The birthday of Guru Nanak, who is popularly known as Shri Guru Nanak Dev among the Sikhs falls on November 6.
This historical event is celebrated with great enthusiasm in all those countries where the Sikhs have gone and settled.
In India it is a national holiday.
In Fiji the Sikh temples will organise their own programs, perhaps on different days, to celebrate the birthday of the founder of Sikh religion.
The period of history when he lived was an era of inquiry and religious renaissance.
Fanaticism, useless rituals and superstitious beliefs began to be challenged not only by Guru Nanak but also by many other saints of the bhakti era. New values and religious concepts were taking their place.
It was the time when man was in search not only of what lay outside him but also in search of himself.
Guru Nank (1469 – 1539) travelled on foot to distant lands in the middle-east countries and he visited all the famous centres in India to give the message of love and truth to the world and to preach the principle of FATHERHOOD OF GOD and BROTHERHOOD OF MAN.
Many Indians during those days, and some of them still do it, believed in different gods and goddesses. The caste system had grown rigid and had split itself into numerous sub-castes.
There was a perpetual conflict between major religious communities. Misunderstanding, caused by religious differences, kept the people divided.
Guru Nanak began to preach among them that God is one. He is everywhere. “Just as there are many seasons but the sun that makes them is one, so the Creator hath many garbs.”
At another place, he commented, “God is like one large lake in which many varieties of waterlilies blossom”
Not only a philosopher, religious reformer and practical humanist, he was also a great literary genius of the bhakti era, which is considered by scholars as golden period of Indian literature.
Metaphors and other figures of speech are important elements in poetry. Guru Nanak used images drawn from his own visible and intellectual sphere.
There are images from nature in his poetry and also from daily indoor life. There are many references to the beauty of flowers and trees, sunshine and shadows, clouds, rain and wind and to many other attributes of the mother Earth.
According to the Punjabi calendar, Vaisakh is the second month of the year.
He wrote, “Beauteous Vaisakh, when the bough adorns itself anew, the wife awaits the coming of the Lord. Her eyes are fixed on the door. ‘My love, you alone can help me cross the turbulent waters of life. Have compassion for me and come home. Without thee, I am as worthless as a shell’”.
Like many other saints of the bhakti era, Guru Nanak also used the concept of “husband and wife” to express love for God.
A devotee assuming the role of a wife and Lord ( God) addressed as husband.
Many Muslim saints of that period, belonging to the sufi tradition , also used the same kind of analogy in their writings.
Guru Nanak wrote his devotional songs in different ragas and sang them to the accompaniment of rabab, rebeck, a musical instrument, which was played by his colleague, Mardana who always went with him to various places.
Guru Nanak composed hundreds of devotional poems and 974 are included in Guru Granth Sahib, holy book of the Sikhs.
Almost all his compositions, smaller or longer ones, follow a typical metrical pattern and most of them have rhyming scheme.
The language of his compositions is Punjabi but not the same kind of Punjabi as we speak now or of the modern Punjabi literature. Some research scholars gave it the name of sant bhaasha, saint language.
He wrote on every aspect of human life and summary of some of his teachings and ideas are given below:
* Man occupies a central place in the whole universe and human life is the most precious gift given by God to man which is not to be wasted.
* He opposed religious dogmas, useless rituals, superstitious beliefs. According to him, human birth is a rare opportunity and we should make its best use.
* There is only one God and He is everywhere. He is great. Words fail to describe Him. His light shines in every heart. .
* God should be remembered at all times and on all occasions. Throughout his life Guru Nanak emphasised that the entire universe was the creation of God and all of us are His children, therefore, every human being is equal in the eyes of God.
* As God is present everywhere, he advised his followers not to go to mountains and forests for meditation.
* Guru Nanak rejected the notion that a woman was an inferior creature. He wrote, “Condemn her not, call her not an evil. She gives birth to great men.”
* He equated truth with God.
Truth was not to be taken as a mere theory but something that was practicable and was to be experimented daily in the laboratory of life. He wrote that “truth is high but still higher is truthful living.”
It is not easy to condense all his ideas in a short essay but what this saint-poet said more than many centuries back is still relevant in this modern world.
* Jogindar Singh Kanwal, former principal of Khalsa college, Ba, and author of many Hindi and English books is a frequent writer to The Fiji Times.
The views expressed are his and not of this newspaper. His email address is: kanwal@connect.com.fj
