|
The Janamsakhis ((パンジャーブ語:ਜਨਮਸਾਖੀ), ''(unicode:janamsākhī)''), literally ''birth stories'', are writings which profess to be biographies of the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak. These compositions have been written at various stages after the death of the first guru. The four Janamsakhis that have survived into the modern era include the ''Bala'', ''Miharban'', ''Adi'' and ''Puratan'' versions, and each hagiography contradicts the other.〔 These mythological texts are ahistorical and do not offer chronological, geographical or objective accuracy about Nanak's life.〔Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh (2011), Sikhism: An Introduction, IB Tauris, ISBN 978-1848853218, pages 1-8〕 The Sikh writers were competing with mythological stories (''mu'jizat'') about Muhammad created by Sufi Muslims in medieval Punjab region of South Asia.〔〔 The various editions of ''Janamsakhi'' include stories such as fortune tellers and astrologers predicting at his birth that he will start a new religion, cobra snake offering shade to Nanak while he was sleeping, Nanak visiting and performing miracles at Mecca - a holy place for Muslims, and at Mount Meru - a mythical place for Hindus, Buddhists and Jains.〔 At Mecca, the Janamsakhis claim Nanak slept with his feet towards the Kaba which Muslims objected to but when they tried to rotate his feet away the Kaba, all of Kaba and earth moved to remain in the direction of Nanak's feet. The texts also claim Nanak's body vanished after his death and left behind fragrant flowers, which Hindus and Muslims then divided, one to cremate and other to bury.〔〔Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh (1992), (The Myth of the Founder: The Janamsākhīs and Sikh Tradition ), History of Religions, Vol. 31, No. 4, Sikh Studies, pages 329-343〕 The earliest Janamsakhi was written towards the end of 16th-century, decades after Nanak's death.〔 ==Overview== All the Janamsakhis 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 claims 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''. 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 physical passing away, 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: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Janamsakhis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|