Vol. I — Life of Guru Nanak, Chapter I

To recapitulate what has been more fully stated in the Introduction, Guru Nanak. the founder of the Sjkh religion, was born, according to all ancient Sikh rprords. in the early morningjpf the third day oL th£ light half of thp month of Raisakh (April-May) in the__y£Sr_ AiD._ 1469 ; but for convenience sake his anniversary is now observed by the Sikhs on the occasion of the full moon in the month of Kartik (October-November). F^ father, who was called Kalu, was accountant in the village of Talwandi in the prespTit-JLahor-ft. District of the Panjab, and his mother was Tripta. memorable in Sikh writings for her_devation to her son.

The Sikh biographers recount in minute detail all the circumstances of the birth of Guru Nanak. Daulatan, a midwife, assisted on the occasion. When next morning interrogated by the astrologer Hardial, who came to write the child's horoscope, as to the nature of the voice uttered by him at birth, she said it was as the laughing voice of a wise man joining a social gathering ; and she expressed herself at her wits' end to comprehend the child's nature. The astrologer desired to see him, but his mother refused owing to the chillness of the weather. He pressed the matter, and the child was brought to him in his swaddling clothes. The astrologer on seeing the infant is said to have worshipped him with clasped hands. He declared the child should wear the umbrella, the symbol of regal or prophetic dignity in the East. At the same time he regretted that he should never live to see young Nanak's eminence, worshipped as he should be alike by Hindus and Musalmans, and not merely by Hindus

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as in the previous human manifestations of the Creator. The child's name should resound both in earth and heaven. Inanimate nature should cry out ' Nanak, Nanak ! ' He should have power over matter so as to traverse unscathed the depths of the ocean. He should worship and acknowledge but one God, and the creature he should treat as a creature. In other words he should be a mono- theist, not a worshipper of minor deities and idols.

At the unripe age of five years Nanak is said to have begun to talk of divine subjects, and to have fully understood the meaning of his language. Great trust was reposed in him ; and both Hindus and Musalmans lavished on him their characteristic language of religious adulation.

At Nankana 1 every place with which Nanak had any association is deemed sacred. On the spot where he used to play with children of his own age and subsequently spend nights in devotion, there was a small tank constructed by Rai Bular, the landlord of the village, in affectionate remembrance of the childhood of the Guru, at a time when his fame had extended far and wide. The tank was greatly enlarged by Kaura Mai, the Diwan or financial minister of Zakaria Khan, who was satrap of Lahore. Kaura Mai was an enthusiastic admirer of Guru Nanak, and lent his great material and political influence to the amelioration of the condition of the Sikhs. The spot is called Balkrira or the child's playground.

When Nanak was seven years of age, his father in the manner of Hindus asked the village astrologer to select an auspicious time for the commencement of the boy's education. The schoolmaster thought the time had arrived. The school appears to have been a humble one, and the tuition fees not exorbitant. Kalu's wife and not, as in modern times, the village money lender was the custodian of the wealth of the house. Kalu took from her a coin corresponding to three

LIFE OF GURU NANAK 3

farthings of English money, some betel-nut, and rice, and presented them to the schoolmaster with his son. In India wooden tablets painted black are employed in teaching children the letters of their language. The schoolmaster writes the letters with a kind of liquid chalk on the tablet ; and the children repeat their names aloud with much noise and energy. The schoolmaster wrote the alphabet for Nanak, and the latter copied it from memory after one day.

It is said that on that occasion the young Guru made an acrostic on his alphabet. As in similar compositions in other languages, the letters were taken consecutively, and words whose initials they formed were employed to give metrical expression to the Guru's divine aspirations, his tenets, and his admiration of the attributes of the Creator.

The acrostic called the patti or tablet in the Rag l Asa is as follows : —

S. The one Lord who created the world is the Lord of all. Fortunate is their advent into the world, whose

hearts remain attached to God's service. O foolish man, why hast thou forgotten Him ? When thou adjustest thine account, my friend,

thou shalt be deemed educated.

I. The Primal Being is the Giver ; He alone is true. No account shall be due by the pious man who understandeth by means of these letters.

B 2

U. Praise Him whose limit cannot be found.

They who practise truth and perform service shall

obtain their reward.

N. He who knoweth divine knowledge is the learned pandit.1 He who knoweth the one God in all creatures

would never say ' I exist by myself '. K. When the hair groweth white, it shineth without

soap. King Death's hunters follow him who is bound

by the chain of mammon.2 K1I. The Creator, Lord of the world, giveth sustenance

to His slaves. All the world is bound in His bonds ; no other

authority prevaileth. G. He who hath renounced the singing of God's word,

is arrogant in his language. He who fashioned vessels made kilns in which He

put them and burnt them. GH. The servant who performeth the Guru's3 work, who

remaineth obedient to His commands, Who deemeth bad and good as the same, shall in

this way be absorbed in Him. CH. He who made the four Veds,4 the four mines,5 and

the four ages,6

Hath been in every age a Jogi, a worldly man, or a learned pandit.

LIFE OF GURU NANAK 5

CHH. God's shadow is over everything ; doubt is His

doing.

O God, having created doubt, Thou Thyself lead- est man astray. They whom Thou favourest meet the Guru.

J. Thy slave, who wandered in the eighty-four lakhs1 of existences, beggeth and prayeth for divine knowledge. ^\ There is One who taketh, One who giveth ; I have

heard of none other. JH. Why die of grief, O mortal ? What God hath to

give He continueth to give. He giveth, beholdeth and issueth His orders how

living things are to obtain sustenance. N. When I look carefully I see no other than God. ^ - The one God pervadeth all places ; the one God

dwelleth in the heart. T. 0 mortals, why practise deceit ? Ye shall have to

depart in a ghari 2 or two. Lose not the play of your lives, run and fall under

God's protection. TH. Comfort pervadeth the hearts of those whose minds

are attached to God's feet. They whose minds are so attached are saved, 0

Lord, and obtain happiness by Thy favour. D. O mortal, why make display ? all that existeth is

transitory. Serve Him who pervadeth all things, and thou

shalt obtain happiness. DH. He Himself destroy eth and buildeth ; He acteth

as He pleaseth.

He beholdeth the work of His hands, issueth His orders, and saveth those on whom He looketh with favour. N. He in whose heart God dwelleth singeth His praises.

The Creator blendeth men with Himself, and they

are not born again. T. The terrible ocean1 is deep, and none findeth its

end. We have no boat or raft ; we are drowning ; save

us, O Saviour King. TH. He who made all things is in every place.

What do men call doubt ? What mammon ?

That which pleaseth God is good. D. Impute not blame to any one, but rather to thine

own karma.2 I have suffered the consequences of my acts ; I

may blame no one else. DH. He who made things after their kinds holdeth the

power in His own hands.

All receive what He giveth under His most bounti ful order. N. The Master ever enjoyeth pleasure ; He cannot be

seen or grasped. I am called a married woman, my sister, but in

reality I have never met my Husband.3 P. The King, the Supreme God, made the play of the

world to behold it.

He seeth, understandeth, and knoweth everything ; y He is within and without His creation. PH. The whole world is entangled with a noose and

bound by Death's chain.

They who by the Guru's favour have run to God for protection, are saved.

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B. God began to play by making the four ages His

chaupar board.1 He made men and lower animals His dice, and

began to throw them Himself. BH. They who search and feel fear by the favour of

the Guru obtain the fruit thereof. The perverse, fools that they are, wander and heed not, and so transmigrate in the eighty-four lakhs of animals. M. God destroy eth worldly love ; is it only at death

man is to remember Him ? Other thoughts possess man and he forgetteth the

letter M.2 Y. If man recognize the True One, he shall not be

born again.

The holy man uttereth, the holy man understand- eth, the holy man knoweth but the one God. R. God pervadeth all the creatures He hath made. Having created creatures He appointed them all to their duties ; they to whom He is kind take His name. L. He who appointed creatures to their duties, made

worldly love sweet. He giveth eating and drinking equally to all, and

ordereth them as He pleaseth. W. The Supreme Being who created the vesture of the

world to behold it, Seeth, tasteth, and knoweth everything ; He is

contained within and without the world. R. Why quarrel, O mortal ? meditate on God, under

whose order is creation. Meditate on Him ; be absorbed in the True One ;

and be a sacrifice unto Him.

H. There is no other Giver than He who created crea tures and gave them sustenance. Meditate on God's name ; be absorbed in God's

name, and thou shall night and day derive profit therefrom. A. What God who made the world hath to do He con-

tinueth to do.

He acteth and causeth others to act ; He knoweth everything ; thus saith the poet Nanak.

Nanak appears to have continued to attend school for some time. One day he was observed to remain silent, and not apply himself to his books. The schoolmaster asked him why he was not reading. Nanak inquired, ' Art thou sufficiently learned to teach me ? ' The schoolmaster replied that he had read everything. He knew the Veds and Shastars,1 and he had learned to cast up accounts, post ledgers and daybooks, and strike balances. Upon this Nanak said, ' To your accomplishments I prefer the study of divine knowledge '. He then composed the following hymn :—

Burn worldly love, grind its ashes and make it into ink ; 2 turn superior intellect into paper.

Make divine love thy pen, and thy heart the writer ; ask thy guru and write his instruction.

Write God's name, write His praises, write that He hath neither end nor limit.

0 master, learn to write this account,

So that, whenever it is called for, a true mark may be found thereon.

There3 greatness is obtained, everlasting joys, and ever lasting delights.

They in whose hearts is the true Name, have the marks of it on their brows.

LIFE OF GURU NANAK 9

By God's mercy men obtain it and not by idle words.

One man cometh, another goeth ; we give them great names.1

Some men God created to beg, and some to preside over great courts.

When they have departed, they shall know that without the Name 2 they are of no account.

I greatly fear Thine anger ; 0 God, my body pineth and wasteth away.

They who have been called kings and lords are beheld as ashes.

Nanak,3 when man departeth all false affections are sundered.4

Upon this the schoolmaster became astonished, did Nanak homage as a perfect saint, and told him to do what he pleased.

Nanak, having thus shown his scholastic profi ciency, left school and took to private study and meditation. He remained for long periods in the same attitude, whether sleeping or waking, and associated continually with religious men.

The scholastic ignorance of the founders of great

io THE SIKH RELIGION

religions has been made the subject of many a boast on the part of their followers. The object, of course, is that the acquirements and utterances of the religious teachers may be attributed solely to divine inspiration. We see no reason for ascribing a want of education to the founder of the Sikh religion ; and the manner in which his learning was acquired is not difficult to understand. Had he remained at the humble village school, there is no reason to suppose that he would have acquired any considerable knowledge, but in the dense forests around Talwandi were to be found ascetics and anchorets who sought the extreme retirement of the locality for the com bined objects of undisturbed prayer and escape from the persecution of bigoted Moslem rulers. All the Janamsakhis are unanimous in stating that Nanak courted the retirement of the forest and the society of the religious men who frequented it. Several of them were profoundly versed in the Indian religious literature of the age. They had also travelled far and wide within the limits of Hindustan, and met its renowned religious teachers. Nanak thus became acquainted with the latest teachings of Indian philosophers and reformers. The satisfaction which he derived from spiritual thought and religious association he thus expressed : — Let Jogis practise Jog,1 let gluttons practise gluttony, Let penitents practise penance, and rub and bathe them selves at places of pilgrimage ;

But let me listen to Thy songs, O Beloved, if any will sit and sing them to me.

The names of the men with whom Nanak associ ated in the forest and who sang to him the songs of the Lord are all lost, and their excellences merged as

connected with the Greek £uyov, originally meant the union of the soul with God, and may be compared with the etymo logical meaning of the word ' religion '. They who practised Jog were called Jogis. The word Jog is now applied to certain practices of the Jogis which are detailed in the Aphorisms of Patanjali.

LIFE OF GURU NANAK u

by a process of nirvan in the religious splendour of the founder of the Sikh religion. But more perhaps than learning from the lips of religious masters were his own undisturbed communings with nature, with his own soul, and with his Creator. The voice that had spoken to many a seer again became vocal in that wilderness, and raised Nanak's thoughts to the summit of religious exaltation. In summer's heat and winter's frost, in the glory of the firmament, in the changeful aspects of nature, as well as in the joys and sorrows of the inhabitants of his little natal vil lage, he read in bright characters and repeated with joyous iteration the name of the Formless Creator. The Name henceforth became the object of his continual worship and meditation and indeed one of the distinctive features of his creed.

As a man soweth so shall he reap ; as he earneth so shall he eat.

No inquiry shall be made hereafter regarding the utterers of the Name. With banners flying shall they go to heaven.1

Men are judged according to their acts.

The breath drawn without the thought of God is wasted in vain.

I would sell this body if only I found a purchaser.

Nanak, the body which is not filled with the true Name is of no account.2

There is also proof from the satisfactory internal evidence of his own compositions that Guru Nanak studied the Persian language. Kalu felt that the society of religious men was not likely to advance his son's secular interests. Rai Bular promised that if Nanak learned Persian, in which all state documents and accounts were then written, he would appoint him village accountant in succession to his father. Persian was never the tongue of Hindus, and was despised by them as the language of foreigners and conquerors

and of impure Musalman literature ; 1 but Hindus in the age of Nanak applied themselves to it as they do now — for the simple purpose of obtaining a liveli hood. Nanak soon astonished his Persian as he had previously astonished his Hindu teacher. In reply to Rukn-ul-Din's injunctions he assumed the role of teacher in turn and composed the following acrostic on the letters of the Persian alphabet : —

ALIF. Remember God and banish neglect of Him from

thy heart. Accursed the life of him in this world who breatheth

without uttering the Name. BE. Renounce heresy and walk according to the Shariat.2

Be humble before every one, and call no one bad. TE. Repent with sincerity of heart lest thou afterwards

grieve. Thy body shall perish : thy mouth shall be buried

with it ; what canst thou do then ? SE. Praise God very much ; draw not thy breath with out doing so, Or thou shalt be offered for sale from shop to shop,

and not an adh 3 shall be obtained for thee. JIM. Put together travelling expenses, and pack up where withal to go with thee :

Without the Lord thou shalt trudge about wearily. HE. Embrace humility, renounce the pride of thy heart ; Restrain thy wandering mind, O Rukn-ul-Din, and

every moment remember thy Creator. KHE. They were traitors who forgot their Creator ;

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Their minds were bent on the hoarding of wealth,

and they bore loads of sin upon their heads. DAL. Be honest, O man, and sleep not during the eight

watches of day and night.

Awake for one watch and hold converse with God. ZAL. Remember God, O man, vacillate not an iota ;

So shall hell fire not touch thee at all, and thy

covet ousness and worldly love be at an end. RE. The advantage of faith thou shalt know when thou

arrivest before God — Restrain the five evil passions,1 O Rukn-ul-Din, and

apply thy heart to God. ZE. Practise humility, the Lord is independent ;

He doeth what he pleaseth ; what certainty is there

regarding His acts ? SIN. Search thy heart ; the Lord is in thee.

The body is a vessel which He wrought, and into

which He infused His workmanship and skill. SHIN. Thou shalt obtain martyrdom if thou die for the

love of the dear One. O Rukn-ul-Din, this human body shall depart ;

while in it pray to obtain God. SUAD. Let thy mind be contented when thou obtainest

thine allotted food. God who gave thee the disease of hunger is thy

physician. ZUAD. God's splendour is lost for those who associate

themselves with worldly affairs. Arise, look before thee, and regard not the play of

the world. TOE. Embrace tariqat and enter upon marafat ; 2VX

This body of thine shall become a heap of dust in

the grave. ZOE. They were tyrants who heeded not the Name :

How can man obtain peace without his Master ? . 'AIN. Practise good works to the best of thy power :

Without good works and virtues man shall die full

of regret.

GHAIN. O Rukn-ul-Din, they are rich who know them selves— In this cage of the body God who hath neither mother

nor father sporteth.

FE. Have done with the world, and think it not thine own : If thou deem it to belong to God, thou shalt not be

confounded. QAF. They in whose hearts the love of God hath arisen

shall have no rest till they find Him. The bodies of those who have met the Lord God

have become refined gold.

KAF. Remember thy creed ; in what else is there profit ? O Rukn-ul-Din, be not excessively addicted to

sensuality. GAF. Man's mind is wanton ; if thou restrain it,

Thou shalt plant thy feet firmly on the way to

haqiqat.

LAM. May curses rain on those who abandon their prayers ! They lose whatever little or much they have

earned. MIM. Wilfulness is prohibited ; walk as thy religious guide

directeth thee. The wealth of those, saith Nanak, who have not

given alms shall slip away.

NUN. Look to truth alone, and know that the world is false. They who think the world is true shall die con founded. WAW. They become saints who associate with the true.

The more they remember God, the more they love

Him.

HE. Be in fear of that day when God will judge thee What order will He pass in our case, O Rukn-ul- Din ?

LAM. They on whom He casteth His look of mercy have become worthy.

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