1 L2 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [May, 



that, the land was his, and not Kalu Kara's at all ; ultimately, the 

 dispute was brought before the masnad of Shah Jehan, who referred 

 the litigants to a celebrated Pir at Shergurh. When called on by him 

 for their proofs, the Musulman said that if they were to dig on the site 

 where the tank now is, if the land were his, an ox yoke would be 

 found, while the Hindu affirmed that if his claim were good, the 

 sandals, deer skin, drinking gourd, and fireplace which he had used 

 in a previous life, would be discovered. On digging, of course the 

 Musulman's token was nowhere ; and on coming on the relics of Ham 

 Thamman s prior existence, he was acknowledged with plaudits to be 

 the indisputable lord of the soil. When he subsequently wished to 

 improve his new acquisition, the Sheshnag came, and at the sage's 

 bidding, where the serpent moved, the tank formed itself. 



" My informants, after this engineering exploit, had nothing further 

 to tell of Ram Thamman, except that when one Achalnath, who w r as 

 partly a disciple of the guru, and partly remained a jogee as before, 

 asked for quarters from his master, the latter threw a flower into the 

 tank, and told him to dwell there ; the disciple having faith of the 

 strongest, obeyed, and was rewarded by the tiny islet arising, of which 

 mention has already been made. On the Baba's death, his disciples 

 built their monastic dwellings round the holy lake. 



" As an illustration of the tendency of Hindu sects in the Punjab to 

 claim affinity with the great teacher of the land, I may add that the 

 Faqirs asserted that Ram Thamman and Baba Nanak's mothers were 

 own sisters, notwithstanding that their own account that the guru's 

 dispute with Kalu Kara took place in Shah Jehan's reign, shews that 

 their founder belongs to the seventeenth, rather than the end of the 

 fifteenth, century. 



" The whole narrative, however, is not without its value, as pointing 

 out the strong and weak points in indigenous tradition in this country ; 

 for, while they had nothing but wild myths to relate about the incidents 

 in their founder's life, or of the construction of one of the finest works 

 of its kind in the country, they were able to furnish lists of the suc- 

 cessive heads of their subdivisions, linking the present incumbents 

 with the immediate disciples of the guru, and to speak with a de- 

 tail, which looks like truth, of the various villages whence their 

 ancestors, or those whom they regard as standing in loco parenium 

 had come.'' 



