Page:The Sikh Religion, its gurus, sacred writings and authors Vol 1.djvu/218

122 a favour. The Guru replied to the accompaniment of Mardana s rebeck :

It is the one God Who hath commissioned me.

Every one partaketh of His Gifts.

(He who looketh for human support

Loseth both this world and the next.

^There is but one Giver, the whole world are beggars.

They who forsake Him and attach themselves to others lose all their honour.

Kings and Emperors are all made by Him. There is none equal to Him.

Saith Nanak, Hear, Emperor Babar,

He who beggeth of thee is a fool.

The Guru then departed for Pasrur, and thence to Sialkot, the fortress of the Sial tribe, now a can tonment in the northern part of the Pan jab. He rested under a wild caper tree, which still exists outside the city. Having taken refreshment, he sent Mardana to the market-place for a paisa, or a farthing s worth of truth and a paisa worth of falsehood. Nobody understood what the messenger meant till Mardana reached Mula, who was a Karar, or petty shopkeeper. The latter said that death was true and life false. Mardana returned with this message to the Guru. Upon this a great friendship sprang up between the Guru and Mula, and Mula afterwards accompanied him to Kabul. On a subsequent occasion when Guru Nanak and Mardana visited Sialkot, Mardana went to Mula. His wife, thinking her husband would again leave her, concealed him, and told Mardana to say he was not at home. In his concealment, he was bitten by a snake and died. On this Guru Nanak composed the following :

Friendship with Karars is false, and false is its foundation.

Mula saw not whence death would come to him.