The Book of Nanak

by Navtej Sarna

  On another occasion, when the fields were ready with their ripe crops, Rai Bular rode out with his servants to measure the fields. When they were returning in the hot summer afternoon, he saw that at a distance a boy was sleeping under a tree while his cattle grazed in the pasture. This by itself would not have attracted Rai Bular’s attention but he had noticed a strange phenomenon. The shadows of all the other trees had moved, following the dictates of the movement of the sun. Only the shadow of the tree under which the boy slept had not moved. It had stood still, as if its only purpose was to provide shade to the sleeping boy. Rai Bular sent his servants to see who the boy was. They noticed that it was none other than Nanak, son of Kalu, and roused him. When Rai Bular saw Nanak, he got off his horse and embraced the boy, marvelling at the blessings of the Almighty on him. Later Rai Bular told Mehta Kalu: ‘Your child is an exalted being. The village of Talwandi has been blessed by the presence of a great personality.’

  The Bala janamsakhi tells the story of how, on another occasion, Rai Bular also witnessed a cobra spreading its hood over the face of the sleeping Nanak to protect it from the sharp rays of the sun at high noon. Rai Bular thus became one of the earliest followers of Guru Nanak. His belief and faith in Nanak’s teachings grew from day to day. On several occasions, when Mehta Kalu would grow angry or dejected at the unworldly attitudes of his son, Rai Bular would console him: ‘Nanak is a gem, Kalu, a man of God. Do not treat him like an ordinary person, do not rebuke him or berate him.’

  Around this time, Nanak’s marriage was arranged by his parents with Sulakhani, daughter of Mula, an inhabitant of Palihoke Randhawa village near Batala. In all probability, it was much later, when Nanak was nineteen and in Sultanpur that his wife came to live with him and bore him two sons—Sri Chand born in 1494 and Lakhmidas born in 1496. Sri Chand renounced worldly affairs and founded the ascetic order of Udasis, while Lakhmidas married and raised a family.

  Nevertheless, the predicament of Nanak’s parents was not easy to resolve. Out of their genuine concern for him, they wanted him to take up some occupation that a Khatri boy of his age was expected to be involved in—farm the land, keep shop or take up trading. However, the efforts of his father to convince him to involve himself in one of these activities bore no fruit. Nanak remained lost in meditation, happy in the company of wandering faqirs and sadhus. On one occasion this predeliction to distracted solitude took a serious turn. Nanak stopped stirring out of the house and ate or drank little for several days. The parents were deeply concerned and at a loss as to what to do. Some relatives urged them to call a physician to tend to the boy. Mehta Kalu went and got the village physician, Hardas. When Hardas tried to feel Nanak’s pulse to diagnose the illness, Nanak stirred and told him that his suffering was not due to any ailment of the body:

  The physician has been called to cure me

  Holding my arm, he feels for the pulse

  Little does the simple physician know,

  The pain is in the soul.

  —Var Malhar

  After discoursing with Nanak, the physician announced to the gathered relatives that they ought not to worry about the child’s welfare. He was not an ordinary person but a great being. Much to the joy of his grateful parents, Nanak eventually regained his appetite and his health.

  Still meaning to arouse his interest in the affairs of the world, Kalu once gave Nanak twenty silver coins. He told him to go and invest them in a profitable manner by purchasing goods such as salt and turmeric from the nearby market town of Chuharkana and then selling them at a profit. Bala, a Sandhu Jat, was assigned to accompany Nanak and to assist him. ‘Make a truly good bargain,’ his father said, as he watched his son and Bala go on their way.

  Their way lay through a forest where they came upon a group of sadhus, performing penance of all kinds. Their chief told Nanak that they were a group of nirbani sadhus, who wore no clothes and ate only when the Almighty sent food. In the event, Nanak discovered that they had not eaten for several days. Nanak knew that he had found the best bargain that he could ever hope to strike. He reached the market town, and ignoring Bala’s protests, spent all the money that his father had given him on buying provisions—wheat, sugar, ghee—for the sadhus. On returning home, Bala recounted the events to Mehta Kalu, and fearing his ire, clarified that Nanak paid no heed to his advice. Nanak, anticipating his father’s angry reaction, did not go home but sat under a tree outside the village. When Kalu found him and began to berate him for wasting the money, it was once again Nanaki and Rai Bular who prevailed upon Mehta Kalu to treat Nanak as distinct from the ordinary.

  But Nanaki was soon to leave Talwandi. One day Jairam, a Khatri revenue official of Sultanpur, in the employ of the governor of Lahore, Nawab Daulat Khan Lodhi, came to Talwandi to assess the revenue demand of the village. Noting the presence of a number of good Khatri families in the village, Jairam sought Rai Bular’s advice in the matter of finding a bride for himself. Rai Bular suggested that Jairam seek the hand of Mehta Kalu’s daughter Nanaki. Thus the thirteen-year-old Nanaki was married to Jairam and left her parents and her beloved younger brother to accompany her husband to Sultanpur. Nanak’s deep attachment to his sister and the mutual respect in which he and Jairam held each other were to provide a fitting cause for him to move to Sultanpur some years later.

  The Divine Call at Sultanpur

  The prosperous town of Sultanpur lay at the confluence of the Sutlej and Beas rivers. It was built by Daulat Khan Lodhi, who ruled there as the governor of Jallandhar doab. In all probability it was built on the site of the old Tamasvana Buddhist monastery, which finds mention in the writings of the great traveller, Hieun Tsang.

  While Mehta Kalu and other family members became despondent with the lack of interest that Nanak showed in worldly affairs, his brother-in-law, Jairam, had formed a very postive impression of him. He and Rai Bular felt that Nanak was a saint and was misunderstood by his father. After Nanaki had settled with Jairam in Sultanpur, Jairam wrote a letter to Mehta Kalu, inviting Nanak to come and stay with them in Sultanpur, expressing his hope that he could find employment for Nanak. Though it was not customary for a younger brother to go and stay at the house of his married elder sister, Kalu consulted Rai Bular and agreed to let Nanak go, thinking that the change would prove to be good for him. So Nanak set out for Sultanpur, blessed by his parents and seen off by childhood friends and companions. Among the companions that he left behind was Mardana, the Muslim dum or musician, who used to accompany him on a reed rabab when he sang his hymns in Talwandi. Mardana was to eventually join Nanak in Sultanpur and accompany him on his extensive travels.

  The journey from Talwandi to Sultanpur took five days. On the way Nanak crossed the Ravi near Lahore and the Beas near Goindwal. When he finally arrived in Sultanpur, Nanaki’s joy knew no bounds. In a few days, Jairam fixed an audience for Nanak with the governor, Daulat Khan Lodhi. The governor was immensely impressed with Nanak’s appearance and demeanour and offered to appoint him his storekeeper. This was an important charge those days as the taxes were collected in kind and the salaries were at least partly paid out in grains and provisions. Nanak began to apply himself fully to his job, spending his days hard at work at the modikhana or the comissariat. From all accounts, Daulat Khan was very pleased with his work. At one stage, some detractors spread the canard that Nanak was giving away food grain from the official store. But when an investigation took place, the balance was found to be in favour of the storekeeper. While he worked he remained deeply engrossed in the meditation of the supreme being. Once, when he was weighing the rations, he reached the figure thirteen, or tera in Punjabi. He kept repeating tera, tera, tera because it also meant ‘Thine, Thine, Thine, all is Thine’.

  Thus, Nanak’s spiritual quest continued unabated. He had formed a group of companions with whom he prayed and meditated in the evenings. Mard
ana was sent by Mehta Kalu from Talwandi to check how Nanak was doing. When he arrived in Sultanpur, he decided to stay there as Guru Nanak’s companion.

  Early morning, before the crack of dawn, Nanak would go and bathe in the Bein river that flowed to the north-west of the town. There he would remain absorbed in the contemplation of the Almighty and remembrance of the divine name. One day he did not return home after his morning bath; later his clothes were found on the bank of the river, leading people to think that he had been taken by the current. Daulat Khan himself visited the river bank, and when the fishermen’s nets that had been flung into the water to retrieve the body turned up empty, he too lamented the loss of his ‘good minister’.

  After three days, to the utter amazement of all, Nanak reappeared. The janamsakhis explain the disappearance as a mystical communion with the Almighty. In the court of God, His grace was bestowed upon him as Nanak was given the cup of the truthful name and a robe of honour. It is during this experience, say the janamsakhis, that Nanak uttered the lines which form the essence of his message, the first stanza of the Japji, which represents the essence of Guru Nanak’s teachings and is the authentic revelation of supreme reality:

  There is but one God, True is His Name,

  The Creator, Fearless, without rancour,

  Timeless, Unborn, Self-existent

  By God’s grace he is known

  Meditate on Him

  He was True

  In the beginning, in the Primal time,

  O Nanak, True He is and will be hereafter.

  On his reappearance, Nanak was silent, leading the townspeople to believe that he had been taken over by an evil spirit. When he finally spoke, his words surprised everyone: ‘There is no Hindu and there is no Mussalman.’

  To him this was a simple statement of the essential equality of all human beings, irrespective of creed. But in a society segregated on the basis of religion, a society in which creed and caste were the basis of everything, such a statement was heresy. News of Nanak’s astounding utterance reached the Qazi of Sultanpur. The Qazi strode in anger to Daulat Khan Lodhi and urged him to summon Nanak to his court. Daulat Khan was however inclined to take a more generous view and to dismiss the comment as one which could be uttered by a faqir. But the Qazi was insistent. Finally Daulat Khan sent his messengers to bring Nanak before him. When Nanak appeared in court, it was time for the afternoon namaz and he accompanied the nawab and the Qazi to the mosque. There he stood by as the Qazi knelt to conduct the prayers. This further angered the Qazi who complained again to the nawab that though Nanak preached that there was no difference between Hindus and Muslims, he refused to kneel in prayer with the Muslims.

  ‘Whose prayer do I join?’ asked Nanak. ‘The Qazi is only repeating empty words. His mind is on his new born foal running loose in his yard. He is worried that the foal may fall into the well. And as for you, respected governor, you were thinking of purchasing horses in Kabul.’ Both the Qazi and the governor admitted that their minds had indeed not been in the prayer. In the Granth Sahib, Nanak says:

  It is not easy to be called a Musalman:

  If one be truly so, let him be so known.

  First, he should take to heart his faith

  And rid himself of all pride

  Become a true disciple of the Prophet

  And overcome the illusion of life and death;

  He should accept the will of God Supreme,

  Believe in the Creator, efface his ego

  When he is merciful to all living beings, O Nanak,

  Then will he be called a Musalman.

  —Var Majh

  On hearing these words, the nawab fell at Nanak’s feet. All questions had been answered and all doubts had been set at rest. Nanak, to fulfil his role as the divine messenger, was now ready to leave Sultanpur to spread the divine word in all directions. Daulat Khan begged Nanak not to leave Sultanpur, placing at his disposal his dominion and authority, but Nanak was beyond temptations. The path that he had to follow lay clearly before him:

  Were there to be palaces of pearls, studded with gems,

  Plastered with musk, saffron and sandal

  And their very sight should fill the heart with joy;

  May I not even then forget Thy thoughts,

  And neglect to meditate on Thy Name!

  —Raga Sri

  Bhai Gurdas sums up Guru Nanak’s Sultanpur experience thus:

  First he found the door to Heaven

  And then worked hard to gain His Grace

  Eating what he found, sleeping where he could,

  He meditated deeply and attuned with the Divine

  And was awarded the Divine Name and Humility

  He saw only suffering in all directions

  Without God, only darkness everywhere

  He set out then to spread the word.

  —Var I, 24

  It was in the year 1496 that the twenty-seven-yearold Nanak bid goodbye to Sultanpur. To his beloved sister Nanaki, he gave a special blessing—he would visit her whenever she wished it deep in her heart.

  Today several shrines mark Guru Nanak’s stay in Sultanpur—Gurdwara Hatti Sahib used to be Nanak’s store; Kothri Sahib is the room where he used to settle the account with the nawab; Guru Ka Bagh was the residence of Jairam and Nanaki; Sant Ghat commemorates the place of Nanak’s immersion in the Bein rivulet.

  And the Baba Went Along the Way . . .

  Guru Nanak spent as many as twenty-three years on the road, carrying out the mission that he was charged with—to spread the ultimate truth and to put mankind on the path to salvation. In the days when there were no fast or sophisticated means of travel, Nanak visited Assam in the east, present-day Sri Lanka in the south, Mount Kailash in the north and Mecca in the west. His mission took him to snowy heights and across burning deserts, through little villages and mighty capitals, among the ordinary as well as the learned, to fairs and festivals, to temples, mosques and Sufi khanaqahs. In the poetic vision of Bhai Gurdas: ‘The Baba traversed the nine regions of the earth, as far as the land stretched.’ Gurdwaras and shrines mark Nanak’s travels to far-flung places; local legends and evidence such as well-preserved impressions of Nanak’s wooden sandals further establish the fact that Nanak travelled extensively.

  Nanak was accompanied by Mardana on his travels, who carried his rabab. He dressed in strange clothes that could not be identified with any sect and symbolized the universality of his message. He wore the long, loose shirt of a Muslim dervish but in the brownish-red colour of the Hindu sanyasi. Around his waist he wore a white kafni or cloth belt like a faqir. A flat, short turban partly covered a Qalandar’s cap on his head in the manner of Sufi wanderers. On his feet, he wore wooden sandals, each of a different design and colour. Sometimes, it is said, he wore a necklace of bones around his neck.

  The first udasi or spiritual mission, of Guru Nanak, which was to take him to the east, began with a series of short trips within Punjab. Soon after Nanak and Mardana started the journey from Sultanpur Mardana complained of hunger, as he was to do on several occasions in the years to come. Guru Nanak pointed out to him the village of Uppal Khatris and told him that if he went there, all his desires would be met. When Mardana reached the village, he was not only fed to his heart’s content but was also given a bundle of clothes and money. When he brought the bundle back with him, Guru Nanak laughed. He advised Mardana to throw away the bundle and told him not to accept such encumbrances on their journey.

  As they crossed the Beas, Nanak came across a grove of trees that enclosed a natural lake. Charmed by the spot, he meditated under a berry tree. The tree still stands on the north embank
ment of the lake at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. From there Nanak went on to Lahore for a brief visit and then came back to the village of Talwandi. His ageing parents and Rai Bular, his great admirer, were delighted to see him. It also gave Mardana a chance to spend time with his friends and family.

  From Talwandi, Nanak and Mardana proceeded to the north-west for about sixty miles until they came upon the town of Saidpur Sandiali. This town was later to be sacked by Babar and renamed Eminabad, after the name of a waterman’s wife who gave him parched gram to eat.

  On reaching Saidpur, Nanak proceeded straight to the house of Lalo, a humble carpenter, avoiding the rich houses of the city. Mardana watched, fascinated, as Nanak talked to the poor hard-working carpenter in a gentle voice and shared his coarse bread as if it were a sumptuous dish of food. Lalo was soon captivated by the sweet and serene message of the Guru. He requested the Guru to stay a little longer in his humble dwelling. Since the association was against popular custom the word soon spread that a holy man who went by the name of Nanak and who was born in a Khatri family in nearby Talwandi was staying with a low-caste carpenter. Meanwhile Malik Bhago, a rich Hindu diwan of the Muslim local chief of Saidpur, threw a feast in which he invited all the sadhus and faqirs in the vicinity. On the day of the feast, a veritable crowd gathered around the rich man’s house. However, it was reported to him that the Khatri faqir who was staying with the low-caste carpenter had chosen not to attend the feast. Malik Bhago was curious and angry. Messengers were sent immediately to bring Nanak to the feast. When Guru Nanak reached the festivities, Malik Bhago asked him the reason for not attending the feast. ‘Do you find the food at the house of your casteless host better than mine?’ he asked.