Birth Place of Garu Nanak

Nankana Sahib is a small Town, a sub divisional head quarter of the district Shekhupura of west Punjab in Pakistan, Before partition of the Indian sub continent in 1947 it formed a part of India. Situated about hundred kilometres to the west of Lahore, it lies in most fertile verdant plains of the Punjab.

On the 3rd of the moon-lit half of April 1469 Tripta. Kalu's wife gave birth to a male child, who was named Nanak after his elder sister Nanki. She was so named as she had been born at the house of her Nana (grandfather on mother's side) in village Dera Chahal in Lahore district. Rai Bhoe Ki Talwandi, his birth town, came to be known as Nanak-ayan (home of Nanak or Nankana after him and since then it has been called Nankana Sahib (Sahib being just Persian epithet of respect).

Rai Bular was the first to observe some sort of divineness about Nanak. That flared up all around when at the age of seven he astonished his teacher Pandit Gopal with his eloquence in explaining deeper truths about man and God and composed an aonstic on Punjabi alphabet giving divinely inspired interpretation to each letter. He always spoke and sang of one God and his love for Him and being rich in music and melody he cast irresistible spell on all those who listened to him.

Nankana Sahib is a town of Gurdwaras (Sikh temples), the most important of these being the 'Nanak's Ayan' called Janam Asthan or Birth place of Nanak. He would usually lead his cows to the nearby pasture grounds where they would continue grazing. while Nanak sat under some shady trees absorbed in meditation One day the cattle strayed into a neighbouring field and feasted on the luxuriant crop. Enraged beyond measure at his loss, the owner of the farm complained to Rai Bular chief of the place, who sent for Kalu and deputed a man to appraise the loss, but the appraiser 's report on the loss was almost negligible.

On another day Nanak let loose his cattle for grazing in the meadow and himself fell sleep under a shady Mal tree. With the change of shade in the afternoon the hot sun rays fell on Nanak's face. A cobra appeared on the scene and shaded Nanak's face with its hood, By chance Rai Bular was passing that way, when he saw this. On his arrival there, the cobra disappeared but to his great surprise he found the boy alive. The Mal tree under which Nanak had slept stands to this day.

The Sikhs, though small in number, have required almost an inter national status and the formation of the Nankana Sahib Foundation comprising of the Sikh nationals of England,U.S.A. Canada, Iran, Japan and East Asiatic and European countries with the object of securing through negotiations religious rights of theirs to visit manage and run the Sikh temples in Pakistan bears to the intensity of feeling with which they look at the problem.

The impact of Guru Nanak's universal teachings on humanity in general, the roll of service that his followers have played in the world history more particularly in that of India, the significance of the Passive resistance displayed by them at Nankana Sahib and several other place in India and their status as a minority community in the world call for an international consideration and grant of purely religious rights to them.