Family and childhood at Talwandi
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.
How do we know?
Only one account tells this story.
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.
- 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]
