Life and times
Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji, the second Guru, was born Lehna in 1504 to a modest Khatri trading family. A devotee of the goddess Durga in his youth, he became a follower of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji around 1532 and in 1539 was chosen over the founder's own sons to lead the community. For the next thirteen years Guru Ji taught from Khadur, and he passed away there in 1552.
Very little about this life comes from his own time. His 63 shaloks in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji say almost nothing about events. The closest narrative witness is the Var of Balvand and Satta, a praise poem finished no earlier than the time of Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji. It is firm evidence of how the succession was understood within two generations, but it is not an eyewitness report.
Most of the well-loved stories come from the janamsakhis and later chronicles, and they are shaped to explain why this disciple was chosen. Readers should take them as the community's memory of his obedience and humility. The dates given here come from the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, which draws on those later sources, so they are less secure than their precision suggests.
Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodhi at Panipat on 21 April 1526, when Bhai Lehna was a young married man in the central Punjab. He then beat the Rajputs at Khanua in March 1527 and passed away at Agra on 26 December 1530. His conquest left a new dynasty holding north India mainly by force, with little civil administration behind it.
The Encyclopaedia records that Bhai Lehna's family left Matte di Sarai for Harike and then Khadur, and Macauliffe says that raids drove them out. Those details come from later chronicles, but the unsettled decades they describe match the wider record.[EoS][EoS][Macauliffe]
Humayun came to the throne in December 1530. Sher Khan Sur defeated him at Chausa and then opposite Kanauj in 1540, and chased him to Lahore and beyond. So Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji's first years as Guru coincided with the collapse of Mughal rule in the Punjab. Humayun reached Persia in 1544 and regained Delhi and Agra only in July 1555, three years after Guru Ji passed away.
Afghan rule under Sher Shah Sur had a direct effect on Sikh history. His repair of the east-west highway made the Beas ferry an important crossing, and that drew the trader Goinda to plan a settlement there. This became Goindwal, the later centre of Sri Guru Amar Das Ji.[EoS][EoS]
The janamsakhis picture a countryside where villagers went on yearly pilgrimages to the goddess, and the Mahima Prakash names Jwalamukhi as the shrine. Hindu worship of the goddess, Sufi piety and yogi orders all competed for followers. The Udasi ascetics led by Baba Sri Chand, son of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, offered a path of renunciation at odds with the householder discipline taught at Khadur.[EoS][EoS]
1504-c. 1532
Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji was born Lehna on 31 March 1504 (Vaisakh vadi 1, 1561 Bk) near Matte di Sarai, now Sarai Naga, near Muktsar. Bhai Pheru, his father, belonged to the Trehan Khatris and traded on a small scale. Sources give his mother four different names: Sabhirai, Ramo, Mansa Devi and Daya Kaur.
The family moved on to Harike and finally to Khadur, where a relative, Mai Bhirai, already lived. In Khadur he married Khivi, a Marwaha Khatri from nearby Sanghar. They had two sons, Dasu and Datu, and either one daughter or two, depending on the writer.[EoS][EoS][EoS][EoS]
Lehna is born to Bhai Pheru, a Trehan Khatri trader of small means.
Note. The day comes from later Sikh reckoning and has no support from his own time.
Lehna marries Khivi, daughter of Devi Chand of Sanghar.
Note. This is a disagreement between two entries of one reference work. The marriage itself is not in doubt, since the Var of Balvand and Satta names Mata Khivi.
Two versions: he overhears a Sikh singing at Khadur, or he meets Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji on the way to a goddess shrine.
In the Puratan janamsakhi, as the Encyclopaedia summarises it, Bhai Lehna is the priest of the goddess at Khadur. Only one villager is a Sikh, and he sings the hymns of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji each day. Bhai Lehna hears a hymn, asks who made it, talks further with the man, and throws off the emblems of his goddess worship. This version never describes a first meeting with Guru Ji.
The Adi Sakhian, the B-40 and the Miharban janamsakhi tell it differently. Here Bhai Lehna leads his neighbours from Harike on their yearly pilgrimage to the goddess. Passing Kartarpur, the party stops to see the famous teacher. A short conversation changes everything for him. Despite the protests of his fellow pilgrims, he declares that the journey has reached its end and refuses to go on.
Macauliffe combines elements of both. He has the singing of a Sikh stir Bhai Lehna at Khadur, and then has him leave the pilgrims at Kartarpur.
Note. The Mahima Prakash supplies the name Jwalamukhi for the shrine. The earlier versions speak only of a shrine of Durga.
c. 1532-1539
Bhai Lehna divided his time between Kartarpur and Khadur for the remaining years of the founder's life, while Mata Khivi raised the children at Khadur. The sources stress menial service: scrubbing utensils and working the fan.
The anecdotes of this period form a series, and each shows him obeying where the sons or other disciples refuse. W. H. McLeod, writing in the Encyclopaedia, reads them as stories that point ahead to the succession and carry their truth in the loyalty they portray. That is a fair warning for the three stories below.[EoS][EoS]
Told to carry a dripping load home, Bhai Lehna ruins his new clothes without complaint.
According to the janamsakhis as the Encyclopaedia reports them, Bhai Lehna came out to the fields in fresh clothes and was told to take a bundle of sodden paddy back to the house. He put it on his head at once, and by the time he arrived the slime had run down over his garments.
Mata Sulakhni protested that this was no way to treat a guest. Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji answered that what she saw as mud was in fact saffron, the mark of a man fit for honour. Macauliffe's version has three bundles of grass and has Guru Ji say that God himself had placed them on Bhai Lehna's head.
Bhai Lehna keeps rebuilding a fallen wall at night while the sons mock him.
Macauliffe tells of a wall at Guru Ji's house that fell one night. When someone asked who would repair it by morning, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji said that Sikhs, not hired masons, should do his work. Only Bhai Lehna stood up.
Each time he got the wall partly built, Guru Ji found fault and told him to pull it down and begin again. Guru Ji's sons told him he was a fool to obey such orders. He replied that a servant's hands were there for his master's work, and Guru Ji told the family they did not know this man's worth.
Note. This was read only in Macauliffe, who draws on older chronicles not seen for this page.
Followers drop away at coins and jewels, and only Bhai Lehna is ready to eat from a shrouded corpse.
This is the janamsakhi story said to have settled the succession, as the Encyclopaedia gives it. Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji led his Sikhs into a jungle where silver and gold coins appeared on the ground, and many stopped to gather them. Further on jewels appeared, and most of the rest stayed behind for those.
Two Sikhs were left, and Guru Ji brought them to a funeral pyre and told them to eat the body lying beneath a shroud. One ran away. Bhai Lehna lifted the cloth to obey and found no corpse there, only Guru Ji himself.
Note. This reports what the stories say. The site does not assert or deny the miraculous elements.
The founder gives his disciple a new name, understood as 'part of my own body'.
Note. The Var of Balvand and Satta uses both the old name and the new, so both were current by the time it was written.
1539
The Encyclopaedia dates the nomination to 13 June 1539 (Har vadi 13, 1596 Bk) and the installation to a few days before Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji passed away on 7 September 1539. The sons, Baba Sri Chand and Baba Lakhmi Das, were passed over.
This choice shaped everything that followed. As the Encyclopaedia reads the Var, succession would depend on surrender to Guru Ji, not on birth. Later Sikh writers, and the outsider who wrote the Dabistan, describe the same idea as one light passing from body to body.[EoS][EoS][DB][Src]
Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji bows to his disciple and installs him as successor, passing over his sons.
The Var of Balvand and Satta tells it as a royal enthronement. The founder raises the canopy over Lehna's head, bows to his own disciple while still alive, and marks his forehead. Satta likens this to making the Ganges run backwards, so strange did it seem for a master to bow to a follower.
The poets are blunt about the sons, who would not obey and turned their backs. The test, they say, was open for all to see, and Lehna alone came through it.
Note. The Var is the strongest evidence, but its finished form dates from the time of Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji at the earliest. Its praise language may also be aimed at later rivals. The Dabistan is a mid-17th-century outsider's account, contemporary with the sixth and seventh Gurus rather than with 1539.
After the founder's passing, Guru Ji withdraws into a locked room until Baba Buddha brings him out.
The Mahima Prakash, as the Encyclopaedia reports it, says that Guru Ji did not go back to his own home at Khadur. He went instead to the house of Mai Bhirai, an old family friend, shut himself in a room and stayed there in deep meditation.
When Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji had passed away, the Sikhs came looking for their new leader. Bhai Buddha led them to the room and persuaded Guru Ji to come out and take up his duty to the sangat.
1539-1552
Khadur now became the Sikh centre, as Kartarpur had been. The Encyclopaedia describes a regular day: rising before dawn, the singing of Asa ki Var, tending the sick, teaching from the hymns, a shared meal without regard to caste, lessons for children in the afternoon and more hymn singing in the evening. This picture comes from later accounts, though the Var does confirm the move to Khadur and the discipline Guru Ji was known for.
Guru Ji lived by twisting reed fibre into string. Mata Khivi ran the kitchen, and it became known by her name. Later gurdwaras also recall a wrestling ground at Khadur where Guru Ji is said to have taught.[EoS][EoS][DB][EoS]
Mata Khivi runs the community kitchen, and a scriptural verse praises her by name.
Note. The Var gives the fact of her role. The detailed routine comes from later writers.
Tradition credits Guru Ji with shaping the Gurmukhi script, though the letters are older.
Note. Attribution should be read with care. The same Encyclopaedia entry traces the letters to the Brahmi family and to related scripts such as Lande and Takri, so 'invented' overstates the claim. The Goindwal note is the earliest witness seen for this page, but it is a marginal comment of uncertain date, and it has Guru Ji presenting the letters to the founder rather than teaching them at Khadur.
The Puratan tradition says Guru Ji received a book of hymns from Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, but scholars differ on what survives.
The fleeing emperor loses his temper with Guru Ji and is rebuked, in a story known only from Sikh tradition.
As Macauliffe retells the Sikh chronicles, Humayun reached Lahore after his defeat by Sher Shah and asked for a holy man who could restore his throne. He was sent to Khadur with offerings, and found Guru Ji in deep meditation with the musicians singing. No one attended to him.
The angry emperor reached for his sword, but it would not leave the scabbard. Guru Ji then spoke sharply: this was the blade he should have drawn on Sher Shah, not on men at prayer. Humayun was ashamed and asked for help. Guru Ji told him that he must first go away to Persia and would recover his realm on his return.
Note. The Encyclopaedia cites no Mughal source for the meeting, and neither does Macauliffe. Humayun's flight through Lahore in 1540 is established, so the story fits the map, but that is not evidence that it happened. The promise fits what actually occurred in 1555, which suggests the story was shaped with hindsight.
A yogi blames Guru Ji for a drought and Guru Ji leaves the village until the villagers learn better.
A local tradition reported in the Encyclopaedia says that a yogi came to Khadur during a drought and convinced the farmers that no rain would fall until they drove Guru Ji away. Guru Ji did not argue. He moved to a ruined mound called Khan Rajada, where a gurdwara now stands.
The drought went on. Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, then a disciple, told the farmers to bind the yogi's feet with a rope and pull him round the village, and the story says rain poured down wherever they dragged him. The yogi left in disgrace and Guru Ji came home.
Note. This reports a local gurdwara tradition. The site does not assert or deny the rain.
1540-1552
In about 1540 a much older man came to Khadur. Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, already over sixty, had been brought by Bibi Amaro, Guru Ji's daughter, who had married into his family at Basarke. He stayed for twelve years, carrying river water and working in the kitchen.
Guru Ji again passed over his sons, Dasu and Datu. He passed away at Khadur on 29 March 1552 (Chet sudi 4, 1609 Bk).[EoS][EoS][EoS][Macauliffe]
Sri Guru Amar Das Ji overhears Bibi Amaro singing and asks to be taken to her father.
The Encyclopaedia, drawing on the chronicles, describes Bibi Amaro as knowing many hymns by heart and singing them over her morning housework at Basarke. Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, then a pious Vaishnava related to her by marriage, overheard her and was deeply moved.
He wanted to see the living successor of the man who had made such verses. She took him to Khadur, and he never left.
Guru Ji bows to his aged disciple, has Bhai Buddha apply the mark, and tells his sons to accept him.
Note. The Var of Balvand and Satta confirms the succession of Sri Guru Amar Das Ji but not this ceremony. The rival claims of the sons are covered in the life of Sri Guru Amar Das Ji.
A later artist's imagining of the ten Gurus, from Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji to Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, from the workshop of Purkhu of Kangra. No portrait from any Guru's lifetime is established.
Purkhu of Kangra, Early 19th century. Kapany Collection (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source
_ceremony_of_Guru_Amar_Das_being_performed_by_Baba_Budha,_under_the_command_of_Guru_Angad.jpg)
A gilded panel from doors given to the Harmandir Sahib by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, now in the treasury according to Commons. It imagines Baba Buddha anointing Sri Guru Amar Das Ji under Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji's command.
Unknown, c. 1801-1839. Toshakhana, Harmandir Sahib (as stated on Commons). Public domain. Source
Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji with Mata Khivi and their sons Baba Dasu and Baba Dattu, as identified on Commons. From a manuscript of about 1839 to 1843, nearly three centuries after their time, so the figures are an artist's imagining.
Miha Singh, illustrator; Misar Prakash, scribe, About 1839 to 1843. Public domain. Source
A later fresco of Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji above the entrance to the Baoli Sahib, Goindwal, numbered with the Gurmukhi numeral two. Probably 19th century. No portrait from Guru Ji's lifetime is established.
Unknown, Probably 19th century. Baoli Sahib, Goindwal. Public domain. Source
,_from_a_series_of_painting_of_the_first_nine_Sikh_gurus,_circa_1800%E2%80%931840_01.jpg)
A later artist's imagining of Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji, from a set of the first nine Gurus painted about 1800-1840. No portrait from Guru Ji's lifetime is established.
Unknown, c. 1800-1840. Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 925203 (as credited on Commons).CC BY-SA 4.0. Source
Bhai Bala reciting the life of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji before Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji, as the Bala tradition presents itself. A later artist's imagining, from the Unbound set of Janamsakhi paintings.
Unknown, c. 1775-1800. Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 1998.58.1 (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source
The closest source, and part of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji (Angs 966-968). It was written by two Muslim court musicians, so it is praise rather than chronicle. It names the installation of Bhai Lehna, the sons' refusal, Khadur and Mata Khivi's kitchen. Stanza 8 mentions Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji, so the finished poem looks back on 1539 by at least four decades. The musicians' own careers are uncertain: one tradition starts them under Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji, which would make the early stanzas closer to the events.[DB][EoS][EoS]
These give the conversion story and the tests of obedience. They disagree on how Bhai Lehna first came to the faith, as the Encyclopaedia shows. They were written to justify the succession, so they are good evidence of what the community believed and weak evidence for particular incidents. They were read for this page only through the Encyclopaedia's summary.[EoS]
The first connected account of all the Gurus, with sixteen sakhis on Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji. The author was a descendant in the family of Sri Guru Amar Das Ji and used older sakhis and family information. The Encyclopaedia warns that it is not plain history and contains factual errors. Read here only through the Encyclopaedia's quotations and summaries.[EoS]
A readable English retelling built largely on the 19th-century Suraj Prakash and other chronicles, with Macauliffe's colonial framing. It preserves the stories in full but does not test them, and it should not be counted as independent support for them.[Macauliffe]
The main source for dates here. The biographical entry is by W. H. McLeod, who is openly sceptical of the anecdotes. Separate entries sometimes disagree, for example on the marriage date and the number of daughters, and these differences are shown below.[EoS][EoS][EoS][EoS]
"Life and times of Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji". Sikh History: lives of the Gurus. https://sikh-history.co.uk/lives/guru-angad/