A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

CHAP. II

TEACHING OF NANAK

39

Nanak was born in the year 1469, in the neighbourhood 1469-1539.
of Lahore.' His father, Kalu, was a Hindu of the Bedi
subdivision of the once warlike Kshattriyas, and he was, birth and
perhaps, like most of his race, a petty trader in his native early life,
village.2 Nanak appears to have been naturally of a pious A. 1469.
disposition and of a reflecting mind, and there is reason to
believe that in his youth he made himself familiar with the
popular creeds both of the Muhammadans and Hindus, and
that he gained a general knowledge of the Koran and of
the Brahmanical Shastras.3 His good sense and fervid
1 Nanak is generally said to have been born in Talwandi, a village
on the Rivi above Lahore, which was held by one Rai Bhua of the
Bhutti tribe. (Cf. Malcolm, Sketch of the Sikhs, p. 78, and Forster,
Travels, i. 292-3.) But one manuscript account states that, although
the father of Nanak was of Talwandi, the teacher himself was born in
Kanakatch, about fifteen miles southerly from Lahore, in the house
of his mother's parents, It is indeed not uncommon in the Punjab
for women to choose their own parents' home as the place of their confinement, especially of their first child, and the children thus born are
frequently called Nanak (or Nanki, in the feminine), from Nanke,
one's mother's parents. Nanak is thus a name of usual occurrence,
both among Hindus and Muhammadans, of the poor or industrious
classes. The accounts agree as to the year of Nanak's birth, but
differ, while they affect precision, with regard to the day of the
month on which he was born. Thus one narrative gives the 13th, and
another the 18th, of the month Kartik, of the year 1526 of Vikramajit, which corresponds with the latter end of 1469 of Christ.
2 In the Siar ul Mutdkharin (Brigg's translation, i. 110) it is stated
that Nanak's father was a grain merchant, and in the Dabistdn
(ii. 247) that Nanak himself was a grain factor. The Sikh accounts
are mostly silent about the occupation of the father, but they represent the sister of Nanak to have been married to a corn factor, and
state that he was himself placed with his brother-in-law to learn, or
to give aid, in carrying on the business.
3 A manuscript compilation in Persian mentions that Nanak's
first teacher was a Muhammadan. The Siar ul Mutdkharin (i. 110)
states that Nanak was carefully educated by one Saiyid Hasan, a
neighbour of his father's, who conceived a regard for him, and who was
wealthy but childless. Nanak is further said, in the same book, to
have studied the most approved writings of the Muhammadans.
According to Malcolm (Sketch, p. 14), Nanak is reported, by the
Muhammadans, to have learnt all earthly sciences from Khizar,
i. e. the prophet Elias. The ordinary Muhammadan accounts also
represent Nanak, when a child, to have astonished his teacher by asking him the hidden import of the first letter of the alphabet, which
is almost a straight stroke in Persian and Arabic, and which is held