Janamsakhis: Difference between revisions

Bhai Bala Janamsakhi

This is probably the most popular and well known Janamsakhi, in that most Sikhs and their Janamsakhi knowledge comes from this document. This work claims to be a contemporarry account written by one Bala Sanshu in the Sambat year 1592 at the instance of the second Guru, Guru Angad. According to the author, he was a close companion of Guru Nanak and accompanied him on many of his travels. There are good reasons to doubt this contention:

• Guru Angad, who is said to have commissioned the work and was also a close companion of the Guru in his later years, was, according to Bala's own admission, ignorant of the existence of Bala.
• Bhai Gurdas, who has listed all Guru Nanak's prominent disciples whose names were handed down, does not mention the name of Bala Sandhu. (This may be an oversight, for he does not mention Rai Bular either.)
• Bhai Mani Singh's Bhagat Ratanwali, which is essentialy the same list as that by Bhai Gurdas, but with more detail, also does not mention Bala Sandhu.
• It is only in the janamsakhis of the Minas that we find first mention of Bhai Bala.
• The language used in this janamsakhi was not spoken at the time of Guru Nanak or Guru Angad, but was developed at least a hundred years later.
• Some of the hymns ascribed to Nanak are not his but those of the second and fifth Gurus.
• At several places expressions which gained currency only during the lifetime of the last Guru, Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), are used e.g Waheguru ji ki Fateh. Bala's janamsakhi is certainly not a contemporary account; at best it was written in the early part of the 18tyh Century.

Vilayat Vali Janamsakhi

Hafizabad Vali Janamsakhi

Other Janamsakhis

References

• Macauliffe, M.A "The Sikh Religion: Its Gurus Sacred Writings and Authors", 1909
• Singh, Khushwant "A History of the Sikhs", Oxford University Press, 2000