The mystic experience that finally made Nanak take up his mission is put at different times and is variously described. The incident took place in August 1507 on the third night before the full moon.
The moon had set (says the Janam Sakhi), but it was dark and the stars still twinkled in the sky when Nanak, followed by Mardana, went to the river. Nanak took off his kurta and dhoti and stepped into the stream.
He closed his nostrils and ducked into the water. He did not come up. Mardana waited a while and then, panicking, ran up and down the riverbank crying for Nanak. A strange voice rose from the waters saying, ‘Do not lose patience.’
Mardana, however, ran back to Sultanpur and sobbed out his story. A great commotion took place in the town because Nanak was loved by all - Hindus and Muslims, the rich and the poor. When Daulat Khan Lodhi heard of the mishap, he was most distressed. ‘Friends,’ he said, ‘Nanak was a man of God. Let us dredge the river and rescue his corpse.’
While the people of Sultanpur were dredging the river, Nanak was conducted into the presence of God.
The Almighty gave him a bowl of milk. ‘Nanak, drink this bowl,’ He commanded. ‘It is not milk as it may seem; this is nectar (amrit). It will give thee power of prayer, love of worship, truth and contentment.’
Nanak drank the nectar and was overcome. He made another obeisance. The Almighty then blessed him. ‘I release thee from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth; he that sets his eyes on you with faith will be saved; he that hears your words with conviction will be helped by Me; he that you forgive will be forgiven by Me. I grant thee salvation. Nanak go back to the evil world and teach men and women to pray (naam), to give in charity (daan) and to live cleanly (isnaan). Do good to the world and redeem it in the age of sin (Kaliyuga)’ (Mehervan: Janam Sakhi).
At dawn, three days later, on the full moon in August, Nanak re-emerged from the Bein. Nanak was thirty-six years old and now a changed and determined man. While the people clamoured around him acclaiming him as a new messiah, he paid no heed. ‘What have I to do with men like these!’ he said to himself. He gave away all he had to the poor. He even cast off his clothes, keeping for himself only a loincloth. He left his home and joined a band of hermits.
Soon people began expressing themselves loudly. ‘Nanak was a sensible man,’ some said, ‘but now he has lost his head.’ ‘He is stricken with the fear of the Lord’ said others, ‘and is no longer himself.’ ‘Something in the river has bitten him’ the rest were convinced, and took to calling him ‘mad, bewitched’.
‘It is the Lord who has possessed me and made me mad,’ explained Nanak. ‘If I find merit in the eyes of my Lord, then will I have justified my waywardness.’
‘Nanak, you are a different person today from what you were!’ the people exclaimed. ‘Tell us the path you intend to take. We only know of two ways -one of the Hindus and the other of the Mussalmans.’
‘There is no Hindu, there is no Mussalman,’ replied Nanak.
‘You talk in cryptic language,’ they said. ‘In this world we understand the two ways - of Hinduism and of Islam.’
‘There are no Mussalmans, there are no Hindus,’ repeated Nanak (Mehervan: Janam Sakhi).
Nanak spent another two years in and around Sultanpur before he forsook the habitations of men and took to the forests and solitude. The faithful Mardana was his sole companion. He took on a strange dress: a cloth cap, a long cloak worn by Muslim mendicants, a beggar’s bowl, staff and prayer mat. When asked why he wore this outlandish garb, Nanak replied, ‘I am dressed like a clown for the amusement of my Master. If my apparel pleases Him, I will be happy.’
Nanak’s first journey took him eastwards to Hindu centres of pilgrimage. His biographies have fabricated many incidents based on Nanak’s hymns - many of which depict the Guru’s love for nature.
One day [Mehervan Janam Sakhi], Nanak and Mardana, while travelling, espied a flock of swans flying overhead. Nanak was bewitched and began to run after them with his eyes fixed on the birds. Mardana followed him. The flock descended in a field and let Nanak approach them without showing any sign of fear - for Nanak was a man of God, who harmed no one. Nanak admired the birds, their long slender necks, their luminous dark eyes and their silver-white plumage. He wondered whether these birds - who spanned the heavens - had ever cast their eyes on their Maker. Why, he asked himself, should such beautiful birds wander restlessly across the continents, from Khorasan in Central Asia to Hindustan and back again to Khorasan? He blessed the swans and bade them godspeed on their journey.
Another hymn illustrates the political and social conditions of the time through picturing an incident that occurred in the suburbs of the capital city, Delhi.
The city was at the time ruled by a bloodthirsty Pathan king (Ibrahim Lodhi). Nanak’s fame had preceded him and large crowds of citizens, sightseers and seekers after truth, Muslims as will as Hindus, came to see him. Near Nanak’s camp was a place where beggars and mendicants were fed free of charge by the wicked king. The people told Nanak of their king’s evil ways and how he expiated his sins by feeding beggars.
Nanak spoke to them, ‘Listen ye children of God! This charity of the king is of no consequence; it is the act of a blind man stumbling in the dark. He is worse than a blind man because even if his eyes lose their light, a blind man can hear and speak and comprehend, but one who has lost his mind has lost all. What avail is the giving of alms to one who sins by day and gives in charity at night? A stone dam can hold the flood but if the dam bursts you cannot repair the breach by plastering mud. Evil is like the flood, the stone dam like faith. If faith weakens, the dam will give way and the flood will sweep all before it. Its force is then so great that no boat nor boatman dare embark on it to save its victims. Then nothing abides save the name of the Lord’ (Mehervan: Janam Sakhi).
We do not know how long Nanak stayed in Delhi. He proceeded to Hardwar on the Ganges. It was apparently at a time of some religious festival when large crowds had turned up to bathe in the ‘holy’ river. Mardana was very impressed with the sight and said to Nanak: ‘What a lot of good people there are in the world! They must be genuinely desirous of improving themselves that is why they come on a pilgrimage.’
Nanak was not so impressed by the sight of the people ‘washing away their sins’ by the ritual of bathing. ‘Only a bullion dealer can tell the difference between the genuine and the counterfeit,’ he replied, ‘and at this place there is no bullion dealer.’
Nanak and Mardana stayed at Hardwar for some time in order to be present at the Baisakhi fair. It was on this occasion that an incident, that made Nanak famous, took place.
There was a large crowd bathing in the river. Nanak saw them face eastwards and throw palmfuls of water to the sun. Nanak entered the stream and started throwing water westwards.
‘In the name of Rama!’ exclaimed the shocked pilgrims, ‘who is this man who throws water to the west? He is either mad or a Mussalman.’ They approached Nanak and asked him why he offered water in the wrong direction. Nanak asked them why they threw it eastwards to the sun.
‘We offer it to our dead ancestors,’ they replied.
‘Where are your dead ancestors?’
‘With the gods in heaven.’
‘How far is the abode of the gods?’
‘Forty-nine crore kos from here.’
‘Does the water get that far?’
‘Without doubt! But why do you throw it westwards?’
Nanak replied, ‘My home and lands are near Lahore. It has rained everywhere except on my land. I am therefore watering my fields.’
‘Man of God, how can you water your fields near Lahore from this place?’
‘If you can send it forty-nine crore kos to the abode of the gods, why can’t I send it to Lahore which is only a couple of hundred kos away!’
The people were abashed at this reply. ‘He is not mad,’ they said. ‘He is surely a great seer’ (Mehervan: Janam Sakhi).
A large number of Hindu pilg
rims who had foregathered at Hardwar became disciples of the guru. He stayed on there after the Baisakhi festival preaching to the people.
‘The most precious gift of God is human birth because it is by reason and responsible action as human beings that we can get out of the vicious circle of life, death and rebirth, and attain salvation. One must abolish duality in order to be a complete devotee.’
‘And how does one overcome duality?’ they asked.
‘By faith in the One. By hearing and speaking of the One. By never abandoning belief in Him. By austerity, truth, restraint in his heart’ (Mehervan: Janam Sakhi).
From Hardwar, Nanak and Mardana proceeded to Prayag (Allahabad) where the rivers Jamuna and Saraswati join the Ganges. From Prayag, the Guru went to Banaras, the centre of Hindu learning and orthodoxy. The Adi Granth describes the many encounters Guru Nanak had with pandits who chided him for his unorthodoxy and probed his knowledge of the sacred texts.
‘It matters not how many cartloads of learning you have nor what learned company you keep; it matters not how many boatloads of books you carry nor the tree of knowledge; it matters not how many years or months you spend in study nor with what passion and single-mindedness you pursue knowledge. Only one thing really matters, the rest is but a whirlwind of the ego.’
‘And what is the one thing that matters?’ they asked.
Nanak replied, ‘There are a hundred falsehoods, but this one sovereign truth - that unless truth enters the soul all service and study is false.’
Nanak was equally forthright about the pandits’ fetish of the purity of their cooking vessels and kitchens. He decided to draw their attention to this in his usual manner of highlighting the incongruous aspects.
Nanak went with them and saw with what care they bathed, scrubbed their utensils, swept the ground near the hearth, washed the vegetables and cooked the food. When one plate was laid before Nanak, he refused to eat from it. ‘I am not satisfied with the purity of the food you offer me. It is prepared by one who is full of sin and sins cannot be cleansed by washing the body.’
The pandits did not fully comprehend the import of Nanak’s words and prepared the meal afresh. This time they dug up the earth and replastered it; they even washed the logs of wood before kindling them. Again Nanak refused to partake of the meal and continued his sermon. ‘You err in believing that purity can be gained by scrubbing and washing. That does not apply even to inanimate things like wood, dung-fuel or water, much less to a human being. Man is unclean when his heart is tainted with greed, his tongue coated with falsehood, his eyes envious of the beauty of another’s wife or his wealth, his ears dirty with slander. All these can only be cleansed by knowledge. Basically all men are good but often they pursue a predetermined path to hell.’
Nanak was questioned on his attitude towards the sacred texts of the Hindus: ‘The Vedas say one thing and you another. People who read the Vedas do not follow their teachings and now you confuse them more than ever. Why don’t you either combine your teaching with that of the Vedas or separate them more distinctly?’
Nanak replied, ‘The Vedas tell you of the difference between good and evil. Sin is the seed of hell, chastity the seed of paradise. Knowledge and the teaching of the Vedas complement each other - they are to one another as merchandise to the merchant.’
It would appear that by this time Nanak had decided that his faith was to be an eclectic one for he sang hymns of Namdev, Kabir, Ravi Das, Sain and Beni.
His new disciples tried to persuade Nanak to settle down in Banaras. Nanak refused to do so. ‘I pursue the one and only path of devotion to God,’ he replied. ‘Your learning and religion do not appeal to me, and I have no interest in trade other than the name of God for God Himself has extinguished the desire for acquisition in me.’
Piecing together evidence from other sources we find that the first journey apparently took the Guru as far east as Bengal and Assam. On his way back to Punjab, he spent some days at Jagannath Puri. He travelled round Punjab and visited the Sufi headquarters at Pak Pattan before he set out on his second long voyage - this time southwards. He is said to have travelled through Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Konkan and Rajasthan - though there is little evidence to show that he did so.
Nanak sojourned in the Himalayas for some time before he set out on his last and longest journey. This was westwards to the Muslims’ holy cities Mecca and Medina as far as Baghdad. It was on this journey that another incident took place. He was staying in a mosque and fell asleep with his feet towards the Ka’ba - an act considered of grave disrespect to the house of God. When the mullah came to say his prayers, he shook Nanak rudely and said: ‘O servant of God, thou hast thy feet towards Ka’ba, the house of God - why hast thou done such a thing?’
Nanak replied: ‘Then turn my feet towards some direction where there is no God nor the Ka’ba.’
By the time Nanak returned home, the Mughal Babar had invaded the Punjab. The Guru was at Saidpur when the town was sacked by the invaders. Nanak makes many references to the havoc caused by this invasion.
Nanak was by this time too old to undertake any more strenuous journeys. He settled in the village Kartarpur where he spent the last years of his life preaching to the people. His disciples came to be known as Sikhs (from the Sanskrit shishya or Pali sikkha). He built a dharamshala (abode of faith) whose inmates followed a strict code of discipline: rising well before dawn, bathing and then foregathering in the dharamshala for prayer and hymn-singing.
They went about their daily chores and met again for the evening service. At the dharamshala was the guru-ka-langar (the guru’s kitchen) where all who came were obliged to break bread without distinction of caste or religion.
Among Nanak’s disciples was a man called Lehna whom Nanak chose in preference to his sons as his successor. Said Nanak to Lehna: ‘Thou art Angad, a part of my body’ and asked another disciple to daub Angad’s forehead with saffron and proclaim him the second Guru.
Nanak died in the early hours of the morning of 22 September 1539. He was a poet and lover of nature to the last. As he lay on his deathbed he recalled the scenes of his childhood. ‘The tamarisk must be in flower now; the pampas grass must be waving its woolly head in the breeze; the cicadas must be calling in the lonely glades,’ he said before he closed his eyes in eternal sleep.
Mehervaris Janam Sakhi records the manner his body was laid to rest. Said the Mussalmans: ‘We will bury him’ the Hindus: ‘We will cremate him’ Nanak said: ‘You place flowers on either side, Hindus on my right, Muslims on my left. Those whose flowers remain fresh tomorrow will have their way.’ He asked them to pray. When the prayer was over, Nanak pulled the sheet over him and went to eternal sleep. Next morning when they raised the sheet they found nothing. The flowers of both communities were fresh. The Hindus took theirs; the Muslims took those that they had placed.
It is little wonder that Nanak came to be revered as the king or shah of the holy men, the guru of the Hindus and the pir of the Mussalmans:
Baba Nanak shah fakeer
Hindu ka guru, Mussalman ka peer.
Translations
Good keertan continued, as it does to this day, to touch my emotional chords.
Some Hymns of Guru Nanak
From Var Majh
Pahle pahre rain ke vanjariya mitra
(Sri Raga Pahre)
In the first watch of night, my trader-friend,
By order eternal
You found yourself in the womb;
Upside down like a yogi in penance you were,
my trader-friend!
Praying to the Lord, meditating thus head below and
feet above
Naked did you come into the world of Kaliyuga
Naked will you depart when your time comes.
As the eternal pen hath flown
So has your fate been writ on your forehead.
Sayeth Nanak by divine Ordinance
Does life begin in the womb.
In the second watch of
night, my trader-friend,
You forget your past meditation.
You bounced from one lap to another,
my trader-friend.
As Krishna sporting in the hands of Yashodhara
You bounced from one lap to another,
Your mother saying ‘This is my son,’
O stupid and thoughtless soul of mine!
Knowest not thou that in the end
You will have nothing to call your own?
Of Him who gave you birth
You have no knowledge in your heart.
Sayeth Nanak, in the second watch
Man forgets his past meditation.
In the third watch of night, my trader-friend,
Your mind is obsessed with wealth and youth.
You think not of the name of God,
my trader-friend,
You are concerned only with profit.
My soul, you think not of the name of Hari
Because you are agitated in the pursuit of wealth!
In the search for gold,
Drunk with the wine of youth
You made no truck with faith
Nor espoused good deeds as your friends.
Sayeth Nanak, in the third watch
The mind is obsessed with wealth and youth.
In the fourth watch of night, my trader-friend,
The Reaper came to your field.
Who sent Death the Reaper?
That secret no one has found, my trader-friend,
That unravelled secret is in the breast of God.
God sends forth death on its task.
False lamentation will break forth all around thee
In a trice will you become a stranger.
All that you loved will be acquired by others.
Sayeth Nanak, O my soul, in the fourth watch
The Reaper reaps the field.
From Raga Suhi
Jog na khintha, jog na dandey, jog na bhasam chadhaeeai
Sex,Scotch and Scholarship Page 17
