paper concerns itself with the analysis of the Gināns from two interrelated perspectives. On the one hand, the Gināns are read as a genre of narrative literature. Indeed, a major theme found in the Gināns centers on the figure of the Guide (guru) who leads the faithful along the True Path (satpanth) to the realization of spiritual knowledge. The Gināns thus furnish a comprehensive narrative of initiation whereby the itinerant soul is guided to ever greater proximity to Truth. The stages of this narrative are described in detail in the Ginān Būjh Nirañjan, which conceives of the journey of the soul in terms of the hierarchical metaphysics of the "Oneness of Being" (waḥdat al-wujūd). Importantly, the doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd was first articulated in the Ṣūfī thought of Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240 CE) and his school; it was later introduced into the Ginān tradition under the influence of the Qādirī Ṣūfī order. On the other hand, this paper analyzes what I refer to as the “hermeneutic efficacy” of the Gināns. As a popular vehicle of expression for Ismāʿīlī doctrine, the Gināns are read as poetic performances of the fundamental Ismāʿīlī principle of spiritual hermeneutics (taʾwīl). In its classical formulation, the hermeneutics of taʾwīl propose to lead the outward forms of positive religion (e.g. scripture, law, etc.) to their inward, spiritual signification. However, the Gināns transpose the intellectual abstractions of classical taʾwīl into an overtly devotional and ritual context, thereby rendering taʾwīl as an efficacious practice. In other words, through the lived experience of the Gināns in song and prayer, the soul enacts the narrative along the True Path as a hermeneutic traversing the metaphysical landscape of waḥdat al-wujūd from outward multiplicity to inward unity. As narratives of hermeneutic efficacy, then, the Gināns themselves function as virtual Guides along the True Path. In arguing these points, this paper makes reference primarily to examples drawn directly from the Ginān tradition, and secondarily to earlier Ismāʿīlī and Ṣūfī literature that serves to situate the themes of narrative and hermeneutics within a broader context of the history of ideas.