Guru Nanak

Guru Nanak (Punjabi: ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ (Gurmukhi); گرو نانک (Shahmukhi); Gurū Nānak; [gʊɾuː naːnəkᵊ], About this soundpronunciation; built-in as Nanak on 15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539), additionally referred to as Baba Nanak ('father Nanak'),[1] was the architect of Sikhism and is the aboriginal of the ten Sikh Gurus. His bearing is acclaimed common as Ascendancy Nanak Gurpurab on Katak Pooranmashi ('full-moon of the Katak'), i.e. October–November.

Nanak is said to accept travelled far and advanced above Asia teaching bodies the bulletin of ik onkar (ੴ, 'one God'), who dwells in every one of his creations and constitutes the abiding Truth.[2] With this concept, he would set up a different spiritual, social, and political belvedere based on equality, congenial love, goodness, and virtue.[3][4][5]

Nanak's words are registered in the anatomy of 974 anapestic hymns, or shabda, in the angelic argument of Sikhism, the Ascendancy Granth Sahib, with some of the above prayers actuality the Japji Sahib (jap, 'to recite'; ji and sahib are suffixes blame respect); the Asa di Var ('ballad of hope'); and the Sidh Gohst ('discussion with the Siddhas'). It is allotment of Sikh religious acceptance that the spirit of Nanak's sanctity, divinity, and religious ascendancy had descended aloft ceremony of the nine consecutive Gurus back the Guruship was devolved on to them.
Birth
The Gurdwara Janam Asthan in Nankana Sahib, Pakistan, commemorates the armpit area Nanak is believed to accept been born.

Nanak was built-in on 15 April 1469 at Rāi Bhoi Kī Talvaṇḍī apple (present-day Nankana Sahib, Punjab, Pakistan) in the Lahore arena of the Delhi Sultanate,[6][7] although according to one tradition, he was built-in in the Hindu ages of Kartik (November; accepted afterwards as Katak in Sikhism).[8]

Most janamsakhis (ਜਨਮਸਾਖੀ, 'birth stories')—the acceptable biographies of Nanak—mention that he was built-in on the third day of the ablaze lunar fortnight, in the Baisakh ages (April) of Samvat 1526.[8] These accommodate the Puratan ('traditional' or 'ancient') janamsakhi, Miharban janamsakhi, Gyan-ratanavali by Bhai Mani Singh, and the Vilayat Vali janamsakhi.[9] The Sikh annal accompaniment that Nanak died on the 10th day of the Asauj ages of Samvat 1596 (22 September 1539 CE), at the age of 70 years, 5 months, and 7 days. This added suggests that he was built-in in the ages of Baisakh (April), not Kartik (November).[10]
Kartik birthdate

In as backward as 1815, during the administration of Ranjit Singh, the ceremony commemorating Nanak's altogether was captivated in April at the abode of his birth, accepted by again as Nankana Sahib.[9] However, the ceremony of Nanak's birth—the Gurpurab (guru + purab, 'celebration')—subsequently came to be acclaimed on the abounding moon day of the Kartik ages in November. The ancient almanac of such a ceremony in Nanakana Sahib is from 1868 CE.[11]

There may be several affidavit for the acceptance of the Kartik birthdate by the Sikh community. For one, it may accept been the date of Nanak's broad-mindedness or "spiritual birth" in 1496, as appropriate by the Dabestan-e Mazaheb.

The alone janamsakhi that supports the Kartik bearing attitude is that of Bhai Bala. Bhai Bala is said to accept acquired Nanak's astrometry from Nanak's uncle Lalu, according to which, Nanak was built-in on a date agnate to 20 October 1469 CE. However, this janamsakhi was accounting by Handalis—a camp of Sikhs who followed a Sikh-convert accepted as Handal—attempting to characterize the architect as above to Nanak.[12] According to a superstition prevailing in abreast arctic India, a adolescent built-in in the Kartik ages was believed to be anemic and unlucky, appropriately why the assignment states that Nanak was built-in in that month.[12]

Bhai Gurdas, accepting accounting on a full-moon-day of the Kartik ages several decades afterwards Nanak's death, mentions that Nanak had "obtained omniscience" on the aforementioned day, and it was now the author's about-face to "get all-powerful light."[13]

According to Max Arthur Macauliffe (1909), a Hindu ceremony captivated in the 19th aeon on Kartik Purnima in Amritsar admiring a ample cardinal of Sikhs. The Sikh association baton Giani Sant Singh did not like this, appropriately starting a ceremony at the Sikh altar of the Golden Temple on the aforementioned day, presenting it as the bearing ceremony ceremony of Ascendancy Nanak.[14]

Macauliffe additionally addendum that Baisakh (March–April) already saw a cardinal of important festivals—such as Holi, Rama Navami, and Baisakhi—therefore bodies would be active in agronomical activities afterwards the autumn ceremony of Baisakhi. Therefore, captivation Nanak's bearing ceremony celebrations anon afterwards Baisakhi would accept resulted in attenuate attendance, and therefore, abate donations for the Sikh shrines. On the added hand, by the Kartik abounding moon day, the above Hindu ceremony of Diwali was already over, and the peasants—who had surplus banknote from crop sales—were able to accord generously.[15]
Family and aboriginal life

Nanak's parents, including ancestor Kalyan Chand Das Bedi (commonly beneath to Mehta Kalu) and mother Mata Tripta,[16] were both Hindu Khatris and active as merchants.[17][18] His father, in particular, was the bounded patwari (accountant) for crop acquirement in the apple of Talwandi.[19]

According to Sikh traditions, the bearing and aboriginal years of Nanak's activity were apparent with abounding contest that approved that Nanak had been adored with all-powerful grace.[20] Commentaries on his activity accord capacity of his blossom acquaintance from a adolescent age. For instance, at the age of five, Nanak is said to accept accurate absorption in all-powerful subjects. At age seven, his ancestor enrolled him at the apple school, as per custom.[21] Notable acceptance recounts that, as a child, Nanak afraid his abecedary by anecdotic the absolute apologue of the aboriginal letter of the alphabet, akin the algebraic adaptation of one, as cogent the accord or absoluteness of God.[22] Added acceptance of his adolescence accredit to aberrant and amazing contest about Nanak, such as the one witnessed by Rai Bular, in which the sleeping child's arch was black from the acrid sunlight by, in one account, by the anchored adumbration of a tree[citation needed] or, in another, by a antagonistic cobra.[23]
Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartar Pur in Narowal, Pakistan marks the armpit area Ascendancy Nanak is said to accept died.[24]

Nanaki, Nanak's alone sister, was bristles years earlier than him. In 1475, she affiliated and confused to Sultanpur.[citation needed] Jai Ram, Nanaki's husband, was active at a modikhana (a armory for revenues calm in non-cash form), in the annual of the Delhi Sultanate's Lahore governor Daulat Khan, at which Ram would advice Nanak get a job.[25] Nanak confused to Sultanpur, and started alive at the modikhana about the age of 16.[citation needed]

As a adolescent man,[i] Nanak affiliated Sulakhani, babe of Mūl Chand (aka Mula)[ii][iii] and Chando Raṇi.[citation needed] They were affiliated on 24 September 1487, in the boondocks of Batala,[26] and would go on to accept two sons, Sri Chand and Lakhmi Chand[25] (or Lakhmi Das).[iv][27] Nanak lived in Sultanpur until c. 1500,[25] which would be a determinative time for him, as the puratan janamsakhi suggests, and in his abundant allusions to authoritative anatomy in his hymns, best acceptable acquired at this time.[28]
Final years

Around the age of 55, Nanak acclimatized in Kartarpur, active there until his afterlife in September 1539. During this period, he went on abbreviate journeys to the Nath yogi centre of Achal, and the Sufi centres of Pakpattan and Multan. By the time of his death, Nanak had acquired several followers in the Punjab region, although it is adamantine to appraisal their cardinal based on the actual actual evidence.[29]

Guru Nanak appointed Bhai Lehna as the almsman Guru, renaming him as Ascendancy Angad, acceptation "one's actual own" or "part of you". Shortly afterwards proclaiming his successor, Ascendancy Nanak died on 22 September 1539 in Kartarpur, at the age of 70. Ascendancy Nanak's anatomy was never found. Back the altercation Hindus and Muslims tugged at the area accoutrement Nanak’s body, they begin instead a abundance of flowers — and so Nanak’s simple acceptance would, in advance of time, annual into a religion, aggress by its own contradictions and accepted practices.[30]
The 4 Udasis and added locations visited by Ascendancy Nanak
The alone Gurudwara Chowa Sahib, amid abreast the Rohtas Fort in Pakistan, commemorates the armpit area Ascendancy Nanak is bargain believed to accept created a water-spring during one of his udasis[31]
Guru Nanak's handprint is believed to be preserved on a bedrock at the Gurdwara Panja Sahib in Hasan Abdal, Pakistan.
Coin from 1747 CE depicting Ascendancy Nanak
Coin from 1747 CE depicting Ascendancy Nanak with his two disciples, Bhai Mardana and Bhai Bala bouncing a chaur (fly-whisk) as a mark of respect.
Journeys (Udasis)

During aboriginal division of the 16th century, Nanak went on continued udasiya ('journeys') for airy pursuits. A ballad authored by him states that he visited several places in "nau-khand" ('the nine regions of the earth'), apparently the above Hindu and Muslim crusade centres.[25]

Some avant-garde accounts accompaniment that he visited Tibet, best of South Asia, and Arabia, starting in 1496 at age 27, back he larboard his ancestors for a thirty-year period.[20][32][33] These claims accommodate Nanak's appointment to Mount Sumeru of Indian mythology, as able-bodied as Mecca, Baghdad, Achal Batala, and Multan, area he would agitation religious annual with opposing groups.[34] These acceptance became broadly accepted in the 19th and 20th century, and abide in abounding versions.[35][34]

In 1508, Nanak visited the Sylhet arena in Bengal.[36] The janamsakhis advance that Nanak visited the Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya in 1510–11 CE.[37]

The Baghdad inscription charcoal the base of autograph by Indian advisers that Ascendancy Nanak journeyed in the Middle East, with some claiming he visited Jerusalem, Mecca, Vatican, Azerbaijan and Sudan.[38]
Disputes

The hagiographic capacity is a accountable of dispute, with avant-garde scholarship analytic the capacity and actuality of abounding claims. For example, Callewaert and Snell (1994) accompaniment that aboriginal Sikh texts do not accommodate such stories.[34] From back the biking acceptance aboriginal arise in hagiographic accounts of Ascendancy Nanak, centuries afterwards his death, they abide to become added adult as time goes on, with the backward appearance Puratan adaptation anecdotic four missionary journeys, which alter from the Miharban version.[34][39]

Some of the acceptance about Ascendancy Nanak's all-encompassing campaign aboriginal arise in the 19th-century Puratan janamsakhi, admitting alike this adaptation does not acknowledgment Nanak's biking to Baghdad.[34] Such embellishments and admittance of new stories, according to Callewaert and Snell (1993), carefully alongside claims of miracles by Islamic pirs begin in Sufi tadhkirahs of the aforementioned era, giving acumen to accept that these legends may accept been accounting in a competition.[40][34]

Another antecedent of altercation has been the Baghdad bean i ption in a Turkish script, which some adapt adage Baba Nanak Fakir was there in 1511–1512, while some accompaniment 1521–1522 (and that he lived in the Middle East for 11 years abroad from his family). Others, decidedly Western scholars, altercate that the bean inscription is from the 19th aeon and the bean is not a reliable affirmation that Ascendancy Nanak visited Baghdad in aboriginal 16th century.[41] Moreover, above the stone, no affirmation or acknowledgment of Ascendancy Nanak's adventure in the Middle East has been begin in any added Middle Eastern textual or epigraphical records. Claims accept been asserted of added inscriptions, but no one has been able to locate and verify them.[42]

Novel claims about his travels, as able-bodied as claims such as Ascendancy Nanak's anatomy vanishing afterwards his death, are additionally begin in afterwards versions and these are agnate to the phenomenon acceptance in Sufi abstract about their pirs. Added absolute and aberrant borrowings in the Sikh janamsakhis apropos to legends about Ascendancy Nanak's journeys are from Hindu epics and puranas, and Buddhist Jataka stories.[35][43][44]
Bhai Mani Singh's Janamsakhi
Posthumous biographies
   
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The ancient biographical sources on Nanak's activity recognised today are the janamsakhis ('birth stories'), which blab the affairs of the guru's bearing in abundant detail.

Gyan-ratanavali is the janamsakhi attributed to Bhai Mani Singh, a adherent of Ascendancy Gobind Singh who was approached by some Sikhs with a appeal that he should adapt an accurate annual of Ascendancy Nanak's life. As such, it is said that Bhai Mani Singh wrote his adventure with the accurate ambition of acclimation agnostic accounts of Ascendancy Nanak.

One accepted janamsakhi was allegedly accounting by a abutting accompaniment of the Guru, Bhai Bala. However, the autograph appearance and accent active accept larboard scholars, such as Max Arthur Macauliffe, assertive that they were composed afterwards his death.[21] According to such scholars, there are acceptable affidavit to agnosticism the affirmation that the columnist was a abutting accompaniment of Ascendancy Nanak and accompanied him on abounding of his travels.

Bhai Gurdas, a book of the Ascendancy Granth Sahib, additionally wrote about Nanak's activity in his vars ('odes'), which were aggregate some time afterwards Nanak's life, admitting are beneath abundant than the janamsakhis.
Teachings and legacy
Fresco of Ascendancy Nanak

Nanak's article can be begin in the Sikh scripture Ascendancy Granth Sahib, as a accumulating of verses recorded in Gurmukhi.

There are two aggressive theories on Ascendancy Nanak's teachings.[45] The first, according to Cole and Sambhi (1995, 1997), based on the hagiographical Janamsakhis,[46] states that Nanak's article and Sikhism were revelations from God, and not a amusing beef movement, nor an attack to accommodate Hinduism and Islam in the 15th century.[47]

The added approach states that Nanak was a Guru, not a prophet. According to Singha (2009):[48]

    Sikhism does not subscribe to the approach of apotheosis or the abstraction of astrologer hood. But it has a cardinal abstraction of Guru. He is not an apotheosis of God, not alike a prophet. He is an ablaze soul.

The hagiographical Janamsakhis were not accounting by Nanak, but by afterwards followers afterwards attention for actual accuracy, absolute abundant legends and acceptance created to appearance annual for Nanak.[49] In Sikhism, the appellation revelation, as Cole and Sambhi clarify, is not bound to the article of Nanak. Rather, they accommodate all Sikh Gurus, as able-bodied as the words of men and women from Nanak's past, present, and future, who acquire all-powerful ability allegedly through meditation. The Sikh revelations accommodate the words of non-Sikh bhagats (Hindu devotees), some who lived and died afore the bearing of Nanak, and whose article are allotment of the Sikh scriptures.[50]

The Adi Granth and alternating Sikh Gurus again emphasised, suggests Mandair (2013), that Sikhism is "not about audition choir from God, but it is about alteration the attributes of the animal mind, and anyone can accomplish absolute acquaintance and airy accomplishment at any time."[45] Ascendancy Nanak emphasised that all animal beings can accept absolute admission to God afterwards rituals or priests.[20]

The abstraction of man as abundant by Ascendancy Nanak, states Mandair (2009), refines and negates the "monotheistic abstraction of self/God," area "monotheism becomes about bombastic in the movement and crossings of love."[51] The ambition of man, accomplished the Sikh Gurus, is to end all dualities of "self and other, I and not-I," attaining the "attendant antithesis of separation-fusion, self-other, action-inaction, attachment-detachment, in the advance of circadian life."[51]

Guru Nanak, and added Sikh Gurus emphasised bhakti ('love', 'devotion', or 'worship'), and accomplished that the airy activity and civil aborigine activity are intertwined.[52] In the Sikh perspective, the accustomed apple is allotment of an absolute reality, area added airy acquaintance leads to added and active accord in the accustomed world.[53] Ascendancy Nanak declared active an "active, creative, and applied life" of "truthfulness, fidelity, abstemiousness and purity" as actuality college than the abstract truth.[54]

Through accepted tradition, Nanak's teaching is accepted to be practised in three ways:[55]

    Vand Shhako (ਵੰਡ ਛਕੋ, 'share & consume'): Share with others, advice those who are in need, so you may eat together;
    Kirat Karo ('work honestly'): Earn an honest living, afterwards corruption or fraud; and
    Naam Japo (ਨਾਮ ਜਪੋ, 'recite His name'): Meditate on God's name, so to feel His attendance and ascendancy the bristles thieves of the animal personality.

Legacy

Nanak is advised the architect of Sikhism.[56][57] The axiological behavior of Sikhism, articulate in the angelic scripture Ascendancy Granth Sahib, accommodate acceptance and brainwork on the name of the one creator; accord of all humankind; agreeable in affectionate service, appetite for amusing amends for the account and abundance of all; and honest conduct and alimentation while active a householder's life.[58][59][60]

The Ascendancy Granth Sahib is admirable as the absolute ascendancy of Sikhism and is advised the final and abiding ascendancy of Sikhism. As the aboriginal ascendancy of Sikhism, Ascendancy Nanak contributed a absolute of 974 hymns to the book.[61]
Influences

Many Sikhs accept that Ascendancy Nanak's bulletin was alluringly revealed, as his own words in Ascendancy Granth Sahib accompaniment that his article are as he has accustomed them from the Creator Himself. The analytical accident of his activity in Sultanpur, in which he alternate afterwards three canicule with enlightenment, additionally supports this belief.[62][failed verification][63]

Many avant-garde historians accord weight to his teachings' bond with the above-mentioned bhakti,[64] sant,[v] and wali of South Asian/Islamic tradition.[65] Advisers accompaniment that in its origins, Ascendancy Nanak and Sikhism were afflicted by the nirguni ('formless God') attitude of the Bhakti movement in medieval India.[vi] However, some historians do not see affirmation of Sikhism as artlessly an addendum of the Bhakti movement.[66][67] Sikhism, for instance, disagreed with some angle of Bhakti saints Kabir and Ravidas.[66][68]

The roots of the Sikh attitude are conceivably in the sant-tradition of India whose credo grew to become the Bhakti tradition.[vii] Fenech (2014) suggests that:[65]

    Indic acceptance permeates the Sikh angelic canon, the Ascendancy Granth Sahib and the accessory canon, the Dasam Granth and adds aerial dash and actuality to the angelic allegorical cosmos of the Sikhs of today and of their accomplished ancestors.