Life and times

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the first of the ten Sikh Gurus, was born in 1469 at Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, now Nankana Sahib in Pakistan, and passed away at Kartarpur on the Ravi in or about September 1539. Between those dates Guru Ji worked as a storekeeper at Sultanpur, left that post after a decisive religious experience, travelled for about two decades with the Muslim musician Bhai Mardana, and then settled at Kartarpur, where a working community gathered to sing hymns, share food and earn a living. Before passing away, Guru Ji named a disciple, Bhai Lehna, as successor in place of either son.

Very little of this can be checked against documents from Guru Ji's own lifetime. No chronicle of the period names Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, and Babur's memoirs are silent. The firm ground is of two kinds. The hymns in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji give Guru Ji's own words, including a rare direct response to a public event in the hymns on Babur's invasions, but they contain almost no autobiography. Bhai Gurdas, writing about sixty years later, gives a short life in his first Var and names early followers in his eleventh. Everything else comes from the Janamsakhis, the anecdotal life-stories that took written shape from the late sixteenth century onward, whose surviving manuscripts are later still.

This page tells the whole story as those sources tell it and labels each episode. The Janamsakhis are used here where history corroborates them. They turn out to be most trustworthy on family names, on the Punjab settings and on the Kartarpur years, and least so on distant journeys and encounters with famous figures. W. H. McLeod's sifting of these stories has been the most influential modern test of them, and it is reported here episode by episode, but it is not treated as a final verdict: Sikh and other scholars have challenged his method, his readings and some of his evidence, and those replies are given beside his conclusions. Where a story describes a miracle, the status describes how the story has come down, and this site neither asserts nor denies the miracle.

Dates, family and related people →

The times

The Lodi Sultanate and the Punjab

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's life falls in the last decades of the Lodi Sultanate of Delhi. Bahlul Lodi's line was followed by Sikandar Lodi (1489-1517) and Ibrahim Lodi (1517-26). In the Punjab, power lay with Afghan nobles and their local agents.

Daulat Khan Lodi matters most to this story. He held the Jalandhar Doab with Sultanpur as his seat and became governor at Lahore at the start of the sixteenth century, McLeod suggesting soon after 1500. He later quarrelled with Sultan Ibrahim and, with Alam Khan, invited Babur into the Punjab, then turned against him and lost.[EoS][McLeod]

Babur and the fall of the Lodis

Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, took Kabul in 1504 and made a series of expeditions into the plains. On the commonly accepted reckoning he came as far as Peshawar in 1519, took Sialkot and stormed Saidpur in 1520, sacked Lahore in 1524 and began his last advance in late 1525. At Panipat on 21 April 1526 Ibrahim Lodi was killed.

The Afghans recovered under Sher Khan, who defeated Babur's son Humayun at Chausa in June 1539, within Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's lifetime, and drove him out of India in 1540. These events form the background of the Babarvani hymns and of the debate over one of their lines.[EoS][EoS][McLeod]

Religious life

The Punjab held Hindu and Muslim populations with many internal divisions. Sufi centres were strong at Pak Pattan, seat of Shaikh Farid's successors, and at Multan. Nath yogis, followers of Gorakhnath, commanded wide respect in the countryside, and they appear in Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's hymns as the most frequent opponents. Devotional poets such as Kabir and Ravidas had already taught in the language of ordinary people.

Bhai Gurdas opens his life of Guru Ji with a picture of a quarrelsome age: four castes, rival orders of ascetics, Brahmins and mullahs arguing past each other, and worship reduced to outward marks. It is a poet's framing, written to show the need for a Guru, not a neutral survey. Guru Ji's hymns make related complaints, about rulers as butchers in one verse of Raag Majh and about officials and priests in Asa ki Var.[Src][EoS][Src][McLeod]

Family, caste and work

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's father, a Bedi Khatri, is remembered as a village accountant to a Muslim chief, and a brother-in-law served an Afghan noble as steward. Against that background the Sultanpur post is easy to believe. Bhai Mardana was a Mirasi, a low-ranked caste of Muslim musicians and genealogists. The friendship of a Khatri and a Mirasi was therefore a crossing of religious and social lines from the start.

Later periods shaped the telling. McLeod argues that disputes between the Sikh community and Muslim authorities in the seventeenth century lie behind stories in which Guru Ji triumphs over qazis and pirs, while the tellers also keep the theme of a teacher honoured by both communities.[McLeod][McLeod][EoS]

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Family and childhood at Talwandi

1469 to c. 1485

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was born at Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, a village about 65 km southwest of Lahore, into the family of Kalian Chand, a Bedi Khatri known as Mehta Kalu, and his wife Mata Tripta. An elder sister, Bebe Nanaki, was born in 1464. The father is remembered as the village accountant to the local Muslim chief, Rai Bular, a Bhatti, and as a small landholder.

All the Janamsakhis agree on these outlines, and McLeod accepts genealogy as one of the sturdier parts of the record, because Punjabi families keep such memories well. The childhood stories are another matter. They follow a pattern: a boy who astonishes his teachers, neglects his chores, and is protected by wonders. They tell us how the first generations of Sikhs remembered Guru Ji, and none of them can be traced back to an eyewitness.[EoS][EoS][EoS][McLeod]

Disputed1469Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, now Nankana Sahib

Birth and the date dispute

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was born in 1469; the month is disputed between Vaisakh and Kartik, and a modern calendar study proposes a third day.

Note. Bhai Gurdas gives no clear date: one line of Var 1 has been read as pointing to Vaisakhi, and a Kabitt as pointing to Kartik, and McLeod rejects both readings. McLeod also notes that the name of the child may hint at a birth in the mother's family home at Chahal, a possibility which one Miharban manuscript supports and all others contradict. The Kartik date remains the one on which the Gurpurab is celebrated.

What the sources say (5)

ScholarshipGives Vaisakh sudi 3, 1526 Bk, or 15 April 1469, as the date modern research favours, while noting that the birthday is kept on the Kartik full moon.[EoS]
ScholarshipReports that Miharban, Puratan and the Gyan Ratnavali give the third of the light half of Vaisakh, while the Bala tradition gives the Kattak full moon, or 20 October 1469, and judges Vaisakh probable but not fully proven. (pp. 94-97)[McLeod]
Later traditionRecords that the Mahima Prakash Kavita has the same day a year earlier, in 1525 Bk, which McLeod treats as an error. (p. 94)[McLeod]
ScholarshipArgues from calendar reckoning for Vaisakh 1, 1526 Bk, which it converts to 27 March 1469, as a date that might reconcile the two schools.[Web]
ScholarshipRepeats 15 April 1469 and places the birth at Talwandi.[EoS]

Well attestedc. 1464 to 1480sTalwandi and Chahal

Parents, sister and family

The Janamsakhis agree on a Bedi Khatri father named Kalu in Talwandi; the names of mother and sister appear more slowly in the record.

Note. Names are attested more firmly than details. Dates such as 1464 and 1475 for Bebe Nanaki come from later tradition cited in the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism.

What the sources say (4)

Early sourceCalls Guru Ji a Bedi in the mouths of the yogis at Achal, which confirms the sub-caste. (pauri 41)[Src]
ScholarshipCompares the family lists in each Janamsakhi and concludes the two older ones are reliable on family, the mother's name is probably Tripta rather than Miharban's Tipara, and the sister's name Nanaki is probable although the oldest texts leave her unnamed. (pp. 101-104)[McLeod]
ScholarshipNames Mata Tripta's parents as Bhai Rama and Mai Bharai, from the village of Chahal.[EoS]
ScholarshipGives Bebe Nanaki's birth as 1464 and her marriage to Jai Ram as 1475.[EoS]

Agreed in traditionc. 1476 onwardTalwandi

The teachers: the pandit and the mullah

The Janamsakhis say the child astonished his teachers by asking what learning was for.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi, the boy was taken to a pandit at seven to begin his letters. After one day he stopped reading, and when the teacher asked why, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji answered with a lesson of his own about how little worldly learning was worth beside the divine Name. The pandit, far from being offended, let him go home impressed.

The same account has him sent to learn Turki at nine, returning home and sitting in silence. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism adds the tradition that he answered the alphabet itself with a poem built on its letters.

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What the sources say (4)

Later traditionSummarises the Puratan account of a pandit at age seven and of Turki lessons at nine, both ending in silence or instruction from the pupil. (pp. 36-37)[McLeod]
ScholarshipReports that the Janamsakhis have him compose an acrostic poem of spiritual meaning for the pandit.[EoS]
ScholarshipRecords a gurdwara marking the school and states that he became proficient in several languages and accounts.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts that schooling probably happened, since his works are not those of an unlettered man, but treats these scenes as settings written around verses. (p. 79)[McLeod]

Disputedc. 1478Talwandi

The sacred thread

Tradition holds that young Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji questioned the thread ceremony; the verse behind the story is genuine and the scene around it is doubted.

Note. This is the clearest example of the argument over settings: the hymn is scripture, but nothing in it says when, where or why it was spoken.

What the sources say (3)

ScriptureContains a verse in Asa ki Var asking for a thread spun from compassion, contentment, continence and truth, with no setting attached. (ang 471)[Src]
Later traditionHas a very brief mention of investiture at nine, which McLeod notes the Puratan lacks. (as noted in GNSR p. 36)[(tr.)]
ScholarshipAssumes the family followed normal custom, but regards the recitation as an unlikely childhood event and the scene as built to frame the verse. (p. 79)[McLeod]

Agreed in traditionc. 1480sTalwandi

The field and the shade

While the boy slept, the stories say, trampled wheat recovered and a tree's shadow stood still over him.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji once fell asleep while grazing the family's buffaloes, and they ate and trampled a neighbour's standing wheat. The angry farmer took the boy to Rai Bular. Guru Ji insisted nothing was lost, and when the chief sent a man to look, the crop stood whole.

Another day, the same text says, Rai Bular came on the boy asleep under a tree in the afternoon and saw that the shadow had stayed where it was while the sun moved on. The Bala Janamsakhi tells it differently, with a cobra spreading its hood over his face. Rai Bular went back and told Mehta Kalu that his son was an honour to the whole village.

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Note. The Encyclopaedia's Nankana Sahib entry says his last visit home was in 1510, while its Rai Bular entry has him at the chief's bedside about 1515; the two statements conflict.

What the sources say (4)

Later traditionGives the Puratan versions of the restored field and the unmoving shadow, both reported by Rai Bular. (pp. 36-37)[McLeod]
ScholarshipRetells both stories and says Rai Bular became a devotee and that Guru Ji was at his side in his last illness around 1515.[EoS]
ScholarshipLinks the stories to Gurdwaras Kiara Sahib and Mal Ji Sahib and notes that the Bala version has a cobra shading his face instead.[EoS]
ScholarshipLists both as plain wonder stories, and warns that Rai Bular appears only in stories of this type, that Miharban names Rai Bhoa as landlord instead, and that Bhai Gurdas omits him. (pp. 77, 106)[McLeod]

Single accountc. 1480sNear Chuhar Kana

Sacha Sauda, the true bargain

Given money to trade, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji is said to have spent it feeding hungry ascetics, and called this the best bargain.

According to the Bala Janamsakhi, Mehta Kalu tried to settle his son in trade by giving him twenty rupees and sending him to market to buy goods that could be sold at a profit. Bhai Bala went along to keep him on the task.

In the forest the two came on a large party of ascetics without clothes. Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji stopped to talk and asked their leader why they wore nothing. He was told that they lived on what the Lord sent, and he learned that they had not eaten for days. Against Bala's advice he spent everything on food for them.

He went home with no goods and no money. His father was furious. Guru Ji replied that no trader could have made a sounder deal. The place is remembered by the phrase for a true bargain, Sacha Sauda, and a gurdwara stands there today.

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Note. Well loved and widely commemorated, but carried by one tradition. Macauliffe and the gurdwara entries retell the Bala story and so add no independent witness.

What the sources say (4)

Later traditionTells the story from the Bala Janamsakhi, with twenty rupees, Bhai Bala as companion and a band of naked ascetics, and describes the later gurdwara at Chuhar Kana.[EoS]
ScholarshipPoints out that the story is found only in the Bala line, so its absence from Miharban, Puratan and the original Gyan Ratnavali marks it as late and improbable, although nothing in it is impossible. (pp. 83-84)[McLeod]
Later traditionRetells the episode for modern readers with a servant in place of Bala and adds the name of the ascetics' leader, Santren. (p. 31)[Macauliffe]
ScholarshipRecords the gurdwara of Tambu Sahib where the boy is said to have hidden from his father afterwards.[EoS]

Agreed in traditionc. 1480sTalwandi

The worried family and the physician

When his withdrawal alarmed the family, a physician was called, and the stories have the patient diagnose the physician instead.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionReports the Puratan sakhi in which the Bedis urge a consultation, which prompts verses on the true sickness of mankind. (p. 37)[McLeod]
ScholarshipNames the physician Hardas and says he concluded the young man needed no cure but would heal many.[EoS]
ScholarshipTreats the story as improbable because it seems shaped to carry the verses. (p. 83)[McLeod]

Marriage and Sultanpur

c. 1485 to c. 1499

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji married Mata Sulakhni, a daughter of Mul Chand, a Chona Khatri then living at Batala, and two sons followed, Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das. Family pressure and his sister's connections took him to Sultanpur Lodhi, where Bebe Nanaki's husband Jai Ram served the Nawab Daulat Khan Lodi. There Guru Ji took charge of the government stores.

This is the first period that outside evidence touches. Bhai Gurdas lists Daulat Khan Lodi among Guru Ji's followers, and the seventeenth-century Dabistan-i-Mazahib repeats that he was a modi to the Nawab. McLeod regards work at Sultanpur as established and the link with Daulat Khan as probable. The stories of early friends, night singing and a shared meal at Sultanpur come from later sources, but Var 11 does call Sultanpur a treasure of devotion, according to the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism.[EoS][EoS][Src][McLeod]

Disputed1487 by local tradition; 1481-85 in other accountsBatala

Marriage to Mata Sulakhni

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji married the daughter of Mul Chand of the Chona Khatris, but the date and his age are given differently in each source.

A local tradition at Batala, recorded in the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, says that when the wedding party halted near the bride's house, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji sat down by a crumbling mud wall. An old woman warned him to move before it fell. He told her not to be anxious, for the wall would stand a long while. Gurdwara Kandh Sahib now keeps the memory of the wall, and a fair at Batala marks the wedding day.

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Note. Miharban calls her Ghumi, which McLeod reads as a corruption of her family name Choni. The name Sulakhni appears only in the later record, but he finds no reason to dispute it.

What the sources say (3)

ScholarshipReports the local tradition of Bhadon sudi 7, 1544 Bk, or 24 September 1487, at Batala, with the bride's father living there as a caretaker of lands.[EoS]
ScholarshipRepeats 24 September 1487 and names her mother as Chando Rani.[EoS]
ScholarshipCompares age twelve in Puratan, fourteen in the Gyan Ratnavali, fifteen or sixteen in Miharban with a date of 1485, and a marriage after the move to Sultanpur in the Bala, and concludes the wedding at Batala was probably before the move, though the exact year is doubtful. (pp. 104-105)[McLeod]

Well attested1494 and 1497Sultanpur Lodhi

Birth of Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das

Two sons were born: Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das, with the Encyclopaedia giving 8 September 1494 and 12 February 1497.

Note. The existence of the sons is secure; these exact dates rest on later records.

What the sources say (4)

Early sourceMentions sons who would not obey, in explaining why the succession went elsewhere. (pauri 38)[Src]
ScholarshipGives Bhadon sudi 9, 1551 Bk, or 8 September 1494, at Sultanpur Lodhi.[EoS]
ScholarshipGives 19 Phagun 1553 Bk, or 12 February 1497, at Sultanpur Lodhi.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts both sons without doubt, noting that two older accounts list Lakhmi Das first while two later ones state that Sri Chand was the elder. (p. 105)[McLeod]

Well attestedc. 1490sSultanpur Lodhi

Keeper of the stores at Sultanpur

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji worked in the Nawab's commissariat at Sultanpur, a fact McLeod accepts as established.

Note. Puratan describes clerical work without naming the stores, and the title modi comes from other accounts. As Harbans Singh notes, the Bala has him arrive at eighteen and leave at twenty-seven, about 1496, while Miharban has him arrive after thirty-five and leave about 1508, which he finds improbable. The Encyclopaedia says he was thirty when he left.

What the sources say (4)

Early sourceLists Daulat Khan Lodi among the followers of Guru Ji. (pauri 13)[Src]
Early sourceQuotes the seventeenth-century Dabistan-i-Mazahib, which says Guru Ji served Daulat Khan Lodi as a modi, or officer of the granary, before Babur's victory. (p. 108)[McLeod]
ScholarshipAccepts the work at Sultanpur as established and the link to Daulat Khan as probable, because the setting is in the Punjab and the sources agree, and places it before about 1500, when the Nawab moved to Lahore. (pp. 106-110)[McLeod]
ScholarshipIdentifies Gurdwara Hatt Sahib as the site of the stores and keeps thirteen stones shown as his weights.[EoS]

Agreed in traditionc. 1490sSultanpur Lodhi

Accused of mismanaging the stores

Tale-bearers accused the young storekeeper of giving goods away, but an audit, the stories say, found everything correct.

According to the accounts summarised in the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's open hand at the stores made enemies, who told the Nawab that his goods were being wasted. Daulat Khan had the stocks checked, twice, and each time found them complete.

A later popular story says that when he measured grain he would count up to thirteen, tera, and stop there, because the word also means thine, and that he was lost in that thought as he went on giving.

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Note. The Punjabi word for thirteen sounds like the word for thine, which gave rise to a story that he lost himself at that count. McLeod treats this version as late.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionReports that complaints of squandering led to two checks that found the stores full and the books correct.[EoS]
ScholarshipRecords the cell of Kothari Sahib as the place where he was held during the audit.[EoS]
ScholarshipRejects this as a miracle story without any historical kernel, and calls the popular tale of the counting word tera a late tradition. (pp. 77, 107)[McLeod]

Well attestedc. 1490sTalwandi and Sultanpur Lodhi

Bhai Mardana joins Guru Ji

Bhai Mardana, a Muslim musician from the same village, came to Sultanpur and stayed with Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji as his rabab player.

The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, drawing on several accounts, says Bhai Mardana was a married man with children when news of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's generosity reached Talwandi. Mehta Kalu also asked him to go and bring news of his son. He went to Sultanpur and never really left. When Guru Ji later prepared to set out, Mardana hesitated because he still had a daughter to marry and no means to do it. A disciple, Bhai Bhagirath, found the money, and Mardana was free to follow.

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Note. His birth date and the details of how he joined rest on later tradition.

What the sources say (4)

Early sourceNames Mardana the Mirasi as a good rabab player among the followers. (pauri 13)[Src]
Early sourceNames him as companion at Baghdad. (pauri 35)[Src]
ScholarshipGives his parents as Badra and Lakkho, born in 1459, and draws on Miharban and others for his childhood friendship and his journey to Sultanpur on an errand from Mehta Kalu.[EoS]
ScholarshipHolds that a close bond with him can be taken for granted, but warns that his prominence grew because narrators needed an accompanist when quoting hymns. (pp. 171-172)[McLeod]

The Vein river

c. 1499

The turning point in every account comes at the small river beside Sultanpur, now called the Kali Bein. Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji is said to have gone to bathe, vanished, and returned after some days, a changed man with a new message. The hymns do not narrate it. Bhai Gurdas places a commissioning in Sach Khand at the start of his account of Guru Ji's mission without naming a river.

McLeod, who rejects the literal story of three days under water, accepts that behind it lies a real and decisive experience, and calls this highly probable. Here a sceptic and the tradition agree on the heart of the matter, which is that Guru Ji left Sultanpur because of a sense of being called.[EoS][EoS][Src][McLeod]

Agreed in traditionc. 1499Kali Bein, Sultanpur Lodhi

The disappearance in the river

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji vanished while bathing and returned, the Janamsakhis say, after an encounter with the Divine.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji went to the river one morning before light, left his clothes with a servant and went in. In the water, the account says, messengers carried him to the divine court. There he was handed a cup of nectar and told to drink, for this was the cup of the Name, and he was sent out to preach that Name to the world.

Meanwhile the servant on the bank grew alarmed and ran to the town. Daulat Khan himself rode down and had the river dragged, but no body was found. On the third day he walked out of the river. Daulat Khan came to see him, but Guru Ji said nothing, and the crowd took it for an injury from the water. Dressed only in a loincloth, he went with Mardana to stay among faqirs.

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Note. The date is an estimate from age thirty. McLeod puts the start of the travels about 1500, and Miharban's scheme implies 1506.

What the sources say (5)

Early sourceSays Guru Ji first received the gift at the divine gate and reached Sach Khand before looking on a burning world and setting out, without giving any river or place. (pauri 24)[Src]
Later traditionSummarises the Puratan account of messengers, a cup of nectar, the command to preach the Name, and a return after three days. (pp. 37-38)[McLeod]
ScholarshipSays that he was not seen for two days and came out two km upstream at Sant Ghat, and that Gurdwara Ber Sahib stands near his bathing place.[EoS]
ScholarshipSays that he was missing for three days and nights, and sets his age then at thirty.[EoS]
ScholarshipSets aside the literal encounter and argues that the core is a real, climactic religious experience, a conclusion he rates highly probable. (p. 107)[McLeod]

Agreed in traditionc. 1499Sultanpur Lodhi

No Hindu and no Muslim, and the prayer with the Nawab

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's first words were reported as 'There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim', and the qazi challenged him before the Nawab.

According to the Puratan and related accounts, after a day of silence Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji spoke one sentence: there is no Hindu and no Muslim. People carried it to the Nawab, who waved it away as the sort of thing a faqir says. The qazi was not so easy, and Guru Ji was brought to court.

The tradition recorded at Sultanpur adds a scene at prayer. The Nawab invited him to join the namaz. Guru Ji stood by, and afterwards was asked why. He told them what each of them had really been thinking of during the prayer. Both, the Janamsakhis say, fell at his feet. The Nawab told the qazi that Guru Ji had reached the truth, and that was the end of the matter.

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Note. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism quotes hymns that treat Hindus and Muslims as having one Master, so the sense of the saying can stand even if the scene is doubted.

What the sources say (5)

Later traditionSummarises the Puratan account in which he kept silent a day and then spoke this saying, the qazi took offence, and the Nawab questioned him and found no fault. (p. 38)[McLeod]
Later traditionPreserves the saying and the discourse with the qazi in the B-40 text. (ff. 19b, 22b-23b, as cited in EST p. 255)[(tr.)]
ScholarshipReports the Puratan's closing words from the Nawab that Guru Ji had arrived at the truth.[EoS]
ScholarshipRecords the story that Guru Ji stood aside from the namaz and told the Nawab and the qazi what they had really been thinking about.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts that the famous saying can fit Guru Ji's own views, while setting the qazi scene in a later Sikh theme of triumph over Muslim opponents. (p. 255)[McLeod]

Agreed in traditionc. 1499-1500Sultanpur Lodhi

Leaving Sultanpur

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji gave up the post and left, despite the pleas of the Nawab and his wife's family.

What the sources say (4)

ScholarshipSays Mul Chand petitioned the Nawab to stop his son-in-law going, and the Nawab refused to intervene.[EoS]
ScholarshipDraws on Puratan for the Nawab's offer of his authority and property and on Bala for the anger of Chando Rani. (pp. 100-101)[Singh]
ScholarshipSays Mata Sulakhni and the sons went to her parents at Pakkhoke Randhawe when he left.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts a departure with Mardana as part of the basic Sultanpur tradition. (p. 107)[McLeod]

The journeys: what can be said, with Bhai Mardana and Bhai Bala

c. 1500 to c. 1520

That Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji travelled for many years is accepted by all the sources and by McLeod. The route is not. Guru Ji's own verse in Raag Gauri speaks of having seen river-bank pilgrimage places, the nine regions, shops, cities and markets, and Bhai Gurdas has him going round the pilgrimage centres, but neither supplies a route. The custom of speaking of four udasis, east, south, north and west, comes from the Puratan tradition. Miharban has two long journeys and the Gyan Ratnavali three.

McLeod concludes that these itineraries were created by compilers ordering loose stories, and that no destination or sequence can be fixed, although he thinks Guru Ji surely saw some major pilgrimage centres of both faiths. Kirpal Singh and others reply that travel routes, trade links and local memory make longer journeys credible, and that doubt should not be treated as disproof. The chapters below follow the Puratan's four-part frame because readers will know it, and that frame should be read as a convention.[Src][Src][McLeod][Singh][EoS]

Disputedc. 1500 to c. 1520

How many journeys?

The Puratan has four udasis with returns home between them, Miharban two, and the Gyan Ratnavali three; none can be proved.

What the sources say (6)

ScriptureHas a line in which Guru Ji says he has seen sacred river banks, the nine regions, and many towns and markets, which McLeod reads as partly hyperbole but as implying real travel. (ang 156)[Src]
Early sourceSends Guru Ji round pilgrimage places, on to Sumeru, Mecca, Baghdad and Medina, and back to Kartarpur, in a single order. (pauris 25-38)[Src]
ScholarshipCredits the Colebrooke line of the Puratan with arranging travel stories into the four journeys.[EoS]
ScholarshipCalls the Puratan pattern least likely, sees the various orders as compilers' constructions, and allows only the broad period from about 1500 to about 1520. (pp. 143-145)[McLeod]
ScholarshipSays an exact itinerary is hard to establish, but keeps the customary grouping into four journeys.[EoS]
ScholarshipArgues that sources of travel conditions, and fieldwork in India and Sri Lanka, are needed before any route is dismissed. (preface)[Singh]

Well attestedc. 1500 to c. 1520

Bhai Mardana on the road

The rabab player was Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's companion, and the Puratan stories make him a figure of affectionate comedy.

The Puratan Janamsakhi, as retold in the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, gives Mardana a human appetite. They had not gone far from Sultanpur when he said he had to eat at once. Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji pointed to a village of Uppal Khatris, and there Mardana was given a splendid meal and plenty to take away. When he came back loaded with a bundle, Guru Ji rolled on the ground laughing. Mardana saw what he had made of himself, and threw it away.

Another time, in open country, a storm came on, then fire, then rain. Mardana covered his face, lay down and said goodbye to life, complaining that he would have neither shroud nor grave. Guru Ji told him to raise his head and take up the rabab. Mardana tuned it, and Guru Ji sang a verse saying that where fear of God is present no other fear remains.

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Note. The bond is attested; the individual comic stories are tradition.

What the sources say (4)

Early sourceShows Mardana with Guru Ji as the rabab player at Baghdad. (pauri 35)[Src]
Early sourceLists him among the followers. (pauri 13)[Src]
Later traditionRetells Puratan stories about his hunger, an overloaded bundle and a great storm.[EoS]
ScholarshipNotes that one early source barely mentions him and that the Puratan's fondness for quoting hymns made him prominent, so his association is secure while the details are not. (pp. 171-172)[McLeod]

DisputedClaimed 1466-1544

Bhai Bala

Popular art shows Bhai Bala at Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's side, but the older sources do not mention him as a companion.

Note. Bala's place in Sikh memory is real and old, going back to 1658 at least, and devotional portraits often show him. His role as an eyewitness dictating a biography is what scholars reject.

What the sources say (4)

ScholarshipGives the traditional dates and story of a childhood friend from Talwandi, then reports that neither Bhai Gurdas, Puratan nor Miharban names him.[EoS]
ScholarshipSays no person of the name can have been a constant companion given that silence, but that a Bala Sandhu may still have existed.[EoS]
Early sourceOmits him from the list of Guru Ji's Sikhs in pauris 13-14, though a Bala of the Marwaha clan appears among other Sikhs in pauri 23 with no claim to be this figure. (pauris 13, 14, 23)[Src]
ScholarshipTreats the pairing of the Muslim Mardana with a Hindu Bala as part of a later theme of Guru Ji as a unifier. (p. 255)[McLeod]

The first journey: the east, as tradition tells it

c. 1500 onward, by tradition

The Puratan's eastern journey runs through places such as Haridwar, Varanasi and Bengal, with its stops and teachings arranged as a mission to the holy cities of Hindu India. McLeod files most of them as possible but unprovable, on the argument that such a list is exactly what pious imagination would choose, while allowing that Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji surely reached at least some of them. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism and most Sikh biographers accept the journey as a whole.

Punjab stories appear in the same stretch because the Puratan attaches them to the opening of the travels. Sajjan's inn and Bhai Lalo's house are placed by different texts at quite different times and places, a sign that they did not come with a fixed date.[McLeod][EoS][EoS]

DisputedEarly in the travels, by traditionNear Tulamba in the Bala; south India in Miharban; Hastinapur in the Gyan Ratnavali

Sajjan the thug

A pious-seeming host who murdered his guests was turned by a hymn, the stories say, and made his house the first dharamsala.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi, Sajjan was a man of apparent piety who kept a mosque for Muslim travellers and a temple for Hindus, and made them all welcome. At night, when his guests slept, he killed them, dropped them down a well and took their goods. In the morning he was at his prayers again.

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Mardana stopped with him, and Sajjan, looking at the visitor's face, took him for a rich man. But Guru Ji stayed up late. When Sajjan finally came to the door to see why, Mardana was playing and Guru Ji was singing of bronze that gleams on the surface and leaves black on the hand that rubs it.

Sajjan understood he was being described. He fell at Guru Ji's feet and confessed. Guru Ji told him that pardon would come only through repentance and giving up what he had taken. The Puratan says he brought it all out and gave it away in God's name, and that his house became a dharamsala, the first such place in Sikh tradition.

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Note. Sajjan appears as a sheikh in the Puratan and as a Vaishnava who steals clothes in the Bala. The tomb is real but tells us only of a local memory.

What the sources say (5)

Later traditionGives the fuller story from the Puratan and others, placing Sajjan at Makhdumpur near Tulamba, and notes a mound and tomb there bearing his name.[EoS]
ScholarshipShows that the versions disagree about location and detail, that Bhai Gurdas does not mention him, and that the word sajan, friend, in the hymn Suhi 3 may have generated the tale, and so classes it as improbable though not impossible. (pp. 117-119)[McLeod]
ScriptureContains the Raag Suhi hymn about bronze that shines but blackens when rubbed, and about real friends who go along with you to the end, with no mention of any thug. (ang 729)[Src]
Later traditionHas a separate tale of a robber named Bhola who is sent home to ask whether his family will share his punishment. (ff. 42-43)[(tr.)]
Later traditionRetells the temple-and-mosque version for a modern audience.[Macauliffe]

DisputedBefore the long travels, in the BalaSaidpur, now Eminabad

Bhai Lalo and Malik Bhago

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji stayed with a poor carpenter and refused a rich steward's feast; the two loaves, the story says, gave milk and blood.

According to the Bala Janamsakhi, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji came to Saidpur and stayed for three days with Lalo, a carpenter of low caste. At the same time Malik Bhago, the steward of the town's Muslim chief, gave a great feast for holy men and high-caste Hindus, and he noticed afterwards that this one visitor had stayed away.

He sent for Guru Ji and asked why a man born a Khatri would prefer a poor man's food to his own. Guru Ji replied that he ate what God sent and that God saw no caste. Told to eat, then, he asked Lalo to bring some of his coarse bread.

He took Lalo's bread in his right hand and Bhago's delicacies in his left and pressed them. From Lalo's bread came milk, and from Bhago's food came blood. The Janamsakhi says the whole gathering was amazed. Retellers from Macauliffe onward draw the moral: one had been earned by labour and the other taken from the poor.

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Note. Var 11's lists of early Sikhs in pauris 13-14 do not name Lalo, which supports McLeod on this point. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism and Harbans Singh read the hymn's refrain as a personal address to a real disciple.

What the sources say (7)

Later traditionGives the Bala Janamsakhi's account of Lalo's three-day hospitality, Malik Bhago's anger and the squeezing of the two foods, and notes the conjecture that the Tilang hymn addresses him.[EoS]
Later traditionIdentifies Malik Bhago as the Hindu steward of Saidpur's Muslim chief.[EoS]
ScriptureHas a hymn in Raag Tilang with the refrain ve Lalo, which does not describe any carpenter or feast. (ang 722)[Src]
ScholarshipDismisses the story as a miracle, notes that Lalo is absent from the older Janamsakhis, and suggests the name may have grown out of a refrain meaning O beloved. (pp. 86-87)[McLeod]
ScholarshipGives a chapter the title Lalo and treats him as a real early disciple at Saidpur. (ch. VII)[Singh]
ScholarshipRecords Gurdwaras Rori Sahib and Khuhi Bhai Lalo, and the Bala placing of their first meeting before the long travels.[EoS]
Later traditionRetells the story for modern readers, mainly from the Bala line.[Macauliffe]

DisputedEarly in the travels, by traditionHaridwar

Haridwar: watering the fields

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji threw water the other way at Haridwar, the story says, to question offerings sent to the ancestors.

In the Miharban Janamsakhi, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji came to the Ganga at Haridwar and saw crowds splashing water for their forebears. He stepped in and began splashing it the other way. Offended, they asked him why. He asked them where their water was going, and they said it was going to their ancestors in heaven. Then he was doing the same, he said, for his fields near Lahore. When they scoffed, he said that water able to reach heaven could surely reach Lahore, and that left them with nothing to say.

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What the sources say (4)

Later traditionSummarises Miharban's version, in which Guru Ji says he is watering his fields near Lahore. (p. 55)[McLeod]
ScholarshipReports that the early Bala manuscripts lack the story while modern Bala versions have it, that a similar story exists in Buddhist tradition, and that this does not rule out a visit to Haridwar. (p. 90)[McLeod]
ScholarshipIncludes Haridwar among the pilgrimage places he visited.[EoS]
ScholarshipThe editor objects that McLeod's rejection of the scene leaves his position on the visit itself uncertain. (introduction, pp. 19-20)[Singh]

Agreed in traditionShivratri of 1507, by a gurdwara traditionVaranasi

Varanasi: Pandit Chatur Das

A leading pandit asked about Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's lack of the marks of devotion, and was answered with a hymn.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi and the tradition at Varanasi, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji took a seat in an open public place in the holy city. A learned pandit, Chatur Das, stopped to look at this oddly dressed visitor. He asked what sort of devotee went about with no sacred stone, no basil necklace, no rosary and no mark on his brow.

Guru Ji had Mardana play, and sang of making the Name the sacred stone and good deeds the necklace, and of the waste of watering barren soil. Chatur Das offered to teach him the many branches of learning. Guru Ji said that one subject was enough, and that the truly learned person was the one who remembered God and served others.

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Note. The February 1507 date comes only from the Encyclopaedia's entry on the site, and it should be treated as local tradition.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionGives the Puratan scene in which Chatur Das notices the missing salagram, rosary and sect mark, and the discourse ends with the Oankar composition and his conversion. (p. 39)[McLeod]
ScholarshipRecords the same scene at Gurdwara Guru Bagh and gives the date of Shivratri 1563 Bk, February 1507.[EoS]
ScholarshipLists Miharban's Varanasi discourses too, and classes the visit as possible but unproved. (p. 89)[McLeod]

DisputedEastern journey, by the PuratanKauru or Kavaru in Puratan and Bala, usually taken as Kamrup; elsewhere in other texts

The land ruled by women

Enchantresses turned Mardana into a sheep, the story says, until Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's power overcame them.

Note. Sikh biographers usually read this as evidence of a visit to Assam. McLeod's argument is about the story's setting, and gurdwaras in the region, he says, probably come from the later spread of the tradition.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionSummarises the versions, set in Kauru or Kavaru by Puratan and Bala, beside the ocean in B-40 and in the south in the Gyan Ratnavali, and notes that Miharban and Bhai Gurdas omit it. (pp. 110-112)[McLeod]
ScholarshipRejects a visit to Assam on this evidence, because no women ruled there at the time and the land of women was an old legend, though he does not say that a visit is impossible. (pp. 111-112)[McLeod]
ScholarshipLists Assam and Bengal among the places visited.[EoS]

Agreed in traditionUndatedLahore

Duni Chand and the needle

A rich man proud of his flags was given a needle to return in the next world.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi, Duni Chand, a Khatri revenue official at Lahore, was holding a feast in memory of his father when he heard Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was in the city and invited him. Seven flags flew over his door, one for each lakh of his wealth.

Guru Ji handed him a needle and asked him to keep it safe and give it back in the next world. Puzzled, he took it to his wife, who asked him who could carry anything beyond this life. He went back, bowed and returned it. Guru Ji told him to give in God's name and feed the hungry, as that was the only wealth that would travel with him.

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What the sources say (3)

Later traditionTells the story from the Puratan, including seven flags, each for a lakh, and a shraddha feast for his father.[EoS]
ScholarshipTreats the Rich Man's Pennants as a study in how a sakhi grows, including how the Puratan brings in Mardana to accompany a quotation. (p. 172)[McLeod]
ScholarshipNotes that B-40 has four flags with no name, the Puratan has seven and names Duni Chand, and classes the story as possible but doubtful. (p. 89)[McLeod]

Single accountUndatedBishambharpur in the Bala; identified as Bishnupur or Patna

Salas Rai the jeweller

Mardana sold a stone from the jungle to a jeweller who recognised it as priceless, and the man and his servant became disciples.

What the sources say (2)

Later traditionTells the story from the Bala and notes rival identifications of the town, with Giani Gian Singh choosing Patna.[EoS]
ScholarshipCalls it most improbable because of its legend, unclear geography and absence from the older collections. (pp. 84-85)[McLeod]

The south and the north

Undated in the sources

The southern and northern journeys are the most strongly contested. The Puratan takes Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji to Sri Lanka, where the merchant Mansukh is said to have prepared a king, Shivnabh, to receive him. It sends him into the Himalayas to Mount Sumeru to dispute with the immortal Siddhs, and Bhai Gurdas tells a Sumeru story of his own.

McLeod rejects both as history, on the grounds that no king of that name ruled in Sri Lanka and that Mount Sumeru belongs to myth. Kirpal Singh and Trilochan Singh defend the Sri Lanka visit, and Harbans Singh cites a later reading of an inscription at Anuradhapura. Readers should note that the story from Var 1 is early evidence that the tradition existed by the time of Bhai Gurdas, and it is not evidence for the journey itself.[EoS][Src][McLeod][Singh][Singh][Singh]

DisputedSouthern journey, by the PuratanSinghaladip, Sri Lanka, in the Puratan and later

Raja Shivnabh of Sri Lanka

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's visit to a king who had long waited for him is told in several Janamsakhis, and whether it took place is debated.

According to the Janamsakhis, Mansukh, a merchant of Lahore, sailed to the land of Raja Shivnabh, and the Puratan makes him the means of the king's interest. The king longed to meet the perfect teacher Mansukh had described, and Mansukh told him to keep his mind on Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and wait.

The king tested every holy man who arrived by sending slave girls to tempt him. When a stranger came who could not be moved, he knew his wait was over. In the Puratan the king, his wife Chandrakala and their son all became disciples, a dharamsala was built, and a composition called the Pran Sangli was written down by the companion Saido.

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Note. The inscription argument depends on identifying Jnanakacarya with Guru Ji, which has not been generally established.

What the sources say (5)

Later traditionTells of Mansukh, Shivnabh, Queen Chandrakala, the dharamsala and the Pran Sangli, with the later mission of Bhai Paira under Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji and the rejection of the work.[EoS]
ScholarshipArgues there was no ruler named Shivnabh in Sri Lanka, that Bhai Gurdas and Miharban give no support, that B-40 tells the story without naming the island, and that the visit must be rejected. (pp. 114-117)[McLeod]
ScholarshipHolds that the visit can be upheld with some certainty and cites S. Paranavitana's reading of an inscription at Anuradhapura about a teacher called Jnanakacarya at the court of Kotte. (note to the southern journey)[Singh]
ScholarshipSays from his own travels in Sri Lanka that Tamil links and sea routes made a crossing from south India quite plausible, and that McLeod was hasty. (preface)[Singh]
ScholarshipCondemns McLeod's treatment of the Sri Lanka evidence as negative and argumentative.[Singh]

DisputedNorthern journey, by the PuratanMount Sumeru, a mountain of Puranic geography

Mount Sumeru and the Siddhs

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji climbed to the Siddhs' mountain, the sources say, and refused their yoga and their jewels.

In Bhai Gurdas's first Var, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji climbs Sumeru and finds Gorakh and the eighty-four Siddhs seated there. They are startled and ask who has brought him and what his name is. They then ask how things stand on the earth. He answers that truth has grown dim and falsehood is everywhere, and that those who could help have gone to hide in the mountains.

The Siddhs decide that such a person would make their order famous, and try to win him. They hand him a begging bowl to fetch water. At the stream he sees only rubies and jewels. He comes back and tells them there is no water there. Bhai Gurdas ends by saying that it was through the Word that the Siddhs were overcome.

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Note. Some writers identify Sumeru with Kailash; McLeod rejects the identification.

What the sources say (4)

Early sourceTells of Sumeru, questions from Gorakh and eighty-four Siddhs, Guru Ji's account of a corrupt age below, and a bowl sent for water to a stream full of jewels. (pauris 28-31)[Src]
ScholarshipCalls the tradition strong but rejects it, because the mountain is mythical, the Siddhs lived in other ages, and the story seems to have grown out of a set of sloks in Var Ramkali, though he leaves a Himalayan journey undecided. (pp. 119-122)[McLeod]
ScholarshipCounts Sumeru among legends of travel to mythical places.[EoS]
ScholarshipSuggests the Sidh Gosti may gather points from discussions at several sites, including Sumeru, in reflective recollection.[EoS]

DisputedBy the Puratan, northern or eastern journeyNear Pilibhit, formerly Gorakhmata

Nanakmata

A Nath centre said to have been renamed after a visit by Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, when a withered tree turned green.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionSummarises the Puratan story of a banyan that grew green when Guru Ji sat under it. (p. 40)[McLeod]
ScholarshipSays the site was Gorakh Mata, a Siddh home, and that an Udasi named Almast set up a seat there.[EoS]
ScholarshipSees the name as most likely coming from Udasis who took over the site around the time of Sri Guru Hargobind Ji, though a visit cannot be excluded. (p. 85)[McLeod]

Mecca, Medina and Baghdad

Undated in the early sources; Vir Singh placed Baghdad visits in 1506-07 and 1511-12

The western journey is the one on which early evidence and modern doubt most sharply meet. Bhai Gurdas sends Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji in blue to Mecca, then Baghdad, and says Medina too bowed. McLeod counts the Mecca visit among only three incidents found in Bhai Gurdas and in every major Janamsakhi, so the tradition is strong.

McLeod's main objection to Mecca is practical: a non-Muslim could enter only in full disguise, which he thinks foreign to Guru Ji's character. Ganda Singh nevertheless held the visit not improbable, and Kirpal Singh thought McLeod hasty on it. For Baghdad there is a physical object, an inscription at the tomb of Bahlul Dana, whose reading has been fought over since 1918. The questions are still open.[Src][McLeod][Grewal][Singh][Singh][EoS]

DisputedUndated in the sourcesMecca

Mecca: the moving mihrab

Sleeping with his feet towards the holy place, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the sources say, told the qazi to turn them where God was not.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji reached Mecca, lay down in the colonnade and fell asleep with his feet towards the Ka'ba. At the hour of evening prayer Qazi Rukn ud-Din came by and, in shock, asked him if he could not see where his feet were pointing. Bhai Gurdas calls the man Jivan and has him kick the sleeper.

Guru Ji replied: then turn my feet to the side where the house of God is not. The Qazi took them and pulled them round, and in every direction he turned them, the Ka'ba went too. He kissed the feet of this stranger and said that he had met a true man of God.

Miharban tells the same exchange and stops at Guru Ji's answer, which is how many modern readers also prefer it. Bhai Gurdas goes on to the debate that followed, and says a wooden sandal was kept as a memorial at Mecca.

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Note. Var 1 offers a separate exchange: asked whether Hindu or Muslim is greater, Guru Ji replies that neither has standing without good deeds. McLeod finds this fits Guru Ji's teaching in general, but doubts the Mecca setting.

What the sources say (7)

Early sourcePuts Guru Ji in blue at a Mecca mosque among pilgrims, and has the qazi Jivan kick him and drag his feet, and all Mecca seemed to revolve. (pauri 32)[Src]
Later traditionQuotes the Puratan account with Qazi Rukn ud-Din and the turning of the Ka'ba, and notes the Var's name Jivan.[EoS]
Later traditionHas a moving mihrab at Mecca with a descendant of Bahauddin as the questioner. (ff. 51-53, as cited in GNSR p. 123)[(tr.)]
Later traditionReports that Miharban keeps the words but drops the miracle and sets the event on the road, and that early Bala versions set it in Medina. (pp. 123-124)[McLeod]
ScholarshipClasses the visit as highly improbable because of the ban on non-Muslims and the likely need for a disguise. (pp. 122-125)[McLeod]
ScholarshipReports Ganda Singh's judgement that a Mecca visit is not improbable and a Baghdad visit almost certain.[Grewal]
ScholarshipThinks McLeod too hasty in denying any record of the visit. (preface)[Singh]

DisputedFollowing Mecca or Baghdad, by the sourcesMedina

Medina

Medina appears in some tellings, but neither Puratan nor Miharban mentions it.

What the sources say (3)

Early sourceSays that after Baghdad, Mecca and Medina too bowed, with no story attached. (pauri 37)[Src]
ScholarshipLists Medina among the places Guru Ji visited in the west.[EoS]
ScholarshipClasses it with Mecca as highly improbable and notes its absence from the two older Janamsakhis. (p. 125)[McLeod]

DisputedInscription read as 917 or 927 Hijri, 1511-12 or 1520-21Baghdad

Baghdad and the inscription

Bhai Gurdas places Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji outside Baghdad; a Turkish inscription there may or may not name Guru Ji.

In Bhai Gurdas's first Var, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji arrives at Baghdad with Mardana and sets up outside the city. He gives a call, and the whole town falls silent. The pir, Dastgir, comes to look and asks what kind of faqir this is and from what family. Mardana answers for him.

They talk, and Guru Ji speaks of countless worlds above and below. The pir asks to be shown them. Guru Ji takes the pir's son and in the blink of an eye shows him the upper and lower regions, and from below brings back a bowl of sacred food. Bhai Gurdas closes by saying that such power could not be kept hidden.

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Note. This is a good test of the sceptical method, because a single expert letter on one line changed the assessment, and later scholars have contested it. The inscription has not been re-edited here, and this site reports the disagreement without choosing. The Sufi figures named in some accounts, Abd al-Qadir Jilani and Bahlul, lived long before, so tradition must in any case be taken loosely on who was met.

What the sources say (6)

Early sourceHas Guru Ji stay outside the city and give a call that hushes it, with Pir Dastgir asking who he is and a son taken to see the many worlds. (pauris 35-36)[Src]
ScholarshipAccepts the visit, gives a translation and notes that a date now read as 917 was once photographed as 927, with Bhai Gurdas as earliest witness.[EoS]
ScholarshipReports Miharban's and Puratan's silence, B-40's quite different story, and V. L. Menage's analysis finding the text probably from 1226 Hijri or 1811-12, with Baba Nanak unlikely on metrical grounds. (pp. 125-132)[McLeod]
ScholarshipCites Jhinasi Tekin of Harvard as reading Baba Nanak in the line and finding it does fit the metre. (note, ch. on Baghdad; appendix I)[Singh]
ScholarshipReproduces R. S. Verma's 1970 paper calling McLeod's doubts baseless and defending 917, with Verma's chronogram total. (pp. 276-277)[Singh]
ScholarshipDescribes a cloak at Dera Baba Nanak, said to be from a Muslim devotee at Baghdad and brought there in 1828.[EoS]

DisputedOn the way home from the west, by traditionHasan Abdal

Vali Qandhari and Panja Sahib

A hilltop recluse refused water to Mardana and hurled a boulder, which is said to have stopped against Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's palm.

As Bhai Santokh Singh and the later tradition tell it, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Mardana halted, tired and thirsty, under a hill at Hasan Abdal. At the top lived a Muslim recluse, Vali Qandhari, who kept the only water. Mardana climbed up and asked for some. Told who his master was, the Vali said that so great a holy man should be able to look after his own follower.

Mardana came down. Guru Ji sent him up a second time to ask with humility, and again he was refused. Then Guru Ji touched the hillside with his stick. Water sprang up at his feet, and at the top the Vali's own pool began to fail.

In anger the Vali sent a great rock rolling down the slope at them. Guru Ji raised his hand. The stone stopped against his open palm and took its print. The mark is shown today at Gurdwara Panja Sahib, the gurdwara of the holy palm, and the Vali's grave is on the hill above.

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Note. McLeod also notes old reports that the hand-mark stood out in relief while it is now recessed. The gurdwara's importance as a place of Sikh memory does not depend on the story's date.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionTells the story and says it was popularised by the Bala Janamsakhi and Bhai Santokh Singh's Nanak Prakash.[EoS]
Later traditionRepeats the story, crediting Santokh Singh, and traces the gurdwara to the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.[EoS]
ScholarshipLists it among stories to be rejected, points to Buddhist and other earlier legends at the same site, and notes how late the story appears in the Janamsakhis. (pp. 77-79)[McLeod]

DisputedArabia or Baghdad, by differing accounts

The Chola Sahib

Bedi family tradition says Guru Ji received a robe inscribed with Quranic writing on the western journey. The robe is kept today at Dera Baba Nanak, and accounts of its origin differ.

According to the booklet of the Chola Sahib's custodian, Guru Ji met a descendant of Pir Dastgir in Arabia and there received the robe, which it calls the Akal Chola. It says a ruler named King Lajward objected that this was a garment of Muslim faqirs, and told Guru Ji to take it off. Guru Ji replied that they had not put it on themselves and would not take it off.

The booklet says the ruler's vizier tried to remove it by force, but it had become one with Guru Ji's body. Harsh treatment did Guru Ji no harm, and the ruler finally bowed at Guru Ji's feet. The booklet points to the Bala Janamsakhi and the Suraj Prakash for this story.

It adds that the robe later passed through the Gurus to Bhai Tota Ram of Balkh-Bukhara, and that Baba Kabli Mal Ji brought it to Dera Baba Nanak, where the sangat still has darshan of it each March.

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Note. The object exists and can be seen. What is disputed is its origin, and no independent dating of the cloth has been found.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionGives the Bedi family's account: the robe received in Arabia, the story of King Lajward, and its later journey to Balkh-Bukhara and Dera Baba Nanak.[Src]
ScholarshipSays a devotee at Baghdad gave the robe, and dates its arrival at Dera Baba Nanak to 1 March 1828.[EoS]
Later traditionReports the belief that it was given at Mecca, and that the family still displays it.[Web]

The Babur invasions and the Babarvani hymns

1520 to 1526

Here the historical record and Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's own words meet. Four hymns in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, known as the Babarvani, speak directly of the Mughal invasions. Three are in Raag Asa at angs 360 and 417-18, and one is in Raag Tilang at angs 722-23. They name Babur, name the Mughals and Pathans, mention guns and elephants, and describe what happened to the women of all communities. A one-line slok at ang 1412 names Lahore. These lines were checked in BaniDB.

The Janamsakhis attach all of this to the storming of Saidpur, now Eminabad, in 1520. McLeod accepts that Guru Ji saw the ruin caused by these invasions, but argues that the hymns themselves point mainly to 1524 and 1526, and that the meeting with Babur is the kind of encounter hagiography tends to create. Guru Ji's meaning in the hymns is theological: rulers who ignored the divine order paid for it, and yet Guru Ji also asks God how such suffering could be allowed.[Src][EoS][EoS][McLeod]

Well attestedComposed c. 1520-26 or soon afterPunjab

The Babarvani hymns

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's four hymns on Babur's invasions lament the victims, rebuke the Lodi rulers and question God directly.

Note. Guru Ji sees Babur as an instrument of divine judgement on the Lodis but does not excuse him, and calls his army a wedding party of sin in the Tilang hymn.

What the sources say (5)

ScriptureContains the hymn in Raag Asa where Khurasan is spared and Hindustan terrified, and the line that says that a strong man's attack on a strong man would stir no anger. (ang 360)[Src]
ScriptureContains the hymn on women whose hair was once dressed with vermilion, with the line from which the name comes: Babur's rule has spread and even the princes have no bread. (ang 417)[Src]
ScriptureContains the hymn asking where the sports, stables and horses have gone, with the line on the battle of Mughals and Pathans. (angs 417-18)[Src]
ScholarshipIdentifies the four hymns, explains the name Babarvani, and sets out the Encyclopaedia's reading of them as compassion and moral protest.[EoS]
ScholarshipTakes the hymns' vividness as a sign of direct experience, while arguing that the two ashtapadis were written after 1526 and do not describe Saidpur. (pp. 135-138)[McLeod]

DisputedUncertainSaidpur by tradition

The Tilang hymn: 'seventy-eight' and 'ninety-seven'

The Tilang hymn speaks of coming in seventy-eight and departing in ninety-seven; the line's meaning is debated.

Note. McLeod's English gives ninety-nine at this point, but the Gurmukhi on BaniDB reads ninety-seven (satanvai), and his own explanation works from 1597. It seems to be a slip.

What the sources say (3)

ScriptureSays they arrive in seventy-eight and leave in ninety-seven, and that another disciple of a brave man will arise. (ang 723)[Src]
ScholarshipTakes the numbers as the Bikrami years 1578 and 1597, or 1521 and 1540, marking Babur's invasion and Humayun's removal by Sher Khan.[EoS]
ScholarshipObjects that the expeditions fell in 1520 and 1523-24 and that 1540 comes after Guru Ji's passing, and so finds that reading doubtful. (p. 137, note 3)[McLeod]

Disputed1520 in most accounts; 1521 in one Encyclopaedia entrySaidpur, now Eminabad

The sack of Saidpur

Babur's army stormed Saidpur, and the Janamsakhis place Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Bhai Mardana among the captives.

Note. Bhai Gurdas says nothing of this in Var 1. The conflict between 1520 and 1521 is internal to the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism.

What the sources say (5)

ScholarshipSays tradition places the event in 1520, with garrison killed and people carried off.[EoS]
ScholarshipDates the sack to 1521 and notes Gurdwara Chakki Sahib, which keeps a millstone he is said to have turned.[EoS]
ScholarshipMcLeod's introduction suggests the Narrative I story of the town's destruction preserves a real local memory, as a new town of Eminabad was later built beside the ruin. (introduction)[(tr.)]
Later traditionReports the Puratan and Miharban claim that the town fell because its people refused food to faqirs and that Guru Ji's verse called down the attack, which McLeod rejects as out of keeping with his works. (pp. 133-134)[McLeod]
ScholarshipHolds that presence at Saidpur remains a probability, on the grounds that the Janamsakhis agree and an obscure town is an unlikely invention. (p. 138)[McLeod]

Disputedc. 1520Saidpur

The meeting with Babur

The Puratan says Babur saw Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's load float and his horse follow unled, kissed his feet and released the captives.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi, after Saidpur fell Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Bhai Mardana were taken among the prisoners. Guru Ji was given a load for his head, and Mardana a horse to lead. An officer named Mir Khan looked and saw the bundle riding a cubit above Guru Ji's head, and the horse following Mardana without a rein.

He told Babur, who said that with such faqirs about, the town should never have been struck, and went to see for himself. He kissed Guru Ji's feet and offered him anything he might ask. Guru Ji said he wanted nothing for himself but asked that the prisoners of Saidpur be freed and their goods given back. The order went out, and they were released.

The Puratan adds a hand-mill that turned by itself, and a tradition at Gurdwara Chakki Sahib preserves a millstone. Mardana later wanted to know why a whole town should pay for the wrongs of a few. Guru Ji told him to sleep under a tree. A drop of grease on his chest drew ants, one bit him, and in his sleep he brushed them all away and killed them. That, Guru Ji said, was the answer.

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Note. McLeod relies on Annette Beveridge's description of the 1520 expedition. Babur's silence about any such meeting is noted by the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, which still will not rule it out.

What the sources say (4)

Later traditionRetells the Puratan scene of Mir Khan's report and the freeing of prisoners, and notes that Babur's memoirs do not mention it, while saying that the meeting cannot be ruled out.[EoS]
Later traditionGives the same detail of a bundle floating above the head and an unled horse.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts captivity and release in its narrative.[EoS]
ScholarshipCalls it most unlikely, because Miharban omits it, the Puratan versions differ, and hagiography likes meetings with the great. (p. 138)[McLeod]

Well attested1524, by inferenceLahore

Lahore city, 1524

A single slok names Lahore, and is commonly linked to Babur's sack of the city in 1524.

Note. The line is certain; the link with 1524 is an inference. The next slok in the same set, by Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, praises Lahore in contrast.

What the sources say (3)

ScriptureHas the brief line naming Lahore city with poison and violence for a watch and a quarter, among the sloks left over from the Vars. (ang 1412, slok 27)[Src]
ScholarshipReads it as a sign that Guru Ji may have been in Lahore during the plunder of that year.[EoS]
ScholarshipNotes that the reference to 1524 is a tradition of interpretation and remains possible. (p. 137, note 2)[McLeod]

The Kartarpur settlement

c. 1520 to 1539

The last years are the best remembered. Having settled on the right bank of the Ravi, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji put away the dress of a traveller, in Bhai Gurdas's account, and lived as a householder. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism dates the start to around 1521. Bhai Gurdas names the daily pattern: the Sodar and Arati in the evening and the Japu in the early hours, with hymns and discussion.

McLeod finds much here that rings true. The community was close to the time of the first narrators, it was in a known place, and its features fit what the hymns teach. Morning worship before dawn, a day of work, evening hymns and a shared table are the pattern usually described, and later Sikh practice grew from it. Fuller descriptions of a common kitchen at Kartarpur come from later writers, and Grewal, in summarising McLeod, describes how such practices are largely reconstructed from the works and the later tradition.[Src][EoS][EoS][McLeod][Grewal]

Well attestedc. 1521 in the Encyclopaedia; the year is not firmRight bank of the Ravi

Founding Kartarpur

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji settled at a new village on the Ravi, on land given by a devoted follower.

The Janamsakhis, as summarised by McLeod, tell of a rich official who set out to seize Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji for leading people astray. On the way he was struck blind and suffered other troubles, and he came instead as a follower, and gave the land on which the village rose with a dharamsala. McLeod sets aside the miracles, and keeps the gift.

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Note. The Hafizabad Puratan puts the founding earlier, after the first journey, and the Gyan Ratnavali later, after the northern journey.

What the sources say (6)

Early sourceSays that Guru Ji came back to Kartarpur, set aside the traveller's clothes and lived in householder's dress. (pauri 38)[Src]
Early sourceLists Jita Randhava among Guru Ji's Sikhs. (pauri 14)[Src]
ScholarshipSays Guru Ji's travels ended about 1521 with Kartarpur, on land donated by a wealthy follower.[EoS]
ScholarshipDescribes the village as sacred to Guru Ji and the place of the last two decades.[EoS]
ScholarshipNames Ajitta Randhawa, the headman of Pakkhoke, who asked Guru Ji to settle near by.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts the gift of land and places the settlement after the main travels, on the basis of Miharban. (pp. 138-140)[McLeod]

Well attestedc. 1521-39Kartarpur

Daily life and the shared community

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's Sikhs prayed before dawn, worked by day and sang the hymns in the evening.

Note. Grewal's summary and the sources do not give us a contemporary description of a langar at Kartarpur. The Encyclopaedia mentions the creation of langar and sangat among Guru Ji's works, and the fullest pictures are later.

What the sources say (4)

Early sourceNames Sodar and Arati as sung, and the Japu recited in the early hours, with discussion and hymns. (pauri 38)[Src]
ScholarshipDescribes morning prayer before sunrise, a day of work and evening hymns, and says that Guru Ji's verse was set down in this period.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts Kartarpur as the period when the foundations of the community were really laid, with much that rings true. (pp. 70, 145)[McLeod]
ScholarshipSummarises McLeod's inference of a household life with regular kirtan, instruction and daily work, followed by those who stress the originality of the teaching. (ch. 6)[Grewal]

DisputedUndated; Mani Singh's account has 1522 for KaluTalwandi and Kartarpur

Returning to Talwandi and the parents' passing

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's reunion with the parents is a tender scene in the Janamsakhis; the timing of their passing is unclear.

Note. The Gyan Ratnavali also says that Mata Sulakhni passed away fifteen days after Guru Ji, which older accounts do not mention. McLeod reports this without accepting it.

What the sources say (3)

ScholarshipCalls the reunion with the mother among the finest passages in the Janamsakhis, notes that it occurs at different points in each, and thinks a very late date for the parents' passing unlikely. (pp. 92, 140)[McLeod]
ScholarshipFollows the account attributed to Bhai Mani Singh that Mata Tripta passed away at Kartarpur soon after Mehta Kalu did in 1522.[EoS]
ScholarshipSays the last visit to Talwandi came in 1510.[EoS]

Single account1518, by later sourcesSultanpur Lodhi

Bebe Nanaki's passing

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's sister is said to have held him at Sultanpur as her end approached in 1518.

Note. McLeod notes that the older Janamsakhis do not even name her, so this is late tradition, though a touching one.

What the sources say (1)

Later traditionRelies on later works for an account of Guru Ji coming to Sultanpur, her passing in his presence, and Jai Ram's three days later.[EoS]

Agreed in traditionUndated; Kartarpur years, by McLeodPak Pattan

Sheikh Ibrahim at Pak Pattan

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji met the successor of Shaikh Farid, and the two debated whether one can sail in two boats.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Mardana were singing in the forest outside Pak Pattan when Kamal, a disciple of Sheikh Ibrahim, came gathering firewood. He stopped to listen to the verses, carried them back to his master and said he had met a true man of God.

The Sheikh came out and looked at this person in a householder's clothes. He warned him not to want both God and the world: a man who stands on two boats, he said, will lose his cargo. Guru Ji's reply was to place feet and goods on both. For those who trade in what is true, he said, there would be neither sea nor sinking.

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Note. This is one of the few encounters with a Sufi that McLeod accepts as likely.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionGives the Puratan's discourse with Sheikh Ibrahim and the exchange about the two boats.[EoS]
ScholarshipTreats the meeting as a strong probability, because Pak Pattan was close and famous, while thinking the actual discourse largely imagined. (p. 140)[McLeod]
ScholarshipRejects the versions which have Guru Ji meet Farid himself, since he passed away in 1265. (pp. 80, 82)[McLeod]

Well attestedDate unknown; at a Shivratri fairAchal, near Batala

The debate at Achal Batala

At a Shivratri fair the Nath yogis confronted Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji about giving up the ascetic life, and Guru Ji replied that they lived off householders.

In Bhai Gurdas's first Var, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji hears of the Shivratri fair and goes from Kartarpur to Achal. The crowd leaves the yogis to see him, and the offerings follow. Angered, the yogis hide the devotees' pot, and Guru Ji finds it for them.

Their leader Bangar Nath then challenges him. Why, he asks, have you curdled the milk by adding vinegar? Why take off the ascetic's robe and go back to living as a householder? Guru Ji answers that the fault is in Bangar Nath's teacher, who never cleaned the vessel. You renounce the home, Guru Ji says, and then you go to the doors of householders for your food.

The yogis then show their powers. They turn into lions, fly like birds, hiss like snakes and pour out fire. When they ask him for a miracle, Guru Ji says he has nothing to show but the holy fellowship and the Word, and without the true Name all else passes like the shadow of a cloud. The Var ends with the yogis at peace.

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Note. The debate is treated as historical. The details of the contest of powers belong to the poem.

What the sources say (4)

Early sourceGives a full account of the fair, the hidden pot, Bangar Nath's charge about vinegar in milk, Guru Ji's reply, the yogis' magic and the answer that the true Name was the only miracle. (pauris 39-44)[Src]
ScholarshipSummarises the event and quotes Miharban's picture of the crowds rushing to see Guru Ji.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts this debate as well founded because all the sources record it, Achal is close to Kartarpur, and Guru Ji's works show frequent contact with Naths. (pp. 140-141)[McLeod]
ScholarshipNotes that the Bala has the meeting in a mountain retreat, where Bhai Gurdas has it at Achal.[EoS]

Well attestedProbably the Kartarpur yearsSri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Raag Ramkali

Sidh Gosti, the debate in verse

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's long composition in dialogue with the Siddhs is direct evidence of these debates, whatever its setting.

What the sources say (4)

ScriptureHas the composition headed Sidh Gosti in Raag Ramkali, opening with the assembly of Siddhs. (ang 938)[Src]
ScholarshipSays that it has seventy-three stanzas, is probably a late work and may recollect various meetings, not a single one.[EoS]
ScholarshipCalls it the first recorded goshti in Punjabi literature.[EoS]
ScholarshipUses it as a reason to believe Guru Ji engaged Naths in formal debate. (p. 141)[McLeod]

DisputedAfter Achal in Bhai GurdasMultan

Multan and the cup of milk

The pirs of Multan sent a full cup of milk; Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji floated a jasmine flower on it.

In Bhai Gurdas's first Var, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji leaves the fair at Achal and travels to Multan. The city's pirs come out with a bowl of milk filled to the very brim. Their meaning is plain: this place already holds as many holy men as it can.

Guru Ji takes a jasmine flower from his bag and lays it on the milk. There is room for one more, and he will displace nobody. Bhai Gurdas compares the meeting to the Ganga flowing into the ocean.

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Note. Early transmission is not in doubt, because the story is in Bhai Gurdas. What is contested is whether it happened, given the older parallel.

What the sources say (3)

Early sourceTells of the pir's full bowl and the jasmine flower floated on it, and compares the meeting to the Ganga entering the sea. (pauri 44)[Src]
Later traditionRetells the story and reports Miharban's mention of a descendant of Bahauddin Zakariya in the crowd.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts that Guru Ji likely went to Multan, but sets the story aside since a similar tale, with water and a rose, is told of Abd al-Qadir Jilani at Baghdad, and also in Parsi tradition. (pp. 141-142)[McLeod]

Disputed1534 in tradition; place disputedKartarpur, or the Kurram river

Bhai Mardana's passing

Bhai Mardana passed away before Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, in 1534 by tradition, and the sources disagree about where.

The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, drawing on later tradition, says that when Bhai Mardana was failing at Kartarpur, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji asked how he wished his body to be treated, and whether he would like a memorial to make him famous. Mardana answered that Guru Ji was freeing him from one body's prison, so why shut him in a stone one? He passed away before dawn. His body was given to the Ravi, and Guru Ji had hymns sung and prasad shared, and asked his son Shahzada not to weep.

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Note. The Encyclopaedia takes the Bihagra slok as Mardana's own. The heading could also mean it was addressed to him; the question is not settled here.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionSets his passing at Kartarpur in 1534 with a dialogue about whether he wanted a tomb and his body given to the Ravi, and notes his son Shahzada.[EoS]
ScholarshipCompares that account in the Gyan Ratnavali with the claim of Kurram in Afghanistan, finding the second highly improbable and the first merely possible. (pp. 91-92)[McLeod]
ScriptureHas sloks headed Mardana in the Var of Raag Bihagra, using images of wine and virtue. (ang 553)[Src]

Choosing Bhai Lehna

c. 1530s to 1539

Bhai Lehna, a Trehan Khatri born in 1504 and later Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji, came to Kartarpur during the settled years. The decision to pass over both sons in his favour is among the most certain facts of the life, because Bhai Gurdas and the Var of Balvand and Satta both state it. Later stories of how he earned that position are told at length, and McLeod rejects some of them.

The choice also shaped everything after it. McLeod himself calls the appointment a decision of critical importance, without which the teaching might not have held the community together.[EoS][Src][Src][McLeod]

Disputedc. 1530sKhadur, Harike and Kartarpur

How Bhai Lehna came to Kartarpur

Two versions tell how Bhai Lehna, a devotee of Durga, became a Sikh.

According to the Puratan tradition, Bhai Lehna served the goddess Durga at Khadur, a village where only one man was a Sikh. One day he overheard this man singing a hymn, asked who had made it, and on hearing the answer put away his old devotions.

The version in B-40, the Adi Sakhis and Miharban is different. Bhai Lehna lived at Harike and led a yearly party of pilgrims to a Durga shrine. One year they passed Kartarpur and stopped to see the famous teacher. After a short talk with Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji he told his companions that he had found what the pilgrimage was for, and he went no further.

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What the sources say (2)

Later traditionSets out the Puratan version of a temple servant at Khadur who overheard a hymn, and the B-40, Adi Sakhis and Miharban version of a pilgrim leader who stopped at Kartarpur on his way to a Durga shrine.[EoS]
ScholarshipAccepts that he came as a follower after Kartarpur was founded, and accepts his family details. (p. 143)[McLeod]

Disputedc. 1530sKartarpur

The bundle of wet grass and the test of the pyre

The Janamsakhis say Bhai Lehna alone passed Guru Ji's tests, including an order to eat a corpse.

The Janamsakhis tell of a day when Bhai Lehna visited Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji in the fields, wearing new clothes, and was told to carry home a dripping bundle of paddy. He lifted it on his head and walked back with mud running down him. When Mata Sulakhni protested at this treatment of a guest, Guru Ji replied that it was not mud but saffron.

The Puratan tells a harder story. Walking with Sikhs in a wild place, Guru Ji made coins appear on the ground, and many stopped to gather them. Then came silver, then gold, and then only two followers were left. They reached a burning pyre with a body under a sheet, and Guru Ji asked who would eat it. One fled. Bhai Lehna asked only where he should begin, and lifting the sheet at the feet, he found Guru Ji himself. In this telling, the new name Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji comes from ang, a part of the body.

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Note. The Encyclopaedia's entry says the truth of the story lies in the loyalty it depicts, not in the miracles. It is told in the context of a contest with the sons.

What the sources say (3)

Later traditionRecounts the bundle of wet paddy on new clothes, and the coins, jewels and pyre that thin out the followers.[EoS]
Later traditionGives the Puratan pyre story, with Gorakhnath as witness and the name Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji explained as from a limb. (p. 50)[McLeod]
ScholarshipRejects the corpse story as a wonder tale and accepts only the general fact of his devotion. (pp. 77, 142)[McLeod]

Well attestedNamed 13 June 1539; installed days before 7 September 1539Kartarpur

The installation of Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji chose Bhai Lehna over both sons and installed him while still living.

Note. The June 1539 date comes from the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism and was not found in the older sources read for this page.

What the sources say (4)

ScriptureStates that Guru Ji set the canopy on Lehna's head and that Lehna's rule was proclaimed. (ang 966)[Src]
Early sourceSays that Guru Ji chose Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji for the seat, that the sons had not obeyed, and that the canopy was waved over Lehna in Guru Ji's lifetime. (pauris 38, 45)[Src]
ScholarshipGives the nomination on Har vadi 13, 1596 Bk, or 13 June 1539, and says the installation came a few days before Guru Ji's passing.[EoS]
ScholarshipReports the Puratan's detail of five copper coins and a bow before the new Guru, and accepts the succession as beyond doubt. (pp. 50, 142-143)[McLeod]

The passing of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and the remains

1538 or 1539 and after

All accounts place Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's passing at Kartarpur. They differ on the day and even the year. McLeod makes a careful case for one date, resting chiefly on a list in the Kartarpur manuscript of the scripture, and the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism follows the same date.

The Janamsakhi account of the passing is among the most famous stories in Sikh memory, in which Hindus and Muslims argue over the body. A seventeenth-century Persian writer heard a different form of it at the site itself. What became of the remains is also disputed, and the evidence here is more interesting than the usual telling suggests.[EoS][McLeod][(translator)][EoS]

Disputed7 September 1539, 22 September 1539 or September 1538Kartarpur

The date of passing

Sources give three dates; the best supported, 7 September 1539, is probable and not proven.

Note. McLeod's reasoning makes this one of the rare places where a Janamsakhi date, the Puratan's, is rejected for a documentary one. The Kartarpur manuscript was not seen by McLeod himself: he relied on a copy by Bhai Jodh Singh.

What the sources say (5)

ScholarshipGives Assu vadi 10, 1596 Bk, or 7 September 1539.[EoS]
Later traditionReports the Puratan date of Asu sudi 10, 1595 Bk, in September 1538, and the Gyan Ratnavali's Asu sudi 10, 1596 Bk, which Karam Singh converts to 22 September 1539. (p. 99)[McLeod]
ScholarshipReports Asu vadi 10, 1596 Bk, in later Bala manuscripts and in many scripture manuscripts, and rests chiefly on the Kartarpur manuscript's list, whose first entries appear to precede 1606, while allowing that this is not conclusive. (pp. 99-101)[McLeod]
ScholarshipFollows 7 September 1539.[EoS]
ScholarshipLists 7 and 22 September 1539 among the date pairs discussed, and works through the calendar conversions.[Web]

Disputed1539Kartarpur

The flowers and the sheet

The Janamsakhis say Hindus and Muslims argued over the body, and that under the sheet only flowers remained.

According to the Puratan Janamsakhi, word spread that Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was near the end, and Hindus and Muslims came from everywhere. After naming a successor Guru Ji sat beneath a withered acacia, which came into leaf. Then the two communities began to argue: the Muslims wanted to bury the body and the Hindus to cremate it.

Guru Ji settled it. Let the Hindus lay flowers on the right, and the Muslims on the left, and whoever's flowers were still fresh next day could do as they wished. Hymns were sung, including the Sohila and the Arati, and the closing slok of the Japu. Guru Ji drew up a sheet and lay down.

When the sheet was lifted, the body was gone, and all the flowers were fresh. Each side took its share.

Surat Singh, a Punjabi disciple of a Sufi order, writing by 1647, heard a different story from the attendants at the site. As Hindus and Muslims argued, there were suddenly two bodies, so one was burned and one buried. An Afghan disciple meanwhile crossed the Ravi to say he had just shared a meal with Guru Ji on the far bank.

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Note. The two forms of the story differ in striking ways. The version told at the site can be dated to 1647, which is earlier than any securely dated Puratan manuscript, though not necessarily earlier than the Puratan story.

What the sources say (4)

Later traditionSummarises the Puratan: flowers on either side, freshness to decide the matter, a sheet, hymns, and the body gone in the morning. (pp. 50-51)[McLeod]
ScholarshipCites Puratan and B-40 for the dispute and reads it as the closing note of the theme of Guru Ji as unifier. (p. 255)[McLeod]
Early sourceRecords a version told at the site before 1647 in which two bodies appear, one cremated and one buried, and an Afghan disciple meets Guru Ji alive across the Ravi.[(translator)]
ScholarshipCalls the disappearance legend, and notes similar stories of Kabir and others. (p. 101)[McLeod]

Disputed1539 to after 1647Kartarpur and Dera Baba Nanak

Kartarpur, the flood and the place of the remains

The usual account has the ashes moved to Dera Baba Nanak soon after 1539, but a visitor before 1647 saw a marhi and a mazar, his words for two memorials, at the village on the Ravi.

Note. If Surat Singh is right, the story of the transfer cannot be quite as usually told, since Baba Sri Chand passed away in 1629 by the Encyclopaedia's date. Both accounts are later than the event, and neither should be treated as settled. Today both Kartarpur and Dera Baba Nanak honour the memory of Guru Ji. The words marhi and mazar are Surat Singh's own, as given in Rezavi's translation. Sikh sources for these sites speak of a samadh or dehra. These are separate traditions. No source consulted for this page explains how an urn of ashes fits with a body that vanished. A natural reading is that the ashes came from the cremated share of the sheet or flowers, but that is an inference, and no source consulted says so.

What the sources say (5)

ScholarshipSays that the ashes were buried near Kartarpur, the monument was soon washed away, and Baba Sri Chand reburied the urn at Ajitta's well, around which Dera Baba Nanak grew.[EoS]
ScholarshipRepeats that Sri Chand salvaged and reburied the urn after the flood.[EoS]
ScholarshipSays the Ravi washed most of the settlement away, and that descendants moved across the river, and describes the later Gurdwara at Kartarpur.[EoS]
Early sourceReports that Surat Singh's visit, recorded by 1647, found a marhi with a mazar beside it in the village, so that any flood must have come later than the visit, if the account is accurate.[(translator)]
Later traditionGives the Bedi family's account: Guru Ji's body vanished and left a sheet, the sheet was divided, a samadh was built at Kartarpur, and after the Ravi flooded, Baba Sri Chand Ji moved the urn of ashes to Dera Baba Nanak.[Src]

Images

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
Illustrated page. From the B-40 Janamsakhi of 1733, written by Daya Ram Abrol and painted by Alam Chand. It is one of 57 paintings in a manuscript made long after Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's time, so the figure is an artist's imagining.
Alam Chand, painter. Image: Ms Sarah Welch, 1733. British Library, MS Panj B40.CC BY-SA 4.0. Source
Illustrated page. From the B-40 Janamsakhi of 1733, written by Daya Ram Abrol and painted by Alam Chand. It is one of 57 paintings in a manuscript made long after Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's time, so the figure is an artist's imagining.
Alam Chand, painter. Image: Ms Sarah Welch, 1733. British Library, MS Panj B40.CC BY-SA 4.0. Source
Illustrated page. From the B-40 Janamsakhi of 1733, written by Daya Ram Abrol and painted by Alam Chand. It is one of 57 paintings in a manuscript made long after Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's time, so the figure is an artist's imagining.
Alam Chand, painter. Image: Ms Sarah Welch, 1733. British Library, MS Panj B40.CC BY-SA 4.0. Source
Illustrated page. From the B-40 Janamsakhi of 1733, written by Daya Ram Abrol and painted by Alam Chand. It is one of 57 paintings in a manuscript made long after Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's time, so the figure is an artist's imagining.
Alam Chand, painter. Image: Ms Sarah Welch, 1733. British Library, MS Panj B40.CC BY-SA 4.0. Source
Detail said on Commons to show Rai Bular Bhatti, from the B-40 Janamsakhi of 1733. The identification comes from the file's title and was not checked against the manuscript.
Alam Chand, painter. Image: Ms Sarah Welch, 1733. British Library, MS Panj B40.CC BY-SA 4.0. Source
Decorated opening page of a Bhai Bala Janamsakhi manuscript. Commons credits the Government Museum, Chandigarh, and gives only a broad date range.
Unknown, 17th to 19th century, uncertain. Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source
A sketch of the writing on the robe at Dera Baba Nanak said to have belonged to Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji. The date is uncertain and the source is a web article.
Unknown, Early to mid 20th century, uncertain. Public domain. Source
A page labelled on Commons as the Colebrooke Janamsakhi, the Puratan manuscript in London. Commons gives 1634, but the manuscript itself is undated and scholars disagree.
Unknown, Undated. 1634 on Commons. British Library, MS Panj B6. Public domain. Source
The hand-millstone revered as the one Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was made to turn, at Gurdwara Chakki Sahib, a related site in Eminabad. Photographed by Dhanna Singh Chahal 'Patialvi' on 4 October 1932. This does not show Gurdwara Rori Sahib itself.
Dhanna Singh Chahal 'Patialvi', 1932. Public domain. Source
A later fresco at Gurdwara Baba Atal, Amritsar, which Commons reads as Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji at a Hindu religious event, perhaps Puri. The identification is an inference from the figure of Bhai Bala.
Gian Singh Naqqash, Jaimal Singh Naqqash, Mehtab Singh Naqqash and Hukum Singh, 19th century. Gurdwara Baba Atal, Amritsar. Public domain. Source
A later artist's imagining of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji with Bhai Mardana and his rabab, dated on Commons to about 1740. The source is a social media post, so treat the date with caution.
Unknown, c. 1740, weakly sourced. Bhai Suchet Singh Collection, Bhai Rupa (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source
A later artist's imagining of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji in a robe with Arabic-script writing and Japji verses. The Sikh Museum site suggests the Chola Sahib may have inspired it.
Unknown, 19th century. Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh (as credited on the Sikh Museum site). Public domain. 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
A later artist's imagining of a Janamsakhi story in which a great fish offers treasures of the sea to Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji. A brush drawing from the Pahari workshop of the family of Nainsukh of Guler, late 1700s.
Unknown, c. 1775-1800. Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source
A later artist's imagining of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Bhai Mardana meeting Bhagat Kabir, from the Punjab Hills in the late 1700s. Whether such a meeting took place is not established.
Unknown, Late 18th century. Public domain. Source
A later artist's imagining of the Janamsakhi story of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji lying with his feet towards Mecca. The date is uncertain. No portrait from Guru Ji's lifetime is established.
Unknown, 18th or 19th century, uncertain. Kapany Collection (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source
A later artist's imagining of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji with Rai Bular, from a Kashmiri Janamsakhi manuscript of about the early 1800s. No portrait from Guru Ji's lifetime is established.
Unknown, Early 19th century. Kapany Collection (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source
A later artist's imagining of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji at school with Pandit Gopal Das, from a Janamsakhi manuscript. Commons gives only a broad date range. No portrait from Guru Ji's lifetime is established.
Unknown, 17th to 19th century, uncertain. Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source
A later artist's imagining of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji in the provisions store at Sultanpur Lodhi, from a Janamsakhi set. Commons gives two dates, the later being 1800-1900.
Unknown, c. 1755-1800 or 19th century. Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 1998.58.6 (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source

The sources, and how far to trust them

The compositions of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji in Sri Guru Granth Sahib JiComposed in Guru Ji's lifetime; compiled in 1604 under Sri Guru Arjun Dev JiScripture
The closest evidence there is, and the only source in Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's own voice. Its limits are real: as McLeod points out, the hymns almost never mention events in the poet's life. The main exceptions are the hymns on Babur, the line on Lahore, the evident debates with Nath yogis, and a line in Raag Gauri about having seen pilgrimage sites, cities and markets. Because the Janamsakhis often built a story around a hymn, a matching hymn does not by itself prove the story. McLeod treats most of these settings as invented later; those who disagree reply that a tradition need not be false because it explains a verse. For this page the hymn lines were checked in BaniDB.[Src][DB][McLeod]
Bhai Gurdas, Var 1 and Var 11About sixty years after Guru Ji's passing; Var 1 probably before 1606Early source
Bhai Gurdas (1551-1636) inscribed the first copy of the scripture under Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji and is the earliest writer to give a connected life. Pauris 23 to 45 of Var 1 are a poem of praise, not a chronicle, and they include miracles at Mount Sumeru, Mecca and Baghdad. Their value is that they fix what a learned Sikh close to the Gurus accepted before the Janamsakhis settled. McLeod rejects his Sumeru and Multan episodes and doubts his Mecca and Baghdad; Prof. R. S. Verma, quoted by Trilochan Singh, objects that a witness of this standing cannot be set aside so lightly. Var 11, pauris 13 and 14, lists followers including Bhai Mardana, Daulat Khan Lodi and Jita Randhava. Its silence on Bala, Sajjan, Lalo and Rai Bular is an important argument in the debate.[Src][Src][EoS][EoS][McLeod][Singh]
Var Ramkali of Rai Balvand and SattaFrom the time of the early Gurus; in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, ang 966Scripture
A hymn of praise by two minstrels who served the early Gurus. It states that Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji set the canopy over Bhai Lehna's head while still living. It is the best close evidence for the succession, and it says nothing about the tests of loyalty told later.[Src][EoS]
Puratan JanamsakhiUndated. Encyclopaedia of Sikhism cites suggestions from 1588 to the eighteenth century; McLeod doubts the mature form could exist by 1588Later tradition
Not one text but a family: the Colebrooke manuscript, found in London in 1872, the Hafizabad manuscript, now lost, and a Patiala manuscript. Bhai Vir Singh's popular 1926 edition blends them. It has been the favoured source of educated readers since Macauliffe called it the most ancient biography. McLeod traces it to a small early cluster of stories that grew in two lines, and credits the Colebrooke line with building the famous pattern of four journeys. It is simpler than the Bala tradition, but it still contains miracles, anachronisms and an itinerary McLeod considers the least likely of those on offer. Language analysis in the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism places its speech close to that of the scripture and older than the Bala text.[EoS][McLeod][McLeod]
B-40 JanamsakhiCompleted 31 August 1733 (Bhadon sudi 3, 1790 Bk), probably copying a text from after 1675Later tradition
The most clearly documented manuscript: a patron, a scribe, a painter and 57 illustrations, now in London (India Office Library, MS Panj B40), possibly from the Gujranwala area. Its late date misleads, because it preserves early material. Its first eight sakhis come from the same source as the Hafizabad Puratan, it shares another manuscript with the Adi Sakhis, and it adds a Miharban cluster and stories from local oral memory. It has little chronological order, and McLeod takes that as a sign that neat itineraries are a later development. Trilochan Singh objects that promoting this one manuscript distorts Janamsakhi study.[EoS][(tr.)][McLeod][Singh]
Miharban Janamsakhi (Pothi Sach Khand and its companions)Miharban lived 1581-1640; the surviving manuscript of the first three volumes has a colophon of 1650Later tradition
The work of Sodhi Miharban and his son Harji, leaders of the rival line descending from Prithi Chand, whom the main Sikh tradition called Minas. That position long made it suspect. It is mostly commentary on hymns set in the form of discourses, so its biography is thin, and only three of six volumes survive, which means its account of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's passing is largely lost. McLeod rates it with the Puratan and Var 1 as one of the three older witnesses and finds it often the more sober: it drops the moving-mosque miracle at Mecca, for instance. It still has its own anachronisms and places the Sajjan story in the south. It draws partly on the same early Puratan line, so it is not fully independent of it.[EoS][EoS][EoS][McLeod][McLeod]
Bala JanamsakhiClaims 1525; the oldest manuscript is dated 1658 (1715 Bk)Later tradition
It claims to be Bhai Bala's dictation to Paira Mokha in the presence of Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji in 1525, a date on which Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was still living and Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji had not yet become Guru. McLeod rejects that claim, and its language is younger than the Puratan. Early manuscripts carry material from the Hindali sect, which exalted Baba Hindal over Guru Ji. Scholars differ on whether the sect composed it or interpolated an older text, the latter being Bhai Santokh Singh's view. It stands apart from the Puratan-B40-Miharban family, is rich in wonders, and dominated Sikh memory from the late eighteenth century. Many of the best-loved stories, including Sacha Sauda and the bread of Bhai Lalo, depend on it, and so does the Kartik birthday.[EoS][EoS][McLeod][McLeod]
Gyan Ratnavali (attributed to Bhai Mani Singh)Attributed to the early eighteenth century; McLeod finds no text that early, and manuscripts dated before 1826 are doubtfulLater tradition
Its prologue says Sikhs asked Bhai Mani Singh, later martyred at Lahore (1737 in the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, 1738 in McLeod), to separate true accounts from Mina corruptions, and that he took Var 1 as his base and added what he had heard at the court of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji. McLeod accepts this as a likely origin for some original text but seriously doubts the attribution and the date of the extant form, which has borrowed Bala stories in its lithographed editions. Others accept the authorship with some interpolation. It is valuable as a guide to how Var 1 was read, and it gives one strand of the date dispute over Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's passing.[EoS][EoS][McLeod][McLeod]
How these sources relateSummary of the discussion aboveScholarship
Puratan, B-40 and the Adi Sakhis share a common stream, which McLeod calls Narrative I, and Miharban also drew on an early Puratan source. Agreement among them is therefore weaker than it looks and should not be counted as independent witness. Bhai Gurdas is separate, and the Gyan Ratnavali depends on him. The Bala tradition is a separate growth that later borrowed from Puratan and Miharban. McLeod's general ranking is that Var 1, Puratan and Miharban outweigh the Gyan Ratnavali and Bala. All of the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism's entries on these Janamsakhis except Miharban are signed by McLeod himself, so they do not count as an independent second opinion on his analysis.[EoS][EoS][EoS][McLeod][McLeod]
Seventeenth-century outside witnesses: Dabistan-i-Mazahib and Surat Singh's Tazkirac. 1640s; the Tazkira was finished in 1647Early source
Two Persian works from outside the Sikh community. The Dabistan, as quoted by McLeod, says Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was a modi to Daulat Khan Lodi. Surat Singh's Tazkira, translated by S. Ali Nadeem Rezavi, describes a pilgrimage to a marhi (funerary memorial) and a mazar (burial memorial) in Guru Ji's village on the Ravi. It is important evidence for the later fate of the remains. Both were written a century after the events they recall.[McLeod][(translator)]
W. H. McLeod, Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion (1968) and Early Sikh Tradition (1980)1968 and 1980Scholarship
McLeod applied seven tests to 124 stories: miracle, outside evidence, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's own works, agreement among Janamsakhis, relative reliability of the versions, genealogy, and geography. He sorted them as established, probable, possible, improbable or impossible. What survives is a short outline: family, Sultanpur, a call, long unspecified travels, Kartarpur, the debate at Achal, and the choice of a successor. His later book argues the Janamsakhis mainly show what the seventeenth-century community believed. The work is careful and many of his source relationships are widely used. It is also openly sceptical: he wrote that the Janamsakhis should be held guilty unless proved innocent, and that is the point his critics press hardest.[McLeod][McLeod][Grewal]
Replies to McLeod1969 to 2004Scholarship
Responses vary, and Grewal is a useful guide to them. Harbans Singh called McLeod's analysis scientific yet kept much of the traditional outline, and cited a reading by Jhinasi Tekin in defence of the Baghdad inscription. Ganda Singh appreciated the book while holding that a Mecca visit was not improbable and Baghdad almost certain. Fauja Singh disagreed on points of interpretation but did not question McLeod's good faith. Noel Q. King saw him as a major critical scholar but found fault with his method. Gurdev Singh and Daljeet Singh attacked him sharply; Trilochan Singh called his Baghdad doubts baseless and reprinted R. S. Verma's rival reading. Kirpal Singh, whose Punjabi study appeared in 1969 alongside McLeod's work, argued from travel routes and fieldwork in Sri Lanka that distant journeys should not be dismissed, and said that miracles alone do not disqualify a medieval source. The editor of that volume, Prithipal Singh Kapur, makes the same case against what he calls a negative scepticism. Grewal himself treats McLeod's Janamsakhi work as historical method and examines the charges of hidden motive closely, while Kapur thinks Grewal too protective of McLeod. Some of these replies are themselves polemical and should be read with the same care.[Grewal][Singh][Singh][Singh]
Encyclopaedia of Sikhism and Macauliffe1992-98 and 1909Scholarship
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, edited by Harbans Singh, supplies most dates used here, but its entries have different authors and do not always agree: its account of Saidpur has 1520 in several places and 1521 in another. Its gurdwara entries often record local tradition, sometimes without saying so. Macauliffe's The Sikh Religion (1909) is a readable retelling that mixes Puratan and Bala material, so it gives no separate evidence for the stories it tells.[EoS][EoS][Macauliffe][McLeod]

Cite this page

"Life and times of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji". Sikh History: lives of the Gurus. https://sikh-history.co.uk/lives/guru-nanak/