ABSTRACT
BABA NANAK (1469-1539): The first (human) guru, or spiritual guide, and founder of Sikhism (literally, “Disciple-ism”). Born in the village of Talwandi, which is located some thirty miles from Lahore, capital of the Punjab, his father was a village accountant and farmer. Too much of a daydreamer for anything but a government job, he worked in Sultanpur, married, and had two children. Evenings he spent singing hymns while his friend, Mardana, accompanied him on a small stringed rebeck. One day, after taking a bath in the river, Nanak was given a cup of nectar by God, and three days later returned home. After a day of silence, he said these words: “There is no Hindu and no Moslem.” Soon he left again, with his friend, this time to be gone for years, wandering to all the places of pilgrimmage visited by Hindu and Moslem, Hardwar, Delhi, Benares, the temple of Jaganatha, and Mecca. In Mecca, he went to sleep with his feet toward the sacred Kaaba. Kicked awake by an irate Moslem, who shouted at him: “Who is this sleeping infidel? Why, O sinner, hast thou turned thy feet towards God?” He replied: “Turn my feet in any direction in which God is not.” The angry Arab, not thinking what he was doing, then seized the guru’s feet and dragged them around in the opposite direction.
