Later Mughals v1.c6.s15.1

v1.c6.s15.1

Baba or Guru Nanak, sometimes called Nanak Shah,* was born in Baisakh 1526 (April-May 1469 A.D.) at Talwandi, now called Nanakana, a village situated on the river Ravi, 35 miles south-west of Lahor, in the Sarakpur sub-division of the Lahor district. His father's name was Kalu, a Khatri, of the Bedi sub-division, and by occupation the *patwari* or account-keeper of the village. Nanak was a boy of a contemplative nature but little fitted to cope with the ordinary duties of village life. He allowed his father's buffaloes to break into a field; he sowed his seed and left the crop to be destroyed by cattle; he was sent out to trade and spent the capital on *faqirs*. In short, no work could be got out of him. His parents came to the conclusion that he was deficient in sense. He was next tried as an assistant to his brother-in-law Jai Ram of Sultanpur,* a grain agent in the service of Nawab Daulat Khan Lodi. Here his accounts fell into disorder and he left the Nawab's service. This occurred at Sultanpur. From this time began his career as a religious teacher, his first saying to attract attention being "There is no Hindu and no Musalman". The rest of his life was passed in wandering about the country, but from this point facts are so mingled with fables that it is impossible to disentangle them. As Dr. Trumpp says, there is nothing in what is told about him that might not be applied to every Hindu religious mendicant. He seems to have consorted freely with Muham-madans, particularly with the successors of Shaikh Farid, known as *Ganj-i-shakkar*, whose tomb is at Pak Patan (or Ajodhan), south of Lahor. Some writers† have even gone to the length of classing him as a Muhammadan and not a Hindu innovator. Nanak died in 1538 at Kartarpur in the Jalandhar Duab, [on the Ravi, 5 miles from Kalanur.]