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54 JPS 17:1&2
ethical ideals he had been propagating as the natural extension of a
mission to reorganize society according to a unique set of ideological and
cosmological postulations that were in accord with the divine command
(hukam). It is no wonder that Guru Nanak named his village as Kartarpur
or “Creator’s abode” to highlight the point that its residents were
committed to restructure their lives according to a new rational model of
normative behavior based upon divine authority.
At Kartarpur Guru Nanak gave practical expression to the ideals that
matured during the period of his travels, and “combined a life of
disciplined devotion with worldly activities, set in the context of normal
family life and regular satsang [“company of the holy”].” 22 It was neither
a monastic order involved in ascetic life, nor any Sufi khanqah
(“hospice”) established on revenue-free land (madad-i-ma’ash) granted
by the rulers. In fact, Guru Nanak’s accomplishment in founding a new
town with the help of his own followers speaks much of his
organizational skills. It clearly sets him apart from other contemporary
poet-saints who may have dreamed of their “city of joy” (begampura,
“abode without anxiety”) but could not create it on earth. 23 Unlike Guru
Nanak who belonged to the Khatri caste, Kabir, Namdev and Ravidas
were all from the lower castes. Thus they did not have the requisite
confidence or the means to build a city of their own.
In sum, Guru Nanak’s egalitarian ideas about women set him far
apart from the medieval poet-saints of North India, particularly Kabir,
who described woman as ‘a black cobra’, ‘the pit of hell’, and ‘the refuse
of the world’ (Kabir Granthavali: 30.2, 30.16, and 30.20). Thus he had
major disagreements with the Sants on the issues of asceticism,
misogyny, and sense of mission and the idea of an organized religious
community. According to Grewal, McLeod’s insistence that Guru Nanak
can be squarely placed in the Sant tradition or that he can be called a Sant
confuses the issue. It emphasizes the importance of similarities in ideas at
the cost of differences in the system of Guru Nanak and Kabir, becoming
“a case of a part being confused with the whole.” 24 The authenticity and
power of Guru Nanak’s spiritual message ultimately derived not from his
relationship with the received forms of tradition but rather from his direct
access – through realization – to Divine Reality itself. Such direct access
was the ultimate source of his message and provided him with a purchase
from which he could fully understand, interpret, and adjudicate the
various elements of tradition. Throughout his writings he conceived of
his work as divinely commissioned, and he demanded the obedience of
his audience as an ethical duty.
IV
W.H. McLeod cautiously offered the hypothesis that the founding of the
villages of Tarn Taran, Sri Hargobindpur and Kartarpur in the rural areas