Men of God

On the borders of the modern districts of Montgomery and Gujranwala and at a distance of about fifteen leagues south-west of Lahore, stands the little old town of Talwandi, the birth place of Baba Nanak. A Hindu king is said to have originally built it, but the Mussalman invaders of those mediaeval times subjected it to pillage and plunder, and it remained in ruins until it was rebuilt by a Mussalman chief, Rai Bular, concerning whom a few words are necessary here, since they throw light on the social and political conditions in the country at the time when Nanak was born and brought up, and carried his mission to the world and founded the sect of ’Sikhs’ (Sishyas disciples) who were destined to become Singhs (Sinhas, lions) in the course of the next century and a half.

When Taimur left India, after spreading anarchy and devastation over a considerable part of Northern India, there came to rule in Delhi a dynasty of Sayyids, the last of whom, Alal-ul-din, dissatisfied with the smallness of his domain, repaired to distant Badaon to pass the rest of his days in peace, and left Delhi and the empire’s fortunes to Bahlol Khan Lodi whose ancestors had made immense fortunes by trade. On the accession of Bahlol Khan to the throne (1450-1488), his kinsman, Daulat Khan, became the Governor of the Punjab with Sultanpur as his capital; but the province seems to have been distributed among many Mussalman chiefs who functioned as the retainers of the sovereigns at Delhi. One of them was Rai Bhoi, the Proprietor or Zemindar of Talwandi and, on his death, his estate was inherited by his son, Rai Bular who, like his father was a converted Hindu, a Mussalman-Rajput and he rebuilt the town perhaps out of sympathy for the suffering people to whose religion until lately he himself belonged. He was perhaps one of those recruits to Islam that had been secured through "a hasty circumcision and an enforced utterance of Arabic words”, whose meaning was beyond his comprehension, but whose chief value lay in the secular advantages of conversion or in the boon of preservation of life itself. Rai Bular lived with his family in a fort built on the summit of a mound, while the villagers lived in the plain. Talwandi was, as it is even now, surrounded by a wide expanse strewn with gardens of bowers and trees and thickets wearing a cheerful appearance throughout the seasons of the year, except when the winds of the sandy desert are furious—thus making it a fine retreat, free from the excitements of the outer political world, for those who desired to pass their time in meditation.

BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD

Here Nanak was born in 1469 A.D. His father, Kalu, was the village accountant, a Khatri by caste, with a modest means of livelihood. Tripta, his wife, bore him a son and a daughter, Nanak and Nanaki. The astrologer, when informed of the birth of Kalu’s son, is said to have adored the child with folded hands, and predicted that Nanak would wear on his person the symbols of dignity appropriate for princes and prophets. When Nanak was five years, say the Sikh chroniclers, he had great attraction for spiritual matters, and manifested a rare capacity to understand and discourse upon divine subjects. Rai Bular, the Zemindar himself, had a mysterious attraction for the young boy and in later years when the Guru’s name spread far and wide he, in loving remembrance of Nanak’s childhood, had a tank constructed on the spot where the child used to play and it was later enlarged by a high official, a Mussalman admirer of the Guru. The tank is called Balakrida or the child’s play-ground. Every spot associated with Nanak’s younger days has become sacred, and Talwandi is itself now known as Nankana Sahib.

At the age of seven he was admitted to the school. The master, as usual, wrote the alphabets of the language for the boy, and was astounded the next day when Nanak not merely copied the letters from memory, but took them successively for metrical expression of his Godward ideas and aspirations. Thus he composed 35 stanzas for the 35 letters and each of them began with a word whose initial letter was in the alphabetical order. Here is the first stanza:

“The one Lord who created the world is the Lord of all;

Fortunate is their advent into the world, whose hearts remain attached to God’s service;

O foolish man, why hast thou forgotten Him?

When thou last adjusted thine account, my friend, thou shalt be deemed educated."

And the closing verse of this acrostic is :

“What God who made the world hath to do, He continueth to do;

He acteth and causeth others to act; He knoweth everything; thus sayeth the poet Nanak."