Nanak Panthis or The Sikh and Sikhism of the 17th Century (Translated uom Muhsin Fani's Dabisld,,-i-Mazahib,) EDITED WITH NOTES
By GANnA SINGH,
Khalsl1 College, Amritsar.
INTRODUCTION THE Dabistdn-i-Mazahib, from which I have culled and translated the account of the Nl1n11k-panthis, the followers of Guru Nanak, is generally acknowledged to he the work of Shaikh Mohsin
Fani. According to the Gul-i-Ra'nl1' and the Miftah-ut-Twarikh' he was a resident of Kashmir. but a closer examination of the Dabis¡ t4n reveals that he was born somewhere on the shores of Persia. and that he was compelted by inconstant fortune and force of circumstances to spend most of his life in "the land of the b elievers in transmigration." Unlike most of the Muhammadan writers, Mohsin Fani has not anywhere in the text alluded to his parentage and the date of his hirth.
Out of over fifty dates that are connected with the various events of his life, referred to here and there is his work, the earliest is 1028 Hiiri,' corresponding to 1618 AD. when his guardian Mobid HushilU' took him for blessing to B'alak Nath, a leading member of the order of the Jogis in the seventeenth century. The nexl earliest date is 1033 Hiiri (1623 AD.)' when he was still in his infancy and was carried. as he himself tells us, in the arms of Mobid Hushiar to a leading Gosain, Chatur Vapah
1. 2. 3. 4.
By Lachhm.i Narnyan ; also Shea and Troyer, Vol. I. p . vU . By MUMhl DanJoh ....ar. . Luck:now Edition, p . 182-83: She3 and Troyer, Vol. n, p. 137 . Lucknow EditiOD; Shea and Troyer, 145 .
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