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JANAM_SAIQIIS / AGELESS STORl E HAR!SH DHILLO. Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary [email protected] JANAMSAKHIS Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary NamSdihkhaBroiEolkiCbrLaurby.C@Q!g!!m. ail.com JANAMSAKHIS Ageless Stories, Timeless Values Harish Dhillon A HAY ~ Hay House Publishers India Auscralia • Canada • Hong Kong• India South Africa• Unired Kingdom • United Sraccs Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary Nam][email protected] ail.com Hay I louse Publishers (India) Pvt. Ltd. Muskaan Complex. Plot No.3, 8-2 Vasant Kul\i, New Delhi-I JO 070. India Hay House Inc., PO Box 5100, Carlsbad, CA 92018-5100. USA Ha) House UK. Ltd., Astley House. 33 Notting Hill Gate, London WI l 3JQ, UK Ha} House Australia Pty Ltd.. 18/36 Ralph St., Alexandria NSW 2015. Australia Raincoast. 9050 Shaughnessy St., Vancouver. BC V6P 6E5. Canada Email: [email protected] www.hayhouse.co.in Cop)Tigbt Q 2015 Harlsh Dhillon Paperback Edition 2020 Cover image, Janmn-sakhi, CC BY-SA 4.0 The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author·s o,, n and the facts are as reported by him. They have been verified to the e,-1en1 possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same. All rights reserved. No part of this publication ma} be reproduced, by any mechanical, photographic. or electronic process. or m the fonn of a phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system. transmitted. or otherwise be copied for public or private use - other lhllll for •·fair use" as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews - without prior written permission oft.he publisher. Sardar Sobba Singh Art Gallery. Andrctta, Himachal Prudesh (All the pictures used in this book are original!} in colour, which have been converted into black and white for printing purposes.) While every effon has been made to trace copyright holders for some ofllte pictures used inside thi$ book. this has nol been possible lo all ~-.\m. ommission~ brought to our notice will be incorporated in !be next e<!ili.oo and due credit will be given. ISBN 978-93-88302-46-3 ISBN 978-93-84544-84-3 (e-book) Primed at Repro lndia Limired Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary [email protected] Sikh8ookCL1~ To my granddaughter Inaaya and grandson Rehaan, five and three years old, respectively In the hope that, when they are old enough to read, they will recognize and admire my ability co tell a good story and appreciate che fact that chis book was written specially for them Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary [email protected] ail.com The publisher and the author are greatly beholden to: Bibi Gurcharan Kaur, daughter of Sardar Sob ha Singh, for allowing the use of his paintings inside this book. Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary [email protected] ail.com CONTENTS Introduction 9 Chapter 1 17 The Sacred 1hread Chapter2 Sacha Sauda 27 Chapter 3 The Guru and the Qazi 47 Chapter4 Bhai Lalo 59 Chapter 5 Haridwar and Ganga 83 Chapter6 The Two Shopkeepers 93 Chapter 7 The Kumbh Mela 109 Chapter8 Bad Village, Good Village 121 Chapter 9 The Story of the Needle 137 Chapter 10 The Faqir's Curse 151 7 Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary [email protected] ail.com CONTENTS Chapter 11 The Bowl of Mille and the Jasmine Petal 177 Chapter 12 The Brahmin and His 'Kitchen' 191 Chapter 13 The Joy of Giving 203 Chapter 14 The Abode of God 213 Chapter 15 Music and Worship 225 Chapter 16 The Widow and Her Lost Son 235 Chapter 17 Moola Keer and the Jewel Thief 251 Chapter 18 The lmposcor 265 Chapter 19 Mud that Turned to Saffron 273 Chapter20 There Is No Hindu, No Mussalman 285 Notes and References 289 Further Reading 297 Acknowledgemen rs 299 8 Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary NamisdihkhaBrioEolikbCraLr~y@gmm ail.com INTRODUCTION 6T '-.IHE }ANAMSAKHIS ARE CYCLES OP TALES PURPORTEDLY drawn from the life of the first Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Nanak (f4 69-1539), as an attempt to compile popular stories connected with his life. These are not designed as biographies, nor can they strictly be called fables or parables, yet they do serve the same purpose - to preach a moral or illustrate an essential part of the Guru's life and his teachings. There are four extant sets of tales: the Bala Janamsakhis, the Puratan Janamsakhis, the Meheraban Janamsakhis and those written supposedly by Bhai Mani Singh, an eighteenth-century Sikh scholar and martyr. He had been the childhood companion of Gobind Singh, the lase Sikh Guru. Some of the stories are common to all the sets while some feature only in one set. The writers of these tales drew on two sources: Guru Nanak's Bani also known as Gurbani or the voice of the Guru (which was compiled as part of the Adi Granth by Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Guru, in 1604) and the .first var (ballad) of Bhai Gurdas. Bhai Gurdas, the scribe of the Adi Gran ch when it was first compiled, was the nephew of Guru Amar Das, the third Guru, and was also a close associate of Baba Buclha, who had been both an eyewitness and a party to the growth and development of the Nanak tradition. 9 Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary [email protected] ail.com lNTRODUCTTON Unimpeachable as both these sources were, confusion arose from che fact char Bhai Gurdas' var provided sketchy biographical material, which did not sarisfy the creative needs of the writers of the Janarnsakhis. Thus they us1!d their creativity to build on this material. For instance, Bhai Gurdas states simply that Nanak visited all the Hindu places of pilgrimage. The writers oft hese stories used their imagination to develop derailed accounts of Nanak's purported visits to places like Haridwar, Prayag (now Allahabad), Bem..ras (now Varanasi), Ujjain, Kuruksherra and Jagannath Puri. However, this resulted in many versions of the same story and also led to contradictions and anachronisms. For example, in the Puratan Janamsakhis the story about Guru Angad's anointment as the second Guru has Gorakhnath, the founder of the Nath sect ofy ogis, in conversation with Guru Nanak. Historically, Gorakhnath lived and preached long before Nanak's time (in the eleventh century). The Sakhis (which literally means srories) do not form any part of formal Sikh reUgious texts, largely because many of them are apocryphal. Another reason why they are not treated with much seriousness is the fact char they are replete with the supernatural and miracles. They were written long after the incident took place and based, as they were on oral history, the originals were coloured with the hues of personal interpretations of the person who wrote down the Janamsakhis. These stories were created for anyone and everyone who believed in the supernatural and who had an implicit beUef in the miracles that were said to have been performed. Hence, these miraculous stories, magnificent as they are, LO Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji eLibrary [email protected] ail.com