Janamsakhis

Introduction

Janamsakhis, literally Birth Stories, are writings which profess to be biograhies of the first Guru, Guru Nanak Dev ji. These compositions have been written at various stages after the demise of the first Guru. They all record miraculous acts and supernatural conversations. Many of them contradict each other on material points and some have obviously been touched up to advance the cliams of one or the other branches of the Guru's family, or to exaggerate the roles of certain disciples. Macauliffe compares the manipulation of janamsakhs to the way gospels were also in early Christian Church:

"'Vast numbers of spurious writings bearing the names of apostles and their followers, and claiming more or less direct apostolic authority, were in circulation in the early Church - Gospels according to Peter, to Thomas, to James, to Judas, according to the Apostles, or according to the Twelve, to Barnabas, to Matthias, to Nicodemus, & co.; and ecclesiastical writers bear abundant testimony to the early and rapid growth of apocryphal literature.' Supernatural Religion, vol.i, p.292. 

It may be incidentally mentioned that it was the Gospel according to Barnabas which Muhammad used in the composition of the Quran."

The falsification of old or the composition of new Janamsakhis were the result of three great schisms of the Sikh religion: The Udasis, the Minas and the Handalis.

Though from the point of view of a historian the janamsakhis may be inadequate, they cannot be wholly discarded because they were based on legend and tradition which had grown up around the Guru in the years following his demise, and furnish useful material to augment the bare but proved facts of his life. The main janamsakhis which scholars over the years have referred to are as follows:

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 Sandhu 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 contains essentialy the same list as that by Bhai Gurdas, but with more detail, also does not mention Bala Sandhu.
• It is only in the heretic 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

In the year 1883 a copy of a janamasakhi was dispatched by the India Office Library in London for the use of Dr.Trumpp and the Sikh scholars assisting him. (It had been givn to the library by an Englishman called Colebrook; it came to be known as the Vilayat Vali or the foreign janamsakhi.) This janamsakhi was the basis of the accounts written by Trumpp, Macauliffe, and most Sikh scholars. It is said to have been written in 1588 AD by one Sewa Das.

Hafizabad Vali Janamsakhi

A renowned Sikh scholar, Gurmukh Singh of the Oriental College, Lahore, found another janamsakhi at Hafizabad which was very similar to that found by Colebrook. Gurmukh Singh who was collaborating with Mr.Macauliffe in his research on Sikh religion, made it available to the Englishman, who had it published in November 1885. This biography agrees entirely with the India Office janamsakhi.

Other Janamsakhis

Many other janamsakhis have since been discovered. They follow the above two in all material points. The famous historian, Karam Singh, mentions half a dozen he came across in his travels.

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