Page:The Sikh Religion, its gurus, sacred writings and authors Vol 1.djvu/90

lxxxiv All the Handali and modern Janamsakhis give Kartik as the month in which Baba Nanak was born. In Mani Singh's and all the old Janamsakhis the Guru's natal month is given as Baisakh. The following is the manner in which Kartik began to be considered as the Guru's natal month: There lived in the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, at Amritsar, Bhai Sant Singh Gyani, who was held in high estimation by that monarch. Some five miles from Amritsar is an ancient tank called the Ram Tirath or place of pilgrimage of the Hindu god Ram. At that place a Hindu fair was and is still held at the time of the full moon in the month of Kartik. The spot is essentially Hindu, and it had the further demerit in the eyes of the Bhai of having been repaired by Lakhpat, the prime minister of Zakaria Khan Bahadur, the inhuman persecutor of the Sikhs. Bhai Sant Singh desired to establish an opposition fair in Amritsar on the same date, and thus prevent the Sikhs from making the Hindu pilgrimage to Ram Tirath. He gravely adopted the Handali date of Guru Nanak's birth, and proclaimed that his new fair at Amritsar at the full moon in the month of Kartik was in honour of the nativity of the founder of his religion.

There is no doubt that Guru Nanak was born in Baisakh. All the older Janamsakhis give that as Guru Nanak's natal month. As late as the Sambat year 1872 it was in Baisakh that the anniversary fair of Guru Nanak's birth was always celebrated at Nankana. And finally the Nanak Parkash, which gives the full moon in Kartik, Sambat 1526, as the time of Guru Nanak's birth and the tenth of the dark half of Assu, Sambat 1596, as the date of his death, states with strange inconsistency that he lived seventy years five months and seven days, a total which is irreconcilable with these dates, but it is very nearly reconcilable with the date of the Guru's birth given in the old Janamsakhi.