by Navtej Sarna
Several places in modern-day Assam, or Asa desh as it is known in the janamsakhis, also bear the marks of Guru Nanak’s visits and discourses. The most famous of these places is Dhubri, in Goalpara district, where the Guru is said to have met Shankardev, the Vaishnavite reformer. In the year 1667, the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur followed in Nanak’s footsteps and established a shrine at Dhubri in memory of Guru Nanak’s visit.
Guru Nanak’s travels through Assam led him to Guwahati and then on to Manipur, identified in the sakhis as the country of Bisiar. Moving in the southwestern direction, the Guru moved to Shillong, Sylhet, Chittagong and Dhaka. In Dhaka, as in many other places, there is a shrine called Charan Paduka (wooden sandals from holy feet) that is part of the strong local tradition supporting the visit of the Guru. Passing through Calcutta and Cuttack, the Guru is then said to have reached Puri in Orissa, the site of the famous temple of Jagannath.
Jagannath temple is known for its annual procession when the idol is mounted on a huge chariot and the multitudes that gather vie with each other for the privilege of pulling the chariot. It is an inexorable sea of humanity that moves with the idol, a phenomenon that gave the word ‘juggernaut’ to the English language. When Guru Nanak and Mardana camped near the temple, their hymns and music attracted several devotees on their way to the temple, annoying the temple priests. One day the chief priest, Krishanlal, came to Nanak and invited him to join the aarti, or the evening prayer, in the temple, and Guru Nanak readily accompanied him.
It was a beautiful ceremony, conducted at dusk. The priests placed earthen lamps filled with ghee on a bejewelled salver decorated with flower petals and sweet incense. They lit the wicks and swung the salver, pendulum-like, in front of the image while the congregation sang hymns, blew conches and tolled the bells that hung from the ceiling. Nanak sat unmoved through the ceremony, and when the priests expressed their anger at this, he responded with a song, that is now included in the Granth Sahib. This song describes a celestial aarti in which the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind, the forests and the unstruck music pay obeisance to the great creator. This, according to Nanak, was the only aarti that could be offered to God.
The sky the salver, the sun and moon the lamps,
The stars studding the heavens are the pearls
The fragrance of sandal is the incense
Fanned by the winds, all for Thee
The great forests are the flowers.
What a beautiful aarti is being performed
For you, O Destroyer of fear.
—Raga Dhanasari
More than three and a half centuries later, Debendranath Tagore, the father of Rabindranath, visited the Golden Temple and listened to this aarti being sung after the evening prayers. He was so moved by it that he decided to learn Gurmukhi to read the Adi Granth in the original. Later he included the entire song in the Bangla script in his autobiography. The visit to Jagannath Puri is also important for the meeting between Nanak and the Bengal reformer Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. It is on record that they talked to each other and sang hymns together.
According to the Puratan tradition, Guru Nanak’s first udasi ended at Jagannath Puri. From here, Nanak and Mardana returned towards the village of Talwandi and the town of Sultanpur. On the way, they travelled through the wild and dangerous areas of central India. Several stories are associated with this part of the travel, including the amazing story of Kauda, the cannibal-demon. This cannibal-demon seized Mardana and would have proceeded to add him to his list of victims but for Guru Nanak who came upon the scene and greeted him. There was such benign tranquillity in the Guru’s voice, such peace and love that Kauda stopped in mid-track, released Mardana and fell at the Guru’s feet. Guru Nanak and Mardana stayed with Kauda for seven days.
Mardana’s hunger and associated panic kept bothering him throughout the journey. Walking through the jungles another day, he complained again to Guru Nanak, ‘I will die of this hunger; there is no way out of this frightening jungle. Surely I will be eaten up by some wild beast. There will be no one left to tell all the tales of my travels to Rai Bular and Mehta Kalu.’ Guru Nanak asked Mardana to be patient and join him in singing a hymn to God, but Mardana claimed that he did not have the strength left in him to play the rabab. Guru Nanak then told him to eat the fruit from an overhanging branch. ‘Eat all you want,’ said the Guru, ‘but carry none with you.’ Mardana however was tempted, not only to eat his fill, but also to pack some for a later time. However, when he tried to eat the fruit later, it had lost its sweetness and only gave him an excruciating stomach ache. He confessed his transgression to the Guru and begged him to deliver him from the failing of human hunger once and for all.
During their journey, Guru Nanak and Mardana came upon a village whose inhabitants did not welcome them. Rather, they mocked them and refused them any hospitality. Guru Nanak blessed the village as they left, ‘May this village thrive.’ In sharp contrast, when they came upon a village that warmly welcomed them, the Guru only said, ‘May this village be deserted.’ Mardana could not help expressing his shock, ‘Where is the justice, O Master? Those who ill-treat us you bless and those who welcome us you wish to scatter.’ But Guru Nanak had his reasons. He explained that the inhabitants of the first village should confine their habits to themselves while the good villagers should go in all directions so that others may emulate them.
When at last they reached the familiar countryside near Talwandi, Guru Nanak stopped and sat down in the forest, three miles outside the village, while Mardana hurried homewards to check out how his family had fared in his absence. The word that Mardana the dum had come back spread like wildfire through the village. Nanak’s mother Tripta asked anxiously about her son. However, Mardana only said: ‘I was with the Baba in Sultanpur. After that, I do not know where he went.’ But Tripta took some clothes and sweets and followed Mardana as he walked out of the village. Thus she came upon the spot where her son sat. Her husband soon followed her, riding to that spot on horseback. There followed a warm reunion of Guru Nanak with his parents. The entire village, including Rai Bular, gathered to listen to the Guru and to hear the tales of their travels from Mardana. Mehta Kalu and Tripta tried their best to make Nanak give up his travels and return to family life. But Guru Nanak sought their blessings for continuing on his journeys to comply with God’s will.
On their way from Talwandi to Sultanpur, Guru Nanak and Mardana passed through Pakpattan, the ferry crossing over the Sutlej river. Pakpattan was famous as the town of Baba Farid, the thirteenth century-Muslim saint. Even Timur had spared the populace of this town out of respect for the saint who lay buried there. Nanak met with the sheikh’s successor, Sheikh Ibrahim, and the two had long spiritual discourses on the nature of God and worship. When Nanak had retired to rest and the sheikh was still in meditation, a villager left a bowl of milk for the two holy men and secretly slipped four gold mohurs in it. The sheikh poured out his share of milk and drank it. In the morning, he offered the rest to Nanak, saying triumphantly, ‘Those who keep awake obtain God’s bounty.’
The Guru replied, ‘Of God’s ways none can tell. Some miss his blessing when they are awake, others are woken up and overwhelmed with gifts.’ He then showed the sheikh the four mohurs that lay at the bottom of the bowl. When the villager came back for his bowl, he found that it had been turned into gold and was full of gold mohurs. He regretted that he had not wished for something greater from the men of God, perhaps salvation.
In 1509, Guru Nanak returned to Sultanpur, to his wife and sons, to sister Nanaki and Jairam. He had been thirteen years on the road.
As Far as the Land Stretched . . .
Before proceeding on his second udasi, the Guru left Sultanpur and took the ferry across the Beas river at Goindwal. Coming upon a village on the north bank, he stood at the doorway of a lon
e hut that was a little away from the village. This was the hut of a faqir suffering from leprosy, who was ostracized by the rest of the village. Nanak requested the faqir to let him spend the night in the hut. The leper was astounded. ‘Even beasts run away from me,’ he said, ‘I am indeed blessed that you should come here.’ Nanak then recited the shabad contained in the Granth Sahib:
The soul burns in agony and burning, loses its way repeatedly.
The body that forgets the Lord’s Name
Screams like a real leper.
To speak is in vain
For the Creator already knows everything.
. . . worldly attachments are the real scars
The one who departs from this world
With the scars of sin on his face
Finds no place in the Lord’s court.
—Raga Dhanasari
The faqir was cured of his illness and fell at the Guru’s feet.
Passing through the villages of Vairowal, Jalalabad and the Muslim village of Kiri Pathana, Nanak once again entered Lahore. A wealthy merchant by the name of Dhuni Chand welcomed him to his house. Elaborate ceremonies were taking place in the house on the occasion of the death anniversary of the merchant’s father. Brahmins were being fed rich delicacies in the belief that the food would reach the departed spirit. Guru Nanak noticed that seven flags were fastened on Dhuni Chand’s door and asked him as to what they signified.
‘Each one of them signifies one lakh rupees; together they signify the fortune I have collected in this world.’
Upon hearing that, Nanak gave Dhuni Chand a needle and said, ‘I am giving this to you for safe keeping. I will take it from you in the next world.’
The puzzled merchant took the needle to his wife and told her what the Guru had said. ‘Go back and return the needle to the Guru,’ she said. ‘Who takes anything from this world when he departs?’
Dhuni Chand got the message. Neither could he take his wealth with him nor would the food being fed to the Brahmins reach his father. If he gave to the needy in the name of the Lord, the merit of the good deed would go with him.
The Guru then came to the ancient town of Sialkot where he meditated under a ber tree at the edge of a graveyard. The place is even today known as Babe di Ber. He learnt that a Muslim pir, Shah Hamzah was bent on destroying the entire city because he was angry with one of its inhabitants named Ganga. Ganga, who had been childless, had sought the blessings of Shah and had promised to give him one of the children born to him. But when he became the father of three children he was unwilling to give up any of them. Shah Hamzah had cursed that the entire city be destroyed for that reason and was now fasting for forty days to make his curse come true. When the faqir emerged after his penance of forty days and went to see Guru Nanak, he was told to desist from destroying the entire city as it surely would have some good persons too. To prove this, Nanak wrote ‘falsehood’ and ‘truth’ on two slips of paper, and giving them to Mardana with two paise, told him to go to the town and purchase the two commodities. Mardana went from shop to shop but those who saw the slips were only puzzled by his demand. At last one shopkeeper named Mula took the slips of paper and wrote on one: ‘Death is the truth,’ and on the other: ‘Life is false.’ The Guru showed the piece of paper to the pir and convinced him that as long as people like Bhai Mula existed in Sialkot, the town should not be destroyed for the breach of promise by one of its inhabitants.
Probably in 1510, Guru Nanak was ready to undertake his second long journey, this time to the south. According to the Puratan janamsakhi, he was accompanied by two Jats, Saido and Gheho, although Mardana too is mentioned at places. He crossed the Sutlej near Bhatinda, and according to the diaries of wandering Bhatts or minstrels, he spent more than four months in Sirsa with Sufi saints, convincing them of the superiority of compassion and piety over the use of occult powers. Moving into Rajasthan, Nanak visited the Jain monks of the Dhundia sect at Bikaner. He preached that life and death, suffering and joy were matters that were in the hands of the Lord and it was a sin to live in the darkness of superstition.
At Ajmer, Nanak discoursed with Sufi leaders at the dargah of the revered Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chisti. In guiding the pirs on the true nature of their mission in life, he said:
Lust is the devil, wrath is forbidden, the world is unreal,
Truth is for the dervish, justice for the monarch, mercy for the faqir.
Just four miles away lay Pushkar, famous even today for its mela. There Nanak preached his message to those who had gathered to celebrate Baisakhi, the harvest festival of northern India. Thereafter Guru Nanak set his course clearly for the south, passing through several towns including Abu, Ujjain, Indore, Hoshangabad, Amravati, Hingoli, Bidar, Golconda, Ganpur, Guntoor, Arcot, Pondicherry, Tiruchchirappalli and Rameshwaram. Old gurdwaras exist at many of the above towns, notably Rameshwaram and Guntoor. He sailed across to Sri Lanka and is believed to have landed at the Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee. Close to Trincomalee is the old port of Mattiakulam, later changed by the Dutch to Batticaloa. During his stay in Sri Lanka, Nanak spent most of his time in the vicinity of this town. Recently discovered local traditions in a small village called Kurukul Mandal near Batticaloa trace their origin to the visit of a jagat guru, or world teacher, some five centuries ago.
According to the janamsakhis, there was a raja named Shivnabh in Sri Lanka at that time. In Shivnabh’s territory lived a trader called Mansukh, who had once been a jeweller in Lahore and was influenced by Guru Nanak’s teachings. Shivnabh soon learnt that Mansukh did not follow traditional Hindu rituals—he did not worship idols, keep fasts or observe other religious austerities. Instead, he would rise before dawn, bathe in cold water, and then recite the Japji of Nanak. After the sun rose, he would go about his worldly business, and in the evening he again sang the hymns of his Guru. When Shivnabh desired to know more about these beliefs, Mansukh explained that the sight of an exalted being, a man called Nanak, had freed him from the practice of meaningless ritual and put him on the path to salvation. Shivnabh was curious to meet Nanak. Mansukh assured him that should he wish it in his heart, Guru Nanak would surely visit him. Soon Shivnabh’s curiosity turned into an ardent desire to meet Guru Nanak. Finally, one day he was informed that a holy man and his companions had come to his gardens. Shivnabh thought that perhaps what Mansukh had said had indeed come true. To ascertain whether this man was truly the Guru that he sought, Shivnabh first sent beautiful dancing girls to dance before the Guru. The Guru was not distracted and remained lost in meditation. Then Shivnabh came down himself and posed several questions to Nanak. Among these, he asked him whether he followed the Muslim or the Hindu way of life. Nanak’s reply was:
The True Guru has solved the problem of the two paths
He who meditates on the One God and wavers not, shall understand.
—Raga Maru
Nanak talked at length to Shivnabh and his wife about the ways of God and the mystery of existence. The Raja had himself long pondered the eternal questions, troubled as he was by his unfulfilled yearning for a son. During the Guru’s stay, Raja Shivnabh and his wife looked after him like true disciples. After the Guru left, their fervent wish for a child was fulfilled and a son was born to them.
It was during his stay of more than two years in Sri Lanka that Nanak is said to have composed the ‘Pransangali’, a poem in twenty-one stanzas that describes the true religious reality—the supreme state in which there is no rejoicing or mourning, no hopes or desires. However, the authenticity of this composition is disputed, which is why it is not included in the Adi Granth. Nanak also travelled to other parts of the country—Katargama, Sitawaka, Mannar and Anuradhapura where a preserved inscription, also disputed, refers to him as Jnanakacarya.
The return journey of the
second udasi took Nanak and his companions along the western ghats, including towns such as Nasik, Ankla, Baroda, Junagadh, Dwarka, Bhuj, and finally back to Rajputana and Punjab. When they reached the outskirts of Multan, they were met by a delegation of Sufi pirs. They offered Guru Nanak a cup of milk, full to the brim. The implication of this gesture was that in Multan, known for its pirs and saints, including the descendants of Sheikh Bahauddin Zakaria, there was no place for one more holy man. The Guru, it is said, took a jasmine petal and let it float gently on the surface of the milk, implying that his presence would not uproot anyone. The discourses that he then proceeded to hold with the pirs showed them the path to humility and self-knowledge.