01The Bein at Sultanpur
His father Mehta Kalu was a village accountant at Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, now Nankana Sahib. His sister Bebe Nanaki took him to Sultanpur Lodhi, where he kept the stores of the Nawab Daulat Khan. The Janamsakhis tell that one morning he went into the Bein river to bathe and did not come out for three days. When he returned his first words were “There is no Hindu, there is no Musalman”: the Creator sees no such division. Soon after, he set out with the rabab player Bhai Mardana on his long journeys, the udasis.
02Babur and Kartarpur
He saw Babur’s army sack Saidpur (Eminabad) and set it down in four hymns, the Babarvani, now in the Guru Granth Sahib, grieving for the women and the common people who suffered. In his last years he settled at Kartarpur, where he farmed his own fields and ran a langar where all sat in one line to eat. The Japji Sahib, recited every morning by Sikhs, is his. Before he died he passed the guruship to his disciple Bhai Lehna, whom he renamed Angad, a part of his own body.
“One Creator; Truth is the Name; the Maker; without fear, without enmity; timeless in form; unborn, self-existent; known by the Guru’s grace.”
Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 1 (Mool Mantar)
