Wife of Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji; organiser of the langar
Mata Khivi
Married to Lehna before he met Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, she ran the community kitchen at Khadur through her husband's Guruship and for thirty years afterwards, and is the only woman praised by name in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji for her work.
Life
Khivi was born around 1506 at Sanghar in the Malwa, the daughter of a Marwaha Khatri trader, and married Lehna of Khadur in 1519. Their daughters were Amro and Anokhi, and their sons were Dasu and Datu. When her husband became a Sikh and then Guru, she took charge of the langar at Khadur.
The bards Balvand and Satta, whose Var in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji celebrates the first five Gurus, describe her as a generous woman whose kitchen served rich food, rice pudding with ghee, to all who came. The detail matters: a free kitchen that fed everyone the same good food, without regard to who they were, was the practical form of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's teaching on caste.
She outlived Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji by thirty years, stayed at Khadur, kept the langar going under Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, and by tradition persuaded her son Datu to give up his rival claim to the Guruship. Her daughter Amro was the person whose singing drew Sri Guru Amar Das Ji to the faith.[EoS][EoS]
Images
Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji with Mata Khivi and their sons Baba Dasu and Baba Dattu, as identified on Commons. From a manuscript of about 1839 to 1843, nearly three centuries after their time, so the figures are an artist's imagining.
Miha Singh, illustrator; Misar Prakash, scribe, About 1839 to 1843. Public domain. Source
A Trehan Khatri trader of modest means. His wife's name is given variously as Sabhirai, Ramo, Daya Kaur and Mansa Devi.
4 children in the full tree