Twilight of the Sultanate c18.s3.4

c18.s3.4

At the age of eighteen Nānak was married to a Khattrī girl Sulākhin, and by her he had two sons, Srī Chand and Lakshmī Chand.²⁹ But he was neither attached to his family nor to his job. He longed to satisfy his spiritual hunger—an innate thirst to know the Truth. At last when he was about thirty years he gave up his home and his job and became a Sanyasī. He set out to meet Sadhūs and saints and to gather experience. On his wanderings he was accompanied by Bhai Bālā, his companion from childhood and Bhai Mardānā, a Muhammadan Rabābī or minstrel who used to play on the harp when the master meditated. Nānak’s common recitation in the praise of the Creator was “Tūhī Nirankār, Kirtār,—Nānak Bandā Terā”. With regard to Nānak’s travels, it is difficult to speak with precision, but he appears to have visited most of the important places in India, Ceylon, Arabia and Iran. He seems to have visited Mecca and Medina in the garb of a Muhammedan faqīr.³⁰ All kinds of miraculous stories are related in connection with these travels. In 1504 he became the Gurū of the Sikhs (*Shishya*, disciples) and for the next thirty-four years he preached his message. During these years also he travelled, and most of the places he visited in the Punjab in course of time became centres of pilgrimage.³¹ He breathed his last in 1538 in his home-town at the ripe age of seventy. The Muslims erected a tomb and the Hindus a shrine in his memory. Both the tomb and the *samādhi* have since been swept away by the waters of the Ravi.