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Janamsakhis

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Janamsakhis, literally Birth Stories, are writings which profess to be biograhies of the first Guru, Guru Nanak Dev ji. These compositions have been written at various stages after the demise of the first Guru. They all 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 manipulated in the early Christian Church:

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Singh, Khushwant Macauliffe, M.A

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A History of the Sikhs: 1469-1839 Vol.1 The Sikh Religion: Its Gurus Sacred Writings and Authors

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ISBN 0195673085 ISBN 8175361328

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Low Price Publications Oxford University Press

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1963 1909

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Janamsakhis, literally Birth Stories, are writings which profess to be biograhies of the first Guru, Guru Nanak Dev ji. These compositions have been written at various stages after the demise of the first Guru. They all 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 manipulated in the 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. It may be incidentally mentioned that it was the Gospel according to Barnabas which Muhammad used in the composition of the Quran." 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. * A video in Punjabi from Sikh Gurbani Program Raghbir Singh Samagh with Gurcharan Singh Brar discussion of the Bhai Bala Janaamsakhi 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 demise, 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: