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Appendix I Janamsakhis and Other Sources of Information on the Life of Guru Nanak
he material on which the present-day biographies of Guru Nanak are based is most inadequate from a historian's point of view. The first attempt to write a biography was made more than fifty years after Nanak's death and, although many people who had known the Guru personally were alive at the time, little attempt was made to record their impressions. Thereafter many other biographies, or janamsii.khis (literally, birth stories) as they are known, were written. We do not know who wrote the fh-st one, nor on what material it was based. But once one was written, many others followed, taking material from the others and adding or deleting details as it suited the author. The styles of these janamsa.khis (with the exception of the biography of Mani Singh) show clearly that they were written by semi-literate scribes for the benefit of a wholly illiterate people. They abound with stories of miracles performed by the Guru; they contradict each other on material points; and some were obviously touched up to advance the claims of one or the other branches of the Guru's family which had been overlooked in the succession to the guru-ship. Their contents are further vitiated by the Guru's own compositions in the Adi Granth and by the Vars of Bhai Gurdas. Nevertheless, the janamsakhis cannot be wholly discarded because they were based on legend and tradition which had grown around the Guru in the years following his demise, and furnish useful material to augment the bare but proven facts of his life. The sources on which the chapter on Guru Nanak in the present work is based are the following:
T
Appendix I Janamsakhis and Other Sources of Information on the Life of Guru Nanak
he material on which the present-day biographies of Guru Nanak are based is most inadequate from a historian's point of view. The first attempt to write a biography was made more than fifty years after Nanak's death and, although many people who had known the Guru personally were alive at the time, little attempt was made to record their impressions. Thereafter many other biographies, or janamsii.khis (literally, birth stories) as they are known, were written. We do not know who wrote the fh-st one, nor on what material it was based. But once one was written, many others followed, taking material from the others and adding or deleting details as it suited the author. The styles of these janamsa.khis (with the exception of the biography of Mani Singh) show clearly that they were written by semi-literate scribes for the benefit of a wholly illiterate people. They abound with stories of miracles performed by the Guru; they contradict each other on material points; and some were obviously touched up to advance the claims of one or the other branches of the Guru's family which had been overlooked in the succession to the guru-ship. Their contents are further vitiated by the Guru's own compositions in the Adi Granth and by the Vars of Bhai Gurdas. Nevertheless, the janamsakhis cannot be wholly discarded because they were based on legend and tradition which had grown around the Guru in the years following his demise, and furnish useful material to augment the bare but proven facts of his life. The sources on which the chapter on Guru Nanak in the present work is based are the following:
T
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