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