Guru Nanak was the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. His birth is celebrated worldwide as Guru Nanak Gurpurab on Katak Pooranmashi, i. e. October–November. Nanak is said to have travelled far and wide across Asia teaching people the message of ik onkar. He would set up a unique spiritual, social, and political platform based on equality, fraternal love, goodness, and virtue.
About Guru Nanak in brief
Guru Nanak was the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. His birth is celebrated worldwide as Guru Nanak Gurpurab on Katak Pooranmashi, i. e. October–November. Nanak is said to have travelled far and wide across Asia teaching people the message of ik onkar. He would set up a unique spiritual, social, and political platform based on equality, fraternal love, goodness, and virtue. It is part of Sikh religious belief that the spirit of Nanak’s sanctity, divinity, and religious authority had descended upon each of the nine subsequent Gurus when the Guruship was devolved on to them. The Sikh records state that Nanak died on the 10th day of the Asauj month of Samvat 1596, at the age of 70 years, 5 months, and 7 days. He was born on 15 April 1469 at Rāi Bhoi Kī Talvaṇḍī village in the Lahore province of the Delhi Sultanate, although according to one tradition, he was born in the Hindu month of Kartik. In as late as 1815, during the reign of Ranjit Singh, the festival commemorating Nanak’s birthday was held in April at the place of his birth, known by then as Nankana Sahib. However, the anniversary of Nanaks birth came to be celebrated on the full moon day of Kartik month in November. There may be several reasons for the adoption of the Kartik birthdate by the Sikh community.
For one, it may have been the date of NanAK’s enlightenment or spiritual birth in 1496, as suggested by the Dabestan-e Mazaheb. According to a superstition prevailing in contemporary northern India, a child born in Kartik was believed to be weak and unlucky, hence why the work states that Nanaks were born in that month. A large number of Sikhs attended a Hindu festival held in the 19th century on Kartik Purnarima in Amritsar in the light of the Golden Purnima. This may have resulted in thin attendance and smaller donations for the Sikh shrines after the festival of Baisakhi. On the same day, Sikh community leader Giani Santiani Sant Singh did not like this, thus starting a festival at the Golden Temple of the Sikh Temple on the same date as the birth anniversary of Guru Nanaks. The festival of the Baisakhhi was held after the harvest festival of Ravi Navi, Rama Navami, and Risama Navi in the same month, therefore, people would have been busy in agricultural activities after the birth of Nanakesh. Nanaksh is the most famous of the Guru Granth Sahib, with some of the major prayers being the Japji Sahib ; the Asa di Var ; and the Sidh Gohst. He is also known as Baba Nanak.
You want to know more about Guru Nanak?
This page is based on the article Guru Nanak published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
