The Hardwar story is Nanak's method in miniature: not argument, but a demonstration that makes the argument unnecessary. Pilgrims at the Ganges were throwing water eastward toward the rising sun as an offering to dead ancestors; Nanak waded in and began throwing water west. Asked what he was doing, he said he was watering his fields back in Punjab, and when told water cannot travel that far, asked how theirs was reaching the next world. The story is used against shraadh rites specifically, and the Rehat Maryada duly forbids Sikhs from performing them. It is also the model for how Sikh preaching handles ritual it considers empty — by making the person perform the absurdity themselves rather than by condemning them, which is a rhetorical style Punjabi audiences still expect from a good katha.