Sri
Guru Nanak Dev ji was born in 1469 in Talwandi, a village in the
Sheikhupura district, 65 kms. west of Lahore. His father was a village
official in the local revenue administration. As a boy, Sri Guru Nanak
learnt, besides the regional languages, Persian and Arabic. He was
married in 1487 and was blessed with two sons, one in 1491 and the
second in 1496. In 1485 he took up, at the instance of his
brother-in-law, the appointment of an official in charge of the stores
of Daulat Khan Lodhi, the Muslim ruler of the area at Sultanpur. It is
there that he came into contact with Mardana, a Muslim minstrel (Mirasi)
who was senior in age.
By all accounts, 1496 was the year of
his enlightenment when he started on his mission. His first statement
after his prophetic communion with God was "There is no Hindu, nor any
Mussalman." This is an announcement of supreme significance it declared
not only the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, but also his
clear and primary interest not in any metaphysical doctrine but only in
man and his fate. It means love your neighbour as yourself. In
addition, it emphasised, simultaneously the inalienable spirituo-moral
combination of his message. Accompanied by Mardana, he began his
missionary tours. Apart from conveying his message and rendering help to
the weak, he forcefully preached, both by precept and practice, against
caste distinctions ritualism, idol worship and the pseudo-religious
beliefs that had no spiritual content. He chose to mix with all. He
dined and lived with men of the lowest castes and classes Considering
the then prevailing cultural practices and traditions, this was
something socially and religiously unheard of in those days of rigid
Hindu caste system sanctioned by the scriptures and the religiously
approved notions of untouchability and pollution. It is a matter of
great significance that at the very beginning of his mission, the Guru's
first companion was a low caste Muslim. The offerings he received
during his tours, were distributed among the poor. Any surplus collected
was given to his hosts to maintain a common kitchen, where all could
sit and eat together without any distinction of caste and status. This
institution of common kitchen or langar became a major instrument of
helping the poor, and a nucleus for religious gatherings of his society
and of establishing the basic equality of all castes, classes and sexes.
When Guru Nanak Dev ji were 12 years old his father gave him
twenty rupees and asked him to do a business, apparently to teach him
business. Guru Nanak dev ji bought food for all the money and
distributed among saints, and poor. When his father asked him what
happened to business? He replied that he had done a "True business" at
the place where Guru Nanak dev had fed the poor, this gurdwara was made
and named Sacha Sauda.
Despite the hazards of travel in those
times, he performed five long tours all over the country and even
outside it. He visited most of the known religious places and centres of
worship. At one time he preferred to dine at the place of a low caste
artisan, Bhai Lallo, instead of accepting the invitation of a high caste
rich landlord, Malik Bhago, because the latter lived by exploitation of
the poor and the former earned his bread by the sweat of his brow. This
incident has been depicted by a symbolic representation of the reason
for his preference. Sri Guru Nanak pressed in one hand the coarse loaf
of bread from Lallo's hut and in the other the food from Bhago's house.
Milk gushed forth from the loaf of Lallo's and blood from the delicacies
of Bhago. This prescription for honest work and living and the
condemnation of exploitation, coupled with the Guru's dictum that
"riches cannot be gathered without sin and evil means," have, from the
very beginning, continued to be the basic moral tenet with the Sikh
mystics and the Sikh society.
During his tours, he visited
numerous places of Hindu and Muslim worship. He explained and exposed
through his preachings the incongruities and fruitlessness of
ritualistic and ascetic practices. At Hardwar, when he found people
throwing Ganges water towards the sun in the east as oblations to their
ancestors in heaven, he started, as a measure of correction, throwing
the water towards the West, in the direction of his fields in the
Punjab. When ridiculed about his folly, he replied, "If Ganges water
will reach your ancestors in heaven, why should the water I throw up not
reach my fields in the Punjab, which are far less distant ?"
He spent twenty five years of his life preaching from place to place.
Many of his hymns were composed during this period. They represent
answers to the major religious and social problems of the day and cogent
responses to the situations and incidents that he came across. Some of
the hymns convey dialogues with Yogis in the Punjab and elsewhere. He
denounced their methods of living and their religious views. During
these tours he studied other religious systems like Hinduism, Jainism,
Buddhism and Islam. At the same time, he preached the doctrines of his
new religion and mission at the places and centres he visited. Since his
mystic system almost completely reversed the trends, principles and
practices of the then prevailing religions, he criticised and rejected
virtually all the old beliefs, rituals and harmful practices existing in
the country. This explains the necessity of his long and arduous tours
and the variety and profusion of his hymns on all the religious, social,
political and theological issues, practices and institutions of his
period.
Finally, on the completion of his tours, he settled as a
peasant farmer at Kartarpur, a village in the Punjab. Bhai Gurdas, the
scribe of Guru Granth Sahib, was a devout and close associate of the
third and the three subsequent Gurus. He was born 12 years after Guru
Nanak's death and joined the Sikh mission in his very boyhood. He became
the chief missionary agent of the Gurus. Because of his intimate
knowledge of the Sikh society and his being a near contemporary of Sri
Guru Nanak, his writings are historically authentic and reliable. He
writes that at Kartarpur Guru Nanak donned the robes of a peasant and
continued his ministry. He organised Sikh societies at places he visited
with their meeting places called Dharamsalas. A similar society was
created at Kartarpur. In the morning, Japji was sung in the
congregation. In the evening Sodar and Arti were recited. The Guru
cultivated his lands and also continued with his mission and preachings.
His followers throughout the country were known as Nanak-panthies or
Sikhs. The places where Sikh congregation and religious gatherings of
his followers were held were called Dharamsalas. These were also the
places for feeding the poor. Eventually, every Sikh home became a
Dharamsala.
One thing is very evident. Guru Nanak had a
distinct sense of his prophethood and that his mission was God-ordained.
During his preachings, he himself announced. "O Lallo, as the words of
the Lord come to me, so do I express them." Successors of Guru Nanak
have also made similar statements indicating that they were the
messengers of God. So often Guru Nanak refers to God as his Enlightener
and Teacher. His statements clearly show his belief that God had
commanded him to preach an entirely new religion, the central idea of
which was the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, shorn of all
ritualism and priestcraft. During a dialogue with the Yogis, he stated
that his mission was to help everyone. He came to be called a Guru in
his lifetime. In Punjabi, the word Guru means both God and an
enlightener or a prophet. During his life, his disciples were formed and
came to be recognised as a separate community. He was accepted as a new
religious prophet. His followers adopted a separate way of greeting
each other with the words Sat Kartar (God is true). Twentyfive years of
his extensive preparatory tours and preachings across the length and
breadth of the country clearly show his deep conviction that the people
needed a new prophetic message which God had commanded him to deliver.
He chose his successor and in his own life time established him as the
future Guru or enlightener of the new community. This step is of the
greatest significance, showing Guru Nanak s determination and
declaration that the mission which he had started and the community he
had created were distinct and should be continued, promoted and
developed. By the formal ceremony of appointing his successor and by
giving him a new name, Angad (his part or limb), he laid down the clear
principle of impersonality, unity and indivisibility of Guruship. At
that time he addressed Angad by saying, Between thou and me there is now
no difference. In Guru Granth Sahib there is clear acceptance and
proclamation of this identity of personality in the hymns of
Satta-Balwand. This unity of spiritual personality of all the Gurus has a
theological and mystic implication. It is also endorsed by the fact
that each of the subsequent Gurus calls himself Nanak in his hymns.
Never do they call themselves by their own names as was done by other
Bhagats and Illyslics. That Guru Nanak attached the highest importance
to his mission is also evident from his selection of the successor by a
system of test, and only when he was found perfect, was Guru Angad
appointed as his successor. He was comparatively a new comer to the
fold, and yet he was chosen in preference to the Guru's own son, Sri
Chand, who also had the reputation of being a pious person, and Baba
Budha, a devout Sikh of long standing, who during his own lifetime had
the distinction of ceremonially installing all subsequent Gurus.
