The Student Who Taught His Own Teacher

The Puratan Janamsakhi is one of the oldest surviving biographies of Guru Nanak. According to it, his birth took place in the village of Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, now called Nanakana Sahib. His father, Kalu, belonged to the Bedi sub-caste of Khatris. The Janamsakhi records the exact date. It was the third day of the bright fortnight of the month of Vaisakh, in Samvat 1526, matching 1469 in the Gregorian calendar.

The birth itself, in the way the janamsakhis describe it, was marked by signs that set the child apart from the very start. The midwife who delivered him was a Muslim woman named Daultan. She is said to have been startled by an infant who laughed with the fullness of a grown adult, rather than crying as newborns do. Star-readers looked over the child soon after. They are said to have predicted a future of unusual greatness for him, well beyond the ordinary path of a merchant family's son.