Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar · Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sikhism

Tradition·Founded 1499 CE·est. ~26 million worldwide

Sikhism → 1 branch

Branch
G Figure of Sikhism

Guru Angad — the alphabet.

Lehna, renamed Angad, my own limb. He standardised the Gurmukhi script, gathered Nanak's hymns into a first collection, and ran a wrestling ground for the village boys alongside the kitchen his wife Khivi kept.

Names & titlesGuru Angad Dev — born Lehna
DomainSecond Guru — the script and the school
RelationsNanak passed over his own two sons to choose him; his wife Mata Khivi ran the langar
Depicted asSeated with a pen, or watching the boys of Khadur wrestle
StandingGurmukhi is his — the script that made a Punjabi scripture possible
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

Angad is the answer to a question people ask about the succession: Nanak had two adult sons and chose neither, picking a follower he renamed as his own limb. The Gurmukhi script is his most consequential act — it existed in rough forms already, but he fixed and propagated it, which meant Punjabi could carry scripture without Sanskrit or Persian mediation and without the Brahmin as gatekeeper. He set up schools, collected Nanak's hymns from those who had them, and commissioned the first janamsakhi. The wrestling ground at Khadur is remembered because it fits the theology: bodies are not the problem. His wife Mata Khivi ran the langar during his Guruship and is the one woman the scripture names, which tells you the institution was already central by the second generation.

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