1 A SHORT HISTORY OF
2 THE SIKHS.
3 CHAPTER I.
4 bab! nInak.
5 1469 A.D. is the .first date in Sikh history. It
6 was in this year, half a century before Babar laid
7 the foundations of the Moghul empire, and thirty
8 years before Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut, that
9 Baba Nanak, the founder of the Sikh community,
10 was born. This event, so small in itself, yet fraught
11 with such far-reaching consequences, took place at
12 Talwandi, a little village near Lahore, on the banks
13 of the Ravi.
14 The Ravi is one of the five branches of the river
15 Indus, from which the Punjab (panj, five, and &b,
16 water), the home of the Sikh people, derives its
17 name. These five streams are the Jhelum, the
18 Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas, and the Sutlej. The
19 Punjab may be described as the triangular piece of
20 land lying between the last-named tributary and
21 the Indus proper, its base being a line drawn from
22 Simla to the Khaibar Pass.