Ii0|..-.., SKETCH OF THE SIKHS'. 



distributed his money among the hungry Fakirs; who, after they had 

 gained strength from the refreshment which it obtained them, entered 

 Into a long discourse with him on the unity of God, with which he was 

 much delighted : he returned next day to his father, who demanded what 

 profit he had made? " I have fed the poor/' said Na'nac, *' and have 

 <« obtained that gain for you which will endure for ever." As the father 

 happened to have little value for the species of wealth which the son had 

 acquired, he was enraged at having his money so fruitlessly wasted, 

 abused poor Na'nac, and even struck him; nor could the mild repre- 

 sentations of Na'naci save her brother from the violence of parental 

 resentment. Fortune, however, according to the Sikh narrators of this 

 anecdote of their teacher's early life, had raised him a powerful pro- 

 te6lorj who not only rescued him from punishment, but established his 

 fame and respectability, upon grounds that at once put him above all fear 

 ©f future bad usage from his low-minded and sordid father. When Na'- 

 KAc was Quite a youth, and employed to tend cattle in the fields, he hap- 

 pened to repose himself one day under the shade of a tree ; and, as the 

 sun declined towards the west, its rays fell on his face, when a large 

 black snake,* advancing to the spot where he lay, raised itself from the 

 ground, and interposed its spread hood between Na'nac and the sun's 

 rays. Ra'y Bolar,-^^ the ruler of the distri6l, was passing the road, near 

 the place v/here Na'nac slept, and marked, in silence, though not without 

 refledlion, this unequivocal sign of his future greatness. This chief over- 



* The veneration, which the Hindus have for the snake, is well known ; and this tradition, 

 like many others, proves the attachment of the Sikh writers to that raytholog;y, the errors of 

 which they pretend to have wholly abandoned. 



+ J?4y 5 ^*i*''6 inferior to thatgf a i24/a/«5 generally applied to the //mc?« chief of a villagCj 

 or small district. 



