Nanak, the inimitable seer of the Punjab, is Guru Dev [a divine Guru] for the Sikhs and Baba [an honourable elder/patriarch] for Muslims which shows that he is one of the rare historical personages who transcends the religious divide that has plagued the Punjab all along.

The fact itself is no less than a miracle in a society that has been divided by multiple hierarchies erected on the basis of caste, religion and race. These hierarchies can be contradictory and mutually exclusive with the result that at best they support uneasy co-existence of communities and at worst they pit different segments of population against each other creating a horrible spectacle of all against all. This was no fluke as the happening has well-founded reasons for what it is.

Baba Guru Nanak appeared on the stage of history when it was possible for a rare great mind to blend the profound indigenous spiritual and intellectual traditions with the dynamic Islamic worldview in a daring effort to achieve a new synthesis. Such an exercise though unusual has not been alien to the ethos of the Punjab which has historically remained a melting pot due to great human migrations prompted by the lure of its strategic geographical location and fertility.

The Punjab has remained for considerable measure of time a gateway to the subcontinent from the north and northwest, the regions that have been responsible for creating a new civilisation in their fraught interaction with Harappa Civilisation. But still it would take no less than a real genius and a colossus to perform the astonishing feat the Guru did, unpretentiously. Guru’s vision wasn’t a serendipity but rather an outcome of his intellectual rigours and journeys [Udasis] that exposed him to a wide range of intellectual debates and spiritual practices found in a large part of Asia in 15th and 16th centuries. So it’s not surprising that Baba Guru Nanak is most talked about personality in our land for reasons, religious and secular.

Muzaffar Ghaffaar’s ‘Baba Guru Nanak’ is perhaps the latest book of Guru’s selected verses translated into English. It’s, we are told, part of his ‘Masterworks of Punjaabi Sufi Poetry’ and titled ‘Baaba Nanak, Within Reach’. It contains ‘Text in Nastaliq; Gurmukhi; Roman. Extensive glossary; poetic translation; line-by- line discourse’. The book has 52 Ashloks [sacred verses varying in length]. ‘What Baba wrote is sacred to Sikhs. All events of his life are authenticated by gurus and Sikh scholars and considered true’, says the translator about Baba Nanak and his verses.

Born to Hindu parents Baba Nanak like Lord Buddha rejected some of the notions central to Hinduism. ‘Among the lowly a low caste, lower than the lowest of the low / Nanak walks with them, envy for the grand, why so / where the low are alert there offerings You bestow’, he declares in a caste-ridden society. ‘Hindus probably found Baaba Nanak’s rejection of Hindu Caste System offensive. But that rejection was a major tenet of the religion he inspired…it may be mentioned that Sikhs believe in the transmigration of soul and the Sikh ideal is of liberation from the endless cycle of birth and rebirth. This could be achieved by attuning oneself to the divine name [Naam] and getting rid of haomae (self-centred concern for pride, sensuality and selfishness)’, writes Muzaffar Ghaffaar in his introduction.

It may be pointed out that this selection of Guru Nanak’s verses does not necessarily represent the Guru’s vision in its entirety. Political dimension of Guru’s vision seems to be a bit missing from the selection as only a few verses have been included from the Guru’s famous ‘Babar Vani’[an epic poem on the Babar’s invasion of the Punjab]. The book however is love of labour and reflects the hard work and the sweat which make it a literary endavour to be reckoned with. Glossary is impressive and line-by-line discourse helps to understand the philosophy and imagination of the Guru. The translator says that his is poetic translation. Now poetic translation has its upside and downside. The upside connects it with the literary tradition and traditional poetics while the downside robs it of contemporaneity and freshness. The modern mind finds the prose translation more palatable as it, unrestrained by the pulls and pushes of traditional rhythm and rhyming, has the capacity to make the text more accessible. The translator’s understanding of some of the sacred verses can be contested. One can assert that in Ashlok number 5 [starting with the line ‘parh parh gaddin laddiae’], as listed in the book, the word ‘BERI’ means boat, not fetter as understood by the translator if we keep in mind the preceding lines which are organically linked with the image in question. In the Ashlok number 17 [as listed in the book] ‘Ujjal kaeha chilkna ghotim kaalri muss’ the translator takes the word CHILKNA as verb while in the verse it is used as an adjective. The first and second lines of Ashlok number 41 [as listed in the book] ‘Rajae sheenh, muqaddam kuttae / jae jagayin baethae suttae’ are translated as; ‘Kings are tigers revenue commissioners dogs/ Go and arouse then sleep like logs’. Now he gets the second line wrong. Simple translation would be; ‘The kings are tigers, and officials dogs/ they go about and rouse the people resting and sleeping [with a view to harass them]’. But don’t get it wrong; Guru Nanak’s verses, being multi-dimensional and highly layered, are open to diverse interpretations and thus make translator’s task arduous.

The original text of verses in Arabic-Persian script, erroneously called Shahmukhi, has been proof read well but still one can spot one typo error in the Ashlok number 39 where the word ‘jarh’ is printed as ‘charh’.

Let it be said at the end that no history of the Punjab or for that matter of the subcontinent, can be complete without taking into account what Baba Nanak, the son of a Punjabi Khattri, did and said as a Guru, poet, social chronicler, holy itinerant and patriot.

Muzaffar Ghaffaar’s ‘Baaba Nanak’ published by Ferozsons, Lahore, is a real tribute by a Muslim scholar to this immortal soul who did us proud. Don’t miss out on this book which has much to offer by way of wisdom. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2019