INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

The Valaitvali Janam-sakhi carries the eldest hagiographical reference dated to
the early seventeenth century. 194 The narrated event starts out from a rhetoric differentiation
of the outer appearance of Guru Nanak and a Hindu scholar named Chattur
Das to make the external dissimilarities and the problem of identification a cause
of interaction between the two. Valaitvali Janam-sakhi locates Nanak’s visit in Varanasi
to his first travel and the scene is laid at the bank of river Ganga. In the opening
section of this anecdote the janam-sakhi narrator provides a detailed description of
Nanak’s dress: he wears white clothes, a pair of shoes, a long scarf, a rosary and the
Kalandri cap characteristic of Muslim hermits. Like Hindus he has a mark (tikka) in
saffron colour on his forehead. 195 The Guru’s clothes, combining Hindu and Muslim
elements, makes Chattur Das utterly confused. Since he cannot identify the sectarian
belonging he opens a conversation by commenting on what Nanak is not wearing,
that is, he has no shalagram, 196 wears no beads of the sacred Basil plant (tulsi) or the
white-clayed (gopi-chandan) mark typical of Vaishnava followers. In response Nanak
requests Mardana to tune his rebeck and describes the typical symbols and rituals of
the scholars in the Vaishnava tradition: they worship the shalagram stone and wear
rosaries of the basil plant. 197 Impressed by these words Chattur Das confirms that
Nanak is a saint (bhagat) of God and requests him to bless Varanasi with his presence.
When Guru Nanak enquires what type of virtues he can obtain from the city,
Chattur Das tells it is a centre of religious studies where learned scholars pursue
inner knowledge (siddh) by studying Smriti texts to teach disciples in the world ‒ an
occupation the pandit himself is dedicated to, however not fully convinced of the
merits he will gain from it. In response to these doubts Nanak utters a verse in which
he teaches the pandit to listen to the message of the universal Creator and write the
name of God instead of engaging in worldly debates. 198 Rather than providing a
circumstantial account of disparate identities of the inhabitants in Varanasi, the
narrative conveys an idealized depiction of the religious elite personified in a Hindu
scholar of the Vaishnava tradition, who comes to stand as an icon of the whole population.
Both the utterances of the scholar and Guru Nanak corroborate which kind of
actions and appearances are typical of this representation: studies and teachings of
teenth century (McLeod 1980a: 281 ‒ 282). The eighteenth century Nanak Prakash by Santokh
Singh similarly mentions that Guru Nanak visited Varanasi and impressed the learned scholars
of Kashi at the river bank of Ganga.
194
In English works the Valaitvali Janam-sakhi is also referred to as the Colebrooke manuscript
which was re-discovered and first published in translation in 1877 by Ernest Trumpp. In 1926
Bhai Vir Singh published an edition that combined narratives from the Colebrooke manuscript
with the Hafizabad version, a similar manuscript acquired by Gurmukh Singh at Oriental College
in Lahore in 1884. This edition Bhai Vir Singh titled Puratan Janam-sakhi, or “The Older Janamsakhi”
to indicate the ascribed historical value of the two manuscripts (McLeod 1980a, Kirpal
Singh 1990).
195
Kirpal Singh 1990: 15.
196
Shalagram is a black stone or fossil believed to be permeated with substances of Vishnu.
197
Kirpal Singh 1990: 16. They hymn uttered is recorded in Guru Granth Sahib on page 1181.
198
GGS: 929.
85
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008