GURU NANAK DEV JI

 

On this very occasion of Guru Nanak ji's birthday, let’s get to know some interesting facts about this great Sikh guru. Guru Nanak Dev ji was born in Talwandi, in 1469,in a village in Sheikhupura district which is 65 kms from west of Lahore. Guru Ji's father used to work as the village official in the local revenue administration. From childhood only, Sri Guru Nanak learnt, learnt the regional languages as well as Persian and Arabic languages. He got married in 1487 and had two sons; one was born in 1491 and the second one in 1496. In 1485 he took up, as his brother-in-law insists, the appointment of an official in charge of Daulat Khan Lodhi's stores, who was the Muslim ruler of the areay at Sultanpur. It was the time when he came into contact with Mardana, who was a Muslim minstrel (Mirasi) who was senior in age, from Guru Nanak Ji. According to the facts, 1496 was the year of Guru Nanak's enlightenment, the time when he started on his mission. The first statement, he gave, after his prophetic communion with God was that, “There is no Hindu, nor any Mussalman." He declared his clear and primary interest not at all in any metaphysical doctrine but only in man and his fate, which means to love your neighbor as yourself. Guru forcefully preached, by both precept and practice, against caste discrimination ritualism, idol worshiping and the pseudo-religious beliefs that does not have any spiritual content. He himself chose to mix with all. He used to dine and lived with people of the lowest castes and classes. Guru Dev’s first companion, on his tour to all the religious places in the world, was low caste Muslim. The food surplus they receive was given to the common kitchen where people can dine together without any discrimination. This system of common dining and feeding poor later came to be known as 'lunger'. When Guru Nanak ji was only 12 yrs old, his father gave him 20Rs to commence some business, but guruji spend the whole money in feeding saints and poor. When his father asked him about this, he called his task ' true business'. The place where he fed poor is now known as “Sachcha sauda". One incident states that he preferred to dine with a low caste artisan, Bhai Lallo, instead of a high caste rich landlord, Malik Bhago, because the landlord lived by exploitation of the poor and the artisan earned his bread by the sweat of his brow.Sri Guru Nanak showed this, by pressing in one hand the coarse loaf of bread from Lallo's house and in the other the food from Bhago's house. Milk came forth from the loaf of Lallo's and blood from that of Bhago's food.  Sri Guru Nanak ji spent twenty five years, preaching from place to place. Many of guruji's hymns were composed during this period of time. They represent answers to the main religious and social problems of the society and cogent responses to the situations and incidents that he came across in his life. He also studied other religions deeply. Finally, after completion of his tours, guruji settled as a peasant farmer at Kartarpur, a village which wad in the Punjab. Bhai Gurdas, who was the scribe of Guru Granth Sahib, was the devout and the close associate of the third as well as the three subsequent Gurus. Bhai Gurdas was born 12 years after Guru Nanak's death and he joined the Sikh mission in his very boyhood. Gurdas became the chief missionary agent of all the Gurus. As he was having the intimate knowledge of the Sikh society and has always been near contemporary of Sri Guru Nanak, his writings are historically reliable and authentic.
             These incidents have been depicted by a symbolic representation of the reason for Guru Nanak Ji's preferences. And his entire life act as an inspiration for the whole mankind, which we, all human beings should strictly follow.