Who is nanak

Why does Kartarpur Corridor matter to all, and not just Sikhs? Why Nanak cannot be limited to one religion? While Sikh population in India is close to 2. If Pakistan had to waive off certain conditions, it should be done for all and not just the Sikhs.

To spread the message of oneness and to break barriers across faiths by engaging in spiritual dialogues, the Guru travelled far and wide during the 15th and 16th centuries. Click here to join our channel indianexpress and stay updated with the latest headlines. Divya Goyal Divya Goyal is our Punjab correspondent. Who is a Nanak Naam Lewa? The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.

Nanak was an original spiritual thinker and expressed his thoughts in extraordinary poetry that forms the basis of Sikh scripture. Little is known about the life of Nanak, but Sikh tradition has a much-loved set of stories or janam sakhis which relate various incidents from his life, and include many of his important teachings. Nanak was born about 40 miles from Lahore now in Pakistan in Sikh traditions teach that his birth and early years were marked with many events that demonstrated that God had marked him out for something special and was keeping an eye on him.

His family were Hindus, but Nanak soon showed an advanced interest in religion and studied Islam and Hinduism extensively. As a child he demonstrated great ability as a poet and philosopher. One famous story about Guru Nanak tells of his rebellion at the age of eleven. At this age Hindu boys of his caste would start to wear the sacred thread to distinguish them. Nanak refused, saying that people should be distinguished by the things that they did, and their individual qualities, rather than by a thread.

Nanak continued to demonstrate a radical spiritual streak - arguing with local holy men and sages, both Hindu and Muslim, that external things like pilgrimages, penances, and poverty were of far less spiritual importance than internal changes to the individual's soul.

He worked for a while as an accountant but while still quite young decided to devote himself to spiritual matters. He was inspired by a powerful spiritual experience that gave him a vision of the true nature of God , and confirmed his idea that the way to spiritual growth was through meditation and through living in a way that reflected the presence of the divine within each human being.

In , although married and having a family, Nanak set out on a set of spiritual journeys through India, Tibet and Arabia that lasted nearly 30 years.

He studied and debated with the learned men he met along the way and as his ideas took shape he began to teach a new route to spiritual fulfilment and the good life. The last part of his life was spent at Kartarpur in the Punjab, where he was joined by many disciples attracted by his teachings.

The most famous teachings attributed to Guru Nanak are that there is only one God, and that all human beings can have direct access to God with no need of rituals or priests. His most radical social teachings denounced the caste system and taught that everyone is equal, regardless of caste or gender.

Peter Owen-Jones explores the Sikh faith in India, travelling to a festival in Nanded and explaining the origins of Sikhism in the conflict between Hinduism and Islam years ago. He visits the temple where Guru Gobind Singh was assassinated and joins worshippers honouring the institution of the Guru Granth Sahib as the living guru.

Noting the display of weapons at the temple he comments on the martial prowess of the Sikhs and meets some Sikh soldiers.