Guru Nanak Biography Quotes 19 Report mistakes

Early Life and Family
Guru Nanak, born as Nanak around 1469 in Rai Bhoi di Talwandi (later known as Nankana Sahib) in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, grew up in a family of Khatri traders. His father, Kalyan Chand, commonly called Mehta Kalu, served as a village accountant, and his mother was Mata Tripta. From childhood, Nanak showed unusual sensitivity to spiritual questions and compassion that cut across community boundaries. His elder sister, Bebe Nanaki, recognized his gifts early and remained one of his most steadfast supporters throughout his life. Through her marriage to Jai Ram, a revenue official in Sultanpur, Nanak later found a setting that would prove decisive for his spiritual awakening.

Education and Early Work
Nanak received instruction in Punjabi, Persian, and perhaps elements of Sanskrit, acquiring literacy that would inform his later poetic compositions. Accounts remember him as a questioning student who challenged rote ritual in favor of living truthfully. He married Mata Sulakhni of Batala and had two sons, Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das. In Sultanpur, under the aegis of Jai Ram and the local governor, Daulat Khan Lodi, Nanak worked as a storekeeper. He earned a reputation for scrupulous honesty and for feeding those in need, early signs of the values he would later articulate for a broader community.

Spiritual Awakening
Around the close of the fifteenth century, Nanak entered a period of deep reflection. Tradition holds that while bathing in the river Bein near Sultanpur he experienced an overwhelming revelation of the divine. Emerging from seclusion, he voiced the insight that would frame his mission: that the Holy is One and beyond the divisions humans construct. He proclaimed, "There is no Hindu, no Muslim", not to erase identities, but to emphasize a shared devotion to the One. From this time he began to compose and sing verses that distilled his vision of the Name (Naam), divine order (Hukam), and truthful living. His poetic expression opens with the concise affirmation often called the Mul Mantar, and his morning hymn, Japji, became a touchstone of daily practice for his followers.

Companions and Music
Music was central to Nanak's teaching. He traveled and sang with his close companion Bhai Mardana, a Muslim minstrel and rabab player, whose accompaniment helped carry the hymns to listeners of many backgrounds. Their partnership illustrates Nanak's commitment to fellowship across religious lines. Later tradition also names Bhai Bala as a companion on some journeys, though scholars debate the historicity of those specific narratives. In the household sphere, Bebe Nanaki remained a sustaining presence, while Mata Sulakhni managed family responsibilities during periods of travel. His sons, Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das, would each chart their own paths; Sri Chand later inspired the Udasi ascetic tradition, even as Nanak himself advocated a householder's way.

Journeys and Dialogues
For years, Nanak undertook wide-ranging journeys remembered as udasis, engaging people in marketplaces, courts, shrines, and hermitages. The earliest biographies (janamsakhis) portray him dialoguing with Hindu pandits, Muslim qadis and pirs, Nath yogis, and Siddhas. Some accounts place him in eastern India, the Himalayan foothills, and regions to the west, including sites associated with Baghdad and Mecca; while the exact itineraries are debated, the thrust of these narratives is clear: he sought conversation rather than conquest, testing practice against ethical truth. The composition known as Siddh Gosht presents sustained exchanges with yogic adepts, where Nanak affirms a disciplined inwardness yet rejects renunciation that abandons social obligation. His message emphasized remembrance of the One, honest labor, and sharing what one earns.

Teachings and Practice
Nanak's thought wove poetry, ethics, and devotion into a coherent path. He taught that the One, addressed as Waheguru, is formless, fearless, and beyond enmity. All people can receive grace by remembering the divine Name, aligning with Hukam, and living truthfully. He criticized caste pride, empty ritual, superstition, and hypocrisy, and he affirmed the dignity of women and the obligation to serve others. Three interlinked practices summarize his guidance: Naam japna (remembrance of the Name), kirat karni (earning by honest work), and vand chhakna (sharing with others). In kirtan, the sung recitation of hymns, he offered a participatory mode of devotion that dissolved barriers between performer and listener. His hymns, composed in Punjabi and related vernaculars with occasional Persian vocabulary, later formed a substantial part of the Sikh scripture.

Kartarpur and the Community
In the early sixteenth century, after extended travels, Nanak settled on the banks of the Ravi at a site he named Kartarpur, the abode of the Creator. There he lived as a householder, farmed, and gathered a community shaped by seva (service), work, and song. The free community kitchen, or langar, fed all visitors without regard to status, giving concrete form to equality. Kartarpur became a living school where merchants, peasants, artisans, women and men alike sat together, listened to bani (revealed hymns), and then returned to their daily tasks with a reoriented sense of purpose. Bhai Mardana continued to accompany the singing, and seekers came from nearby towns and distant regions, drawn by the simplicity and moral clarity of the teaching.

Succession and Final Years
As he grew older, Nanak turned to the question of succession. Among his devoted followers was a seeker named Lehna, who arrived with fervor and humility. Recognizing in him a spirit of service and deep receptivity, Nanak named him Angad, meaning one made of his own limb, thereby signaling continuity of the light and the teachings rather than any dynastic claim. Nanak died around 1539 at Kartarpur. Traditions narrate that both Hindu and Muslim followers wished to honor him according to their respective rites, a testimony to the breadth of his appeal. The community proceeded under Guru Angad, maintaining the practices established at Kartarpur.

Legacy
Guru Nanak is remembered as the founding Guru of the Sikh tradition, a poet-saint whose hymns anchor daily prayer and congregational singing. Hundreds of his compositions were later compiled by the fifth Guru, Arjan, in the Adi Granth, the scripture that came to be revered as Guru Granth Sahib. His ethical monotheism, insistence on justice and compassion, and rejection of sectarianism shaped a new community while engaging honorably with older ones. Figures closest to him, Bebe Nanaki and Jai Ram, Mata Sulakhni, his sons Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das, his musical companion Bhai Mardana, the patron Daulat Khan of his early career, and his successor Guru Angad, situate his life within a web of family, friendship, and discipleship. Through them, and through the continuing practices of kirtan, langar, and service, Nanak's teaching remained not a speculative system but a lived philosophy: to see the One in all, earn by honest means, share with others, and walk humbly in remembrance.

Our collection contains 19 quotes who is written by Guru, under the main topics: Wisdom - Mother - Faith - Equality - Mortality.