Babarvani

Four hymns of Guru Nanak Dev Ji in the Guru Granth Sahib Ji describe Babur's invasion and the sack of Saidpur, now Eminabad in Gujranwala district. They are called the Babarvani.

The tradition holds that the Guru was present and was taken prisoner and put to work at a grinding mill.

The hymns do not celebrate anyone. They describe the killing, the burning, the women whose hair was cut and who had been living in comfort, and they ask God directly how this was permitted. Eti maar payi kurlane tain ki dard na aya, so much slaughter, so much crying out, did you feel no pain.

That is a religious text addressing God with an accusation about a specific historical atrocity, written by a witness, and it is in daily liturgical use.

There is very little else like it in the scriptures of any religion, and it is the earliest datable historical statement in Punjabi about an event in Punjab.

Four hymns are usually grouped under the name and they describe the sack of Saidpur: the killing, the women taken, the burnt houses, the ruin of a town.

They are the earliest eyewitness account in any Indian language of the Mughal invasions, written by somebody who was in the town while it happened.

They do not simply take a side. Babur is called the messenger of death, and the hymns also ask what the rulers had been doing that this came upon them, which is a harder thing to write than a lament.

What we don't know

  • Whether Guru Nanak Dev Ji was personally at Saidpur. The tradition says so and the hymns do not state it.

Where to check this

  1. Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Asa and Tilang, the Babarvani hymns. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji (searchable text and translations) ↗

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How this page was written. The text is compiled from the standard published histories and reference works, not from a document held in hand. Nobody from this project has visited the place or read the archive. The list above is where a reader can go to check it, not a record of what was consulted line by line. Dates and figures are the received account. If you hold something better, write in and it will be corrected.

This is one of 130 accounts in The Ten, the chapter of this site covering the Gurus, from 1469 to 1708.