Family and childhood at Talwandi
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.
How do we know?
Several traditional accounts tell this story, without close independent support.
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.
- 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]
