Guru Nanak Jayanti

About

What the day is, and when it falls Guru Nanak Jayanti marks the birth of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the first of the ten Gurus and the founder of Sikhi. Most Sikhs call it Gurpurab, or Guru Nanak's Prakash Purab, the festival of his light. Guru Nanak Jayanti is the name it goes by across most of India and it is what nearly everyone types into a search box. Both are used, and neither is wrong. It follows Kartik Purnima, the full moon of the month of Kartik, so the date moves with the lunar calendar rather than sitting on a fixed day. In practice it lands in November almost every year, and within the last few years alone it has swung from the first week of the month to the last, which is why so many people look the date up each autumn rather than remembering it. It is a gazetted public holiday across India. How the day is kept An Akhand Path, the unbroken reading of the Guru Granth Sahib from beginning to end, is started about two days ahead and finishes on the morning itself. A Nagar Kirtan goes through the streets the day before, led by the Panj Pyare with the Guru Granth Sahib carried on a decorated float and shabads sung along the route. Prabhat Pheris, early morning processions, run in the days leading up. On the day the Gurdwara begins at Amrit Vela, around three in the morning, with Asa di Var, and langar runs through it: the free meal served to anyone who comes, everyone seated together on the floor, which is Guru Nanak's argument about equality turned into a habit rather than a sermon. Almost none of that involves an object, and that is worth knowing while you are choosing, because it sets what a gift is for here. Nothing is placed before an image and nothing is offered. A gift at Gurpurab is a gift to a person, the way a gift at anyone's birthday is, and it is judged by whether they want it rather than by whether it is correct for a rite. Why nothing here is an idol Sikhi keeps no idols. The Guru Granth Sahib is the living Guru, and the faith is explicit that Go