Person · musician & companion
Bhai Mardana
Also known as Mardana, Bhai Mardana ji, Mardana the Mirasi
A Muslim Mirāsī musician of Talwandi who accompanied Guru Nanak on the udāsis for most of thirty years, playing the rabāb while Nanak sang. Sikh kīrtan begins with the two of them, and three couplets attributed to Mardana are in the Guru Granth Sāhib.
- Date
- c. 1459 – 1534
- Function
- Arts & performance
- Tradition
- Janamsakhis; Guru Granth Sahib
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
The founding image of Sikh practice is a Hindu-born teacher and a Muslim musician travelling together for three decades, and the tradition has never tried to tidy it. His descendants, the rabābīs, sang at the Harmandir until 1947.
Connections (2)
- Court associationGuru Nanak
Mardana, a Muslim Mirāsī musician of Talwandi, travelled with Nanak for most of thirty years, playing the rabāb while Nanak sang. Sikh kīrtan begins with the two of them, and the tradition has never tidied away the fact that its founding practice was a partnership across religions. Three couplets attributed to Mardana are in the Guru Granth Sāhib, and his descendants, the rabābīs, sang at the Harmandir until 1947.
- Life routePanjā Sāhib, Hasan Abdal
Panjā Sāhib's story turns on Mardana: he was refused water by the Sufi Walī Kandhārī on the hill, Nanak told him to lift a stone and a spring came, and the rock the Sufi rolled down in anger is said to have stopped against Nanak's palm. The handprint is what the gurdwara is built around.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Mardana”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.
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