Chapter V

The Guru set out towards the east, having arrayed himself in a strange motley of Hindu and Muhammadan religious habiliments. He put on a mango-coloured jacket, over which he threw a white safa or sheet. On his head he carried the hat of a Musalman Qalandar,[135] while he wore a necklace of bones, and imprinted a saffron mark on his forehead in the style of Hindus. This was an earnest of his desire to found a religion which should be acceptable both to Hindus and Muhammadans without conforming to either faith. As the Guru and his attendant proceeded, they met a Muhammadan notable called Shaikh Wajid. The Shaikh alighted under a tree, and his bearers began to shampoo and fan him. This afforded matter for contemplation to Mardana, and he asked the Guru whether there was not one God for the rich and another for the poor. The Guru replied that there ​was only one God. Mardana then put his question in another form: 'Who created this man who rideth in a sedan of ease while the bearers have no shoes to their feet? Their legs are naked while they shampoo and fan him.' The Guru replied with the following verses:—

They who performed austerities in their former lives, are now kings and receive tribute on earth. They who were then wearied, are now shampooed by others.

The Guru continued in prose: 'O Mardana, whoever is born hath come naked from his mother's womb, and joy or misery is the result of actions in previous states of existence.' Upon this, Mardana fell at the Guru's feet.

As Guru Nanak and Mardana journeyed on, they arrived at Gorakhmata, or temple of Gorakh, some twenty miles north of Pilibhit, in the United Provinces of India.[136] There they observed a pipal-tree[137] of many a religious reminiscence. Years previously it had withered from age, but it is related that when the holy man sat beneath it, it suddenly became green. The biographer of the Guru states that Sidhs came on that occasion and addressed him: 'O youth, whose disciple art thou, and from whom hast thou obtained instruction?'

Guru Nanak, in reply, composed the following hymn:—

What is the scale? What the weights? What weighman[138] shall I call for Thee? Who is the guru from whom I should receive instruction, and by whom I should appraise Thy worth? O my Beloved, I know not Thy limit. Thou fillest sea and land, the nether and upper regions; it is Thou Thyself who art contained in everything. ​My heart is the scale, my understanding the weight, Thy service the weighman I employ. I weigh the Lord in my heart, and thus I fix my attention. Thou Thyself art the tongue of the balance, the weight, and the scales; Thou Thyself art the weighman; Thou Thyself beholdest, Thou Thyself understandest, Thou Thyself art the dealer with Thee.[139] A blind man, a low-born person, and a stranger come but for a moment, and in a moment depart.

Then the Sidhs said, 'O youth, become a Jogi, and adopt the dress of our order, so shalt thou find the true way and obtain the merits of religion.' The Guru replied with the following hymn:—

Religion consisteth not in a patched coat, or in a Jogi's staff, or in ashes smeared over the body; Religion consisteth not in earrings worn, or a shaven head, or in the blowing of horns.[141] Abide pure amid the impurities of the world; thus shalt thou find the way of religion.

Religion consisteth not in mere words; He who looketh on all men as equal is religious. Religion consisteth not in wandering to tombs[142] or places of cremation, or sitting in attitudes of contemplation;[143] Religion consisteth not in wandering in foreign countries, or in bathing at places of pilgrimages. Abide pure amid the impurities of the world; thus shalt thou find the way of religion.

On meeting a true guru doubt is dispelled and the wanderings of the mind restrained. It raineth nectar, slow ecstatic music is heard, and man is happy within himself. ​Abide pure amid the impurities of the world; thus shalt thou find the way of religion.

Nanak, in the midst of life be in death; practise such religion. When thy horn soundeth without being blown, thou shalt obtain the fearless dignity—

On hearing this the Sidhs made Guru Nanak obeisance. The Guru, having infused sap into the pipal-tree by sitting under it, necessarily became a great being in their estimation.

The Guru and his musical attendant proceeded to Banaras,[145] the head quarters of the Hindu religion, and the birthplace of the renowned Kabir, then dead but not forgotten. The Guru and Mardana sat down in a public square of the city. At that time the chief Brahman of the holy city was Pandit Chatur Das. On going to bathe he saw the Guru and made the Hindu salutation, 'Ram Ram!' On observing the Guru's dress, he twitted him with possessing no salagram[146] though he called himself a faqir, with wearing no necklace of sacred basil and no rosary. 'What saintship hast thou obtained?' The Guru replied:—

O Brahman, thou worshippest and propitiatest the salagram, and deemest it a good act to wear a necklace of sweet basil.[147] Why irrigate barren land and waste thy life? Why apply plaster to a frail tottering wall? Repeating God's name, form a raft for thy salvation; may the Merciful have mercy on thee!

​Chatur Das replied: 'O saint, the salagram and the necklace of sweet basil may indeed be useless as the irrigation of barren land, but tell me by what means the ground may be prepared and God found.' The Guru replied:—

Make God the well, string His name for the necklace of waterpots, and yoke thy mind as an ox thereto. Irrigate with nectar and fill the parterres therewith; thus shalt thou belong to the Gardener.

The Pandit inquired: 'The soil is irrigated, but how can it yield produce until it hath been dug up and prepared for the seed? The Guru explained how this was to be done:—

Beat both thy lust and anger into a spade, with which dig up the earth, O brother: The more thou diggest, the happier shalt thou be: such work shall not be effaced in vain.

The Pandit replied: 'I am the crane, and thou art the primal swan of God. My understanding is overcome by my senses.' The Guru replied:—

If thou, O Merciful One, show mercy, a crane shall change into a swan. Nanak, slave of slaves, supplicateth, O Merciful One have mercy.[148]

The Pandit then admitted that the Guru was a saint of God, and asked him to bless the city and sing its praises. The Guru inquired in what the specialty of the city consisted. The Pandit said it was learning, by which wealth was acquired. 'The world admireth the ground on which the possessor of wealth treadeth. By applying the mind to learning, thou shalt become a high priest.' The Guru replied in a series of metaphors:—

The city[149] is frail, the king[150] is a boy and loveth the wicked; He is said to have two mothers[151] and two fathers[152]; O Pandit, think upon this. ​O, sir Pandit, instruct me How I am to obtain the Lord of life. Within me is the fire,[153] the garden[154] is in bloom, and I have an ocean[155] within my body. The moon and sun[156] are both in my heart; thou hast not obtained such knowledge? He who subdueth mammon knoweth that God is every where diffused; He may be known by this mark that he storeth contentment as his wealth.[157] The king dwelleth with those who listen not to advice, and who are not grateful for what they receive.

Chatur Das requested further information. 'Sir, shall the name of God be to any extent obtained by what we teach the people and what we learn ourselves?' The Guru inquired in return: 'O religious teacher, what hast thou read? What teachest thou the people, and what knowledge dost thou communicate to thy disciples?' The Pandit replied: 'By the will of God I teach the people the fourteen sciences—reading, swimming, medicine, alchemy, astrology, singing the six rags and their raginis, the science of sexual enjoyment, grammar, music, horsemanship, dancing, archery, theology, and statesmanship.' The Guru replied that better than all these was knowledge of God. Upon this he repeated the long composition called the Oamkar in the Rag ​Ramkali, the first two pauris or stanzas of which are as follow:—

It is the one God who created Brahma;[159] It is the one God who created our understanding; It is from the one God the mountains and the ages of the world emanated; It is the one God who bestoweth knowledge. It is by the word of God man is saved. It is by the name of the one God the pious are saved. Hear an account of the letter O—[160] O is the best letter in the three worlds. Hear, O Pandit, why writest thou puzzles? Write under the instruction of the Guru the name of God, the Cherisher of the world. He created the world with ease: in the three worlds there is one Lord of Light. Under the Guru's instruction select gems and pearls, and thou shalt obtain God the real thing. If man understand, reflect, and comprehend what he readeth, he shall know at last that the True One is everywhere.[161] The pious man knoweth and remembereth the truth—that without the True One the world is unreal.

On hearing the whole fifty-four stanzas of the Oamkar, the Pandit fell at the Guru's feet, and became a Sikh and possessor of God's name.

During the Guru's stay at Banaras Krishan Lai and Har Lai, two eminent young pandits, went to visit him, and he explained to them the tenets and principles of his religion.

From Banaras the Guru proceeded to Gaya, the famous place of pilgrimage, where Buddha in days long past made his great renunciation and per formed his memorable penance. There the Guru uttered the following in reply to Brahmans who had ​urged him to perform the ceremonies usual among Hindus for the repose of the souls of ancestors.

The Name alone, is my lamp, suffering the oil I put therein. The lamp's light hath dried it up, and I have escaped meeting Death. O ye people, make me not an object of derision. The application of a particle of fire will destroy even hundreds of thousands of logs heaped together.[162] God is my barley rolls[163] and leafy platters,[164] the Creator's name the true obsequies.[165] In this world and the next, in the past and the future, that is my support. Thy praises are as the Ganges and Banaras to me; my soul laveth therein. If day and night I love Thee, then shall my ablution be true. Some rolls are offered to the gods, some to the manes[166]; but it is the Brahman who kneadeth and eateth them. Nanak, the rolls which are the gift of God are never exhausted.[167]

The Guru and Mardana in the course of their travels found themselves at a grain-dealer's house. A son had just been born to one of the partners, and several people had come to offer him congratulations. Some threw red powder[168] in token of joy, and voices of blessing and congratulation filled the neighbourhood. Mardana sat down and gazed on the ​spectacle. In the evening, when the grain-dealer's entertainment was at an end, he stood up and went to his private apartments without taking any notice of Mardana. The latter went to the Guru, who sat at some distance, informed him of the birth of the child, and gave him an account of the entertainment. The Guru smiled, and said it was not a son who had been born in the grain-dealer's house, but a creditor who had come to settle his account. He would remain for the night and depart in the morning. Then the Guru ordered Mardana to play the rebeck, and sang to its strains the following hymn:—

In the first watch of night, my merchant friend, the child by God's order entereth the womb. With body reversed it performeth penance within, O merchant friend, and prayeth to the Lord— It prayeth to the Lord in deep meditation and love. It cometh naked into the world, and again it departeth naked. Such destiny shall attend it as God's pen hath recorded upon its forehead. Saith Nanak, in the first watch the child on receiving the order entereth the womb