History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c48.s2.26

v3.c48.s2.26

Nanak, a Hindu of the Khatri or trader caste, was born in 1469 at Talwandi (now, Nanakana), 35 miles s. w. of Lahor. In early youth he began to consort with holy men and wandering friars and have ecstatic visions, and then throwing up his post under Daulat Khan Lodi he took to a life of religious travel and preaching. The essence of his creed was belief in the one true living God, and the shaping of every man's conduct in such a way as to realize that God. In his moments of inspiration he held communion with his Maker and sang of Him in the very language of the Song of Songs. Like Kabir and other Indian saints before him, he preached against the hollowness of conventional beliefs and mechanical rites, and urged his hearers to go back to the very spring-head of a personal and living faith. It was only natural that such a teacher should denounce the Hindus and Muhammadans of the age as false to their creeds, and that his insistence on the common truth of all religions should make all spiritual-minded men among both sects accept him as their master and guide, even as Kabir had been accepted. But the vulgar people and the selfish priests raised the cry that Nanak had condemned their scriptures as inefficacious for salvation, that he was saying "There