Guru Nanak Dev JI

A member of the Kshatriya (merchant) caste and far from illiterate, Nanak was no ordinary saint, yet he experienced the same sense of God in everything outside himself and within himself as did others in the movement he founded. He was born in Punjab, which has been the home of Sikhism ever since.

Nanak composed many hymns, which were collected in the Adi Granth in 1604 by the fifth Sikh Guru, Guru Arjan Dev. Little is known beyond this. His life story is the imagined product of the great Janam-Sakhis ("Life Stories"), which were composed between 50 and 80 years after the Guru's enthronement in 1539, although the material contained in them can only be a small part of Be confirmed as fact.

The first Janam-sakhis were attributed to Nanak's lifelong companion, Bhai Bala (1466-1544), who composed an account of the Guru's life filled with miracles and wonderful stories. By the end of the 19th century, the Bala version had begun to cause serious uneasiness among Sikh scholars, who were greatly relieved when a more rational version, known as the Puratana ("ancient") tradition, was discovered in London. went, where it came as a gift to the East India Company's library. Although it also had fantastical elements, it had fewer miraculous stories than the Bala version, and presented a more plausible account of the course of Guru Nanak Dev's travels. When supplemented with quotations from discourses by the poet Bhai Gurdas (1551-1637), the Puratana appears to provide a satisfactory account of the life of Guru Nanak.

According to this version, Nanak made five journeys, one in each of the four directions of the cardinal points of the compass, one within the Punjab. He traveled first east and then south, reaching Sri Lanka. He then traveled north, deep into the Himalayas, where he debated with Nath masters known as Siddhas, who were believed to have achieved immortality through the practice of yoga. His journey to the West took him to Baghdad, Mecca and Medina. He then settled in Kartarpur, a village on the right bank of the Ravi River in Punjab. After visiting southern Punjab, he died at Kartarpur, appointing a faithful disciple as his successor.

The hagiographic character of the ancient tradition is well illustrated by the story of Nanak's visit to Mecca. After entering the city, Nanak lay down with his feet pointing towards the mihrab (the niche of a mosque that points in the direction of the Kaaba). An enraged Qadi (judge) found him there and demanded an explanation. In response Nanak asked him to pull his feet from the Mihrab. This the Qadi did, only to find that, wherever he placed Nanak's feet, the mihrab moved. The lesson of the story is that God is everywhere, not in any particular direction.

Another popular ancient story relates Nanak's visit to the "land ruled by women" in eastern India. Mardana, Nanak's faithful coin and traveling companion, proceeds to beg for food but is turned into a sheep by a woman. When Nanak arrived, he placed a pot on the woman's head and restored her to her original form by instructing the man to say "Vahi Guru" ("Praise to the Guru"). Then the women tried all kinds of scary spells on the couple, without success. After Noor Shah, the queen of a land ruled by women, fails in her attempt to seduce Nanak, the women finally submit.

Nanak was certainly no admirer of the Naths, who apparently competed with him for conversions. (The Janam-Sakhi anecdotes give considerable prominence to the debates between Nanak and the Siddhas, in which Nanak always gets the better of his opponents.) On the contrary, he accepts the message of the saints, expressing it in hymns of the most striking beauty. done . He taught that all people are subject to the transmigration of souls and that the only and necessary means of liberation from the cycle of rebirth is meditation on the Divine Name (Persian: "Name"). According to Nanak, the Name encompasses all of creation - everything outside the believer and everything inside him. After hearing the divine Shabad (Word) and choosing to accept the Shabad through grace bestowed by God, or Akal Purakh (one of Nanak's names for God), the believer performs Naam Simran, or meditation on the Name. Through this discipline, he gradually begins to understand the manifold qualities of the Name, and the means of liberation are gradually revealed. Ascending to higher levels of mystical experience, the believer is blessed with a growing sense of peace and joy. Finally Sach Khand (“Abode of Truth”) is reached, and the believer passes into a state of complete and utter union with the Eternal One.

Sikhs believe that the "voice" with which the word is uttered within the believer is the soul of the Eternal Guru. Because Nanak practiced Naam Simran, the Eternal Guru took flesh and dwelt within him. After Nanak assumed the flame of the Eternal Guru, in turn, it was recorded in the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs, in each of Nanak's successors, until the death of Guru Gobind Singh.

The fourth Guru, Ram Das, introduced two important changes: he introduced the appointment of masands (vicars), who were charged with the care of defined sangats (congregants), and he established the important center of Amritsar. Fifth Guru Arjan Dev Ji's major contribution was the compilation of the Sikh scriptures using the Goindwal scrolls, prepared on the instructions of Guru Amardas Ji. All the Gurus continued Nanak's teaching on salvation through meditation on the Lord's Name. So, as far as the central belief is concerned, the first five Gurus were one.

Under the sixth Guru, however, the doctrine of Miri/Piri emerged. Like his predecessors, the Guru was still engaged in piri, spiritual leadership, but he now added to it miri, the rule of a worldly leader. Thus the panth was no longer an exclusive religious community but also a military one that usually engaged in open warfare. All Sikhs were expected to accept the new dual authority of the Gurus.

The final contribution of the Gurus came with Gobind Singh. As before, there was no weakness in the doctrine affirming the meditation of the Divine Name. Guru Gobind Singh, however, believed that the forces of good and evil were thrown out of balance on occasion, and sometimes the latter grew excessively. The Ancient One then intervened in human history to redress the balance, choosing specific individuals as his agents to fight the forces of evil that had gained too much power. Gobind Singh believed that the Mughals, through Emperor Aurangzeb, had tipped the scale too far towards evil and that he was divinely appointed to restore the balance between good and evil. He also believed that it was justified to draw the sword to curb evil.