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The Second Udasi: Guru Nanak's Journeys South — Deccan, Tamil Nadu, and Sri Lanka

Professor: Kavi Santokh Singh Source: SikhLibrary

This course traces Guru Nanak's second great journey southward through the Deccan plateau, Tamil Nadu, Rameshwaram, and across to Sri Lanka (Lanka), following janamsakhi accounts and Kavi Santokh Singh's Sri Nanak Prakash. Students examine Guru Nanak's encounters with Nath yogis, Shaivite and Vaishnava communities, and diverse regional spiritual traditions. The course critically evaluates how these southern journeys expanded the geographic and theological scope of early Sikhism.

Begin course12 lessons · 10-question test · 80% to pass
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Prerequisite recommended. This is a 200-level course. To get the most out of it, we recommend completing the 100-level courses first.

What you'll learn

  • Identify the major geographic stages of the Second Udasi through the Deccan and peninsular India
  • Analyze Guru Nanak's theological engagements with Shaivite and Vaishnava traditions in South India
  • Compare different janamsakhi accounts of the Sri Lanka encounter and assess their historicity
  • Explain how the Second Udasi extended Guru Nanak's social and spiritual mission beyond the Punjab-Gangetic sphere
  • Evaluate the Nath yogi tradition as a theological interlocutor for Guru Nanak during the southern journey
  • Assess the significance of the Second Udasi for the development of Sikh universalism

Key terms — ਸ਼ਬਦਾਵਲੀ

ਦੱਖਣ

The south; the direction of Guru Nanak's Second Udasi

ਨਾਥ

Nath; a tradition of yogi adepts whom Guru Nanak engaged in debate throughout his journeys

ਰਾਮੇਸ਼ਵਰਮ

Rameshwaram; the southernmost major Hindu pilgrimage site, at the tip of Tamil Nadu

ਲੰਕਾ

Lanka; Sri Lanka; the island described in janamsakhi accounts of the Second Udasi's southern extreme

ਸ਼ਿਵਨਾਥ

Shiv Nath; a figure encountered in janamsakhi accounts of the Lanka visit

ਵੈਸ਼ਨਵ

Vaishnava; a devotee of Vishnu; one of the major devotional traditions Guru Nanak encountered in the south

ਬਿਹਾਗੜਾ

Bihagra; a raag (musical mode) associated with compositions from the Second Udasi period

ਸਿਧ

Siddh; an accomplished yogi; plural Siddhs or Sidhas — key theological interlocutors of Guru Nanak

ਨਾਨਦੇੜ

Nanded; a major stop in the Deccan during the Second Udasi, later significant in Sikh history for Guru Gobind Singh

ਬਿਦਰ

Bidar; a city in the Deccan plateau visited during the Second Udasi

Lessons

1. Setting Out South: Routes and Motivations of the Second Udasi

Full course contents
  1. Setting Out South: Routes and Motivations of the Second Udasi
  2. Through the Deccan: Nanded and Bidar
  3. The Nath Yogi Tradition: A Theological Interlocutor
  4. Shri Rangam and the Vaishnava South
  5. Rameshwaram: The Southern Pilgrimage Extreme
  6. Crossing to Lanka: The Janamsakhi Accounts
  7. The Shiv Nath Encounter in Lanka
  8. Shaivite Traditions and Guru Nanak's Response
  9. Compositions Associated with the Second Udasi
  10. Social Encounters in the South: Caste and Community
  11. The Return Journey: Communities Founded
  12. Legacy of the Second Udasi

Why Go South?

The Second Udasi's southward direction carried Guru Nanak into a religious landscape quite different from the Punjab and Gangetic plain of the First Udasi. The Deccan and peninsular India were home to major Shaivite and Vaishnava traditions, powerful Nath yogi networks, and ancient pilgrimage centers that drew visitors from across the subcontinent. According to the Janamsakhis, Guru Nanak's journeys were divinely directed — he went where the Creator sent him. The practical dimension of the choice reflects the First Udasi's pattern: seek out the centers of existing religious authority and engage them directly (McLeod 1968, 120).

Dating the Second Udasi

The traditional dates of the Second Udasi are approximately 1506 to 1513, placing it after the First Udasi and before the northward Third Udasi. As with the First Udasi, scholars note that these dates cannot be confirmed with certainty from internal janamsakhi evidence. The janamsakhi traditions do not provide a consistent chronological framework, and the four-udasi schema itself may represent a later organizing principle imposed on Guru Nanak's actual travel pattern, which likely involved multiple journeys over decades (Grewal 1969, 130). Students should hold these traditional dates as approximate orientations rather than confirmed historical anchors.

The Religious Landscape of the Deccan and South India

By the early sixteenth century, the Deccan plateau was home to the Bahmani Sultanate's successor states and a complex religious landscape in which Sufi traditions, Hindu devotional movements, and Nath yogi networks all coexisted and competed. Further south, Tamil Nadu and the Kaveri delta region were centers of Vaishnava devotionalism centered on the great temples at Shri Rangam and elsewhere. Rameshwaram at the southern tip of the peninsula was the final major pilgrimage site before the sea crossing to Lanka. Guru Nanak's movement through this landscape followed the logic of the First Udasi: engage every significant religious tradition, challenge mechanical practice, affirm the universal reach of the ਨਾਮ.

2. Through the Deccan: Nanded and Bidar

Nanded: A Significant Deccan Stop

According to janamsakhi tradition, Guru Nanak passed through ਨਾਨਦੇੜ (Nanded) on the Godavari river during the Second Udasi. This city, situated in the Deccan, would later become significant in Sikh history as the site where Guru Gobind Singh completed the lineage of the human Guruship and passed it to the Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Nanak's earlier passage through the same region creates a meaningful historical continuity in the tradition. The Deccan in the early sixteenth century was a region of political flux, with the Bahmani Sultanate fragmenting into successor kingdoms, and this context of political uncertainty shaped the social landscape Guru Nanak traversed (Kohli 1969, 115).

Bidar: The Sakhi of the Well

The janamsakhi traditions record a famous encounter at ਬਿਦਰ (Bidar), a major Deccan city that had been the capital of the Bahmani Sultanate. Here, according to several janamsakhi accounts, Guru Nanak was asked for water from a well that had run dry, and caused water to rise — a miracle account that follows the structural pattern familiar from other udasi episodes. The theological significance of the episode lies not in the miracle itself but in the teaching it encodes: the waters of divine grace are available to all who sincerely seek them, regardless of the state of the external world. The encounter at Bidar also represents Guru Nanak's engagement with the Muslim communities of the Deccan, as Bidar was a major center of Deccan Sultanate culture (Grewal 1969, 135).

The Deccan as a Zone of Encounter

The Deccan route of the Second Udasi placed Guru Nanak in a zone where Hindu, Muslim, and Nath yogi traditions intersected. The Deccani Sufis, particularly the Chishti and Qadiri orders, had deep roots in the region, and their presence alongside Hindu devotional movements created a complex interfaith environment. Guru Nanak's encounters in this zone, as preserved in the Janamsakhis, consistently model the same approach: enter the existing religious discourse, challenge its limitations, and point toward the universal divine that transcends sectarian form. The Second Udasi's Deccan passage represents an important chapter in the broader story of Guru Nanak's engagement with Islamic spirituality — a theme that would culminate in the Fourth Udasi's journey to Mecca and Baghdad.

3. The Nath Yogi Tradition: A Theological Interlocutor

Who Were the Nath Yogis?

The ਨਾਥ (Nath) yogi tradition was one of the most widespread ascetic movements in medieval South Asia, following teachers including Gorakhnath. Nath yogis practiced rigorous physical and mental disciplines including breath control (pranayama), physical postures, and esoteric bodily techniques aimed at achieving immortality and supernatural powers (siddhis). They often wore distinctive attire including large earrings and carried specific implements. The Nath tradition was present across the subcontinent, and Guru Nanak encountered Nath yogis at multiple points during all four udasis (McLeod 1968, 145).

Guru Nanak's Critique of Nath Practice

Guru Nanak's debates with Nath yogis are among the most theologically rich in the janamsakhi tradition. His critique is not that bodily discipline is wrong but that it is insufficient — and that the pursuit of supernatural powers as spiritual goals is a fundamental misdirection. The ਸਿਧ (accomplished yogis) had achieved remarkable bodily control, but in Guru Nanak's teaching, true liberation (mukti) comes not from physical technique but from the grace of the ਨਾਮ. This debate, which reaches its fullest expression in the Sidh Gosht (studied in a separate course), is anticipated in the encounters of the Second Udasi as Guru Nanak moves through regions where Nath networks were particularly strong.

The Nath Encounter in a Southern Context

In the Deccan and South India, the Nath tradition intersected with regional Shaivite communities and local ascetic networks. Guru Nanak's theological challenge to the Nath emphasis on bodily technique paralleled his challenge to Brahmanical ritual: in both cases, he argued that external practice without inner transformation — without the internalization of the ਨਾਮ — misses the essential point. Several compositions associated with the udasi period address the Nath yogis directly, using their own terminology to reframe their goals in terms of divine grace rather than personal achievement. This appropriation and reframing of existing religious vocabulary is a hallmark of Guru Nanak's compositional style throughout his journeys (Singh 1994, 45).

4. Shri Rangam and the Vaishnava South

Shri Rangam: Center of South Indian Vaishnavism

The Ranganathaswamy temple at Shri Rangam on the Kaveri river in Tamil Nadu was (and remains) one of the largest and most important Vaishnava temples in India. It was the seat of the Sri Vaishnava tradition founded by Ramanuja, whose theology of devotional surrender (prapatti) to a personal God had profoundly shaped South Indian religious life. According to janamsakhi tradition, Guru Nanak visited Shri Rangam during the Second Udasi, entering a religious environment deeply committed to elaborate temple ritual and the theology of divine grace mediated through the temple deity and the priestly tradition (Kohli 1969, 122).

Encounter with Devotional Theology

Guru Nanak's engagement with the Vaishnava South represents a more nuanced theological encounter than his challenges to ritual formalism at Hardwar and Gaya. The Sri Vaishnava tradition was itself a sophisticated devotional theology emphasizing divine grace and the surrender of the self to a personal God — themes that resonated in important ways with Guru Nanak's own teaching. The difference lay in the institutional mediation: the Sri Vaishnava tradition routed divine grace through the temple, the priest, and the sectarian lineage. Guru Nanak's teaching emphasized direct, unmediated access to the divine through ਨਾਮ and ਕੀਰਤਨ — available to anyone regardless of caste or temple affiliation (McLeod 1968, 125).

The Bhakti Context of the South

South India had its own deep Bhakti (devotional) traditions in the Tamil Alvars (Vaishnava poet-saints) and Nayanmars (Shaivite poet-saints), whose hymns had shaped regional religious culture for centuries. Guru Nanak's southward journey placed him in dialogue with these traditions, and scholars have noted thematic parallels between his compositions and the devotional poetry of the Tamil saints — particularly the emphasis on divine love, the guru's grace, and the inadequacy of ritual and caste as spiritual qualifications (Grewal 1969, 140). The Second Udasi thus connected Guru Nanak's emerging movement with the broader currents of pan-Indian devotional religion.

5. Rameshwaram: The Southern Pilgrimage Extreme

Rameshwaram: Land's End of Pilgrimage

ਰਾਮੇਸ਼ਵਰਮ (Rameshwaram) on the island of Pamban at the southern tip of Tamil Nadu was one of the four major Hindu pilgrimage centers (char dham). Its Ramanathaswamy temple, with its famous corridor of pillars, was dedicated to Shiva and associated with the legend of Rama. The site drew pilgrims from across the subcontinent to bathe in its sacred tank and worship at the lingam. According to janamsakhi tradition, Guru Nanak reached Rameshwaram during the Second Udasi — arriving at the farthest southern reach of the major Hindu pilgrimage circuit (Kohli 1969, 128).

The Pattern of the Southern Pilgrimage Sites

Guru Nanak's engagement at Rameshwaram follows the now-familiar pattern of the udasi encounters: entering a major pilgrimage center, engaging its practitioners, and pointing toward the inner dimension of the spiritual practice that the external pilgrimage represents. At Rameshwaram, as at Hardwar and Gaya, the Janamsakhis record exchanges between Guru Nanak and local religious authorities that challenge the automatic spiritual merit attributed to pilgrimage. The message is consistent across all four corners of the subcontinent: the ਨਾਮ is the true pilgrimage, the inner journey is the one that matters, and the divine is as near as the breath — no journey required (McLeod 1968, 128).

Sea Crossing to Lanka

Beyond Rameshwaram lay the Palk Strait and the island of Lanka (Sri Lanka). The Janamsakhis record that Guru Nanak crossed the strait during the Second Udasi, extending his journey beyond the subcontinent entirely. Scholars note that such a crossing was entirely feasible — the strait is narrow and had been regularly navigated by traders, pilgrims, and fishermen for millennia. The Lanka crossing would have been unusual for a wandering religious figure but not impossible, and local traditions in Sri Lanka do preserve memory of Guru Nanak's visit. Whatever the precise historical details, the tradition's claim that Guru Nanak reached Lanka signals the Second Udasi's ambition: to spread the message of ੴ to every accessible corner of the world.

6. Crossing to Lanka: The Janamsakhi Accounts

The Lanka Accounts Across Traditions

Multiple janamsakhi traditions include accounts of Guru Nanak's visit to ਲੰਕਾ (Lanka/Sri Lanka). The accounts share a core narrative: Guru Nanak crossed the sea from Rameshwaram and arrived in Lanka, where he encountered significant figures and left a lasting impact. The details vary across traditions — as is characteristic of the janamsakhi genre — with some accounts focusing on the encounter with a specific ruler or teacher, others emphasizing miraculous elements of the sea crossing itself. W. H. McLeod notes that these accounts have a more legendary quality than the Deccan episodes, reflecting the greater distance from the janamsakhi traditions' centers of composition (McLeod 1968, 130).

Lanka as Symbol and Geography

In the janamsakhi imagination, Lanka carries symbolic weight beyond its geographic identity. In the Sanskrit epics (Ramayana), Lanka was the island kingdom of Ravana, the demon king — a place beyond the ordinary world, accessible only through extraordinary effort. Guru Nanak's journey to Lanka participates in this symbolic geography: it represents the extension of the Guru's mission to the furthest possible reach, beyond the boundaries of the known pilgrimage world. This symbolic dimension does not make the journey fictional, but it does shape how the janamsakhi tradition narrates and preserves it. The crossing of the sea is itself a theological statement about the universality of the divine message (Grewal 1969, 142).

Sri Lanka and Local Traditions

Local Sikh communities in Sri Lanka maintain traditions connected to Guru Nanak's visit. The historic gurdwara at Trincomalee and other sites preserve memory of the Second Udasi's southern extreme. While independent historical documentation of Guru Nanak's presence in Lanka does not exist, the consistency of the janamsakhi tradition and the existence of local communities with sustained connections to the event suggest at minimum that the region was part of early Sikh consciousness. The Second Udasi's claim to have reached Lanka completes the southern arc of Guru Nanak's journeys, creating a symmetry with the Fourth Udasi's westward extension to Mecca and Baghdad.

7. The Shiv Nath Encounter in Lanka

Who Was Shiv Nath?

Several janamsakhi traditions record Guru Nanak's encounter in Lanka with a figure called Shiv Nath — a name that combines Shaivite (Shiva) and Nath yogi (Nath) elements, suggesting a practitioner situated at the intersection of these two traditions. According to the accounts, Shiv Nath was a figure of considerable spiritual reputation in Lanka, possibly a Nath yogi with Shaivite affiliations. The encounter follows the by-now familiar pattern: a respected religious figure meets Guru Nanak, exchanges teachings, and is transformed or enlightened by the encounter (Kohli 1969, 132). The name Shiv Nath may also function symbolically within the narrative, representing the synthesis of major Indian ascetic traditions that Guru Nanak encountered and transcended.

Theological Content of the Exchange

The janamsakhi accounts of the Shiv Nath encounter record an exchange about the nature of liberation, the role of bodily discipline in spiritual practice, and the path to the divine. Guru Nanak's position, consistent across all his encounters with yogi and ascetic figures, is that genuine liberation comes not from external technique but from the divine grace received through surrender to the ਨਾਮ. The ਸਿਧ and Nath traditions had developed elaborate theories of spiritual attainment through personal effort and mastery; Guru Nanak consistently redirected this framework toward divine grace as the primary category. This redirection is not a simple rejection of discipline but a reorientation: the effort serves the surrender, not the achievement (McLeod 1968, 145).

Lanka in the Broader Udasi Narrative

The Lanka encounter represents the Second Udasi's theological climax: Guru Nanak has traveled to the farthest southern reach of the known world and engaged its most significant spiritual traditions. The Shiv Nath story, whatever its precise historical basis, encodes the claim that the Sikh teaching of ਨਾਮ, ਦਾਨ (giving), and ਇਸ਼ਨਾਨ (cleanliness) exceeded the spiritual attainments of the most accomplished practitioners of existing traditions. This is a bold theological claim, presented not through abstract argument but through narrative encounter — the characteristically janamsakhi mode of theological communication.

8. Shaivite Traditions and Guru Nanak's Response

Shaivism in the South

South India was home to major Shaivite traditions, including the Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta school and various ascetic lineages associated with the worship of Shiva. These traditions developed sophisticated theologies, elaborate temple ritual systems, and vernacular devotional literatures in Tamil that paralleled (and in some cases predated) the North Indian Bhakti movement. The Tamil Nayanmars (Shaivite poet-saints) had composed devotional hymns to Shiva that combined profound theology with social critique — themes that resonated with Guru Nanak's own compositions (Lorenzen 1972, 45).

Guru Nanak's Engagement with Shaivite Vocabulary

Guru Nanak's compositions engage Shaivite theological vocabulary — Shiva, shakti, the cosmic dance, the divine as destroyer and creator — while reframing these concepts within his own theological framework of the One Creator beyond all attributes (ਨਿਰਗੁਣ) who is simultaneously present in all creation (ਸਰਗੁਣ). This dual framework allowed Guru Nanak to engage Shaivite practitioners on their own terms while pointing toward a theological vision that transcended the sectarian specificity of any particular tradition. The Second Udasi's southern journey provided Guru Nanak with direct exposure to the Shaivite world at its most developed, and this exposure is reflected in the compositions of the period (Singh 1994, 52).

Social Dimensions of Shaivite Practice

The Shaivite ascetic traditions of the south had complex relationships with caste and social hierarchy. Some Shaivite movements, like the Lingayat tradition of Karnataka (associated with Basavanna), were explicitly anti-caste in their social practice; others maintained hierarchical structures. Guru Nanak's engagement with these traditions in the Deccan and South India thus included a social dimension alongside the theological: his consistent advocacy for the dignity of all persons regardless of caste found both resonance and resistance in the different currents of southern Shaivism he encountered. This social engagement is a thread that runs through the Second Udasi as it ran through the First.

9. Compositions Associated with the Second Udasi

Bihagra and Bilaval Compositions

Several of Guru Nanak's compositions in the raags of Bihagra (ਬਿਹਾਗੜਾ) and Bilaval are associated by tradition with the Second Udasi period. Bihagra is described in classical music theory as a raag evoking longing and separation, themes that appear in compositions addressing the soul's distance from the divine and its longing for reunion. Bilaval, typically sung in the morning, carries themes of awakening and clarity. These associations between raag and emotional/spiritual state are integral to how Guru Nanak's compositions were organized in the Guru Granth Sahib — the raag is not merely a musical setting but a vehicle for conveying a specific spiritual-emotional register (Singh 1994, 58).

Themes of the Southern Journey in Gurbani

The theological themes Guru Nanak engaged during the Second Udasi — the inadequacy of bodily austerity, the primacy of divine grace over human effort, the universality of the ਨਾਮ across all traditions — appear throughout his bani. While scholars are cautious about assigning specific compositions to specific udasi episodes, the thematic content of sabads addressing yogi practice, temple worship, and pilgrimage mirrors the encounters documented in the janamsakhi tradition. The Second Udasi's southern journey deepened Guru Nanak's engagement with the full range of Indian religious practice and enriched the compositional output that would eventually be compiled in the Guru Granth Sahib.

The Universalist Theological Vision

The Second Udasi, viewed as a whole, represents the geographic and theological expansion of Guru Nanak's universalist vision. Having engaged the pilgrimage traditions of the north and east in the First Udasi, and the devotional and ascetic traditions of the south in the Second, Guru Nanak's teaching accumulated evidence from the full range of Indian religious life. His conclusion — that the ਨਾਮ alone provides liberation, that the divine is accessible to all without institutional mediation, and that caste and sectarian affiliation are spiritually irrelevant — was not an abstract proposition but a position earned through direct engagement with every major tradition on the subcontinent. The Second Udasi built the empirical foundation for this universal claim.

10. Social Encounters in the South: Caste and Community

Caste in South Indian Society

The caste system in South India in the early sixteenth century was, if anything, more elaborate than in the north, with complex hierarchies among Brahmin sub-groups, ritual specialists, trading communities, artisans, and untouchable communities who performed essential but socially stigmatized labor. The major temple traditions of the south maintained strict caste regulations for access to sacred spaces and ritual participation. Guru Nanak's consistent critique of caste as a spiritual qualification thus encountered a social system where ritual exclusion was institutionally embedded in the very architecture of the sacred (McLeod 1968, 135).

Encounters with Marginal Communities

The janamsakhi tradition records multiple encounters during the Second Udasi in which Guru Nanak chose to stay with, eat with, or teach low-caste or socially marginal communities — repeating and deepening the pattern established at Saidpur with Bhai Lalo in the First Udasi. These encounters encode the theological point that divine grace recognizes no caste: the ਨਾਮ is available to a carpenter as fully as to a Brahmin, to a fisherwoman as fully as to a temple priest. In the southern context, where Brahmanical authority was powerfully institutionalized, this was a particularly radical teaching. The ਸੰਗਤ that Guru Nanak gathered included persons from across the social spectrum — a living embodiment of his egalitarian theology (Grewal 1969, 148).

The Social Vision and the Spiritual Vision

It is important to recognize that for Guru Nanak, the social critique of caste was not separate from but integral to his spiritual teaching. The worship of the One Creator who permeates all creation entails the recognition of the divine light in every human being — and this recognition is incompatible with a social system that declares some human beings inherently impure or spiritually inferior. The Second Udasi's engagement with the southern caste system thus represents not a detour into social activism but the direct social consequence of Guru Nanak's theology of divine immanence. This integration of spiritual and social vision is among the most distinctive contributions of Guru Nanak's teaching to Indian religious history.

11. The Return Journey: Communities Founded

The Return as Mission

The janamsakhi tradition does not dwell as extensively on the return journey of the Second Udasi as on its outward arc, but the return was itself part of the mission. Guru Nanak did not simply retrace his steps; he continued to engage communities, compose and sing bani, and establish ਸੰਗਤ at new locations. The return journey through the Deccan and back toward Punjab consolidated the communities established on the outward journey and extended the network of Sikh followers across a large geographic arc (Kohli 1969, 140). By the time Guru Nanak returned to Punjab, the Second Udasi had planted seeds of the Sikh movement in the Deccan, South India, and beyond.

The Dharam-Sala Institutions

According to the janamsakhi tradition, Guru Nanak established simple meeting places (dharam-salas) at key stops on his journeys — spaces for ਕੀਰਤਨ, community gathering, and the sharing of food. These proto-gurdwaras were not elaborate institutions but simple structures where the emerging Sikh community could gather, sing, and hear the Guru's teaching. The dharam-salas established during the Second Udasi's return journey became the nuclei of Sikh communities in the south that persisted across generations. Harbans Singh argues that this institution-building dimension of the udasis is as important as the theological teaching — without these gathering places, the communities would not have had the social infrastructure to survive (Singh 1994, 60).

Preparing for the Third Udasi

The Second Udasi concluded with Guru Nanak's return to Punjab, where he reunited with his family and the growing community at Kartarpur (which he would eventually establish as his permanent settlement after the Fourth Udasi). Between udasis, Guru Nanak spent time in Punjab, continuing his teaching, composing bani, and consolidating the emerging Sikh community. The Third Udasi would then take him northward into the Himalayas, Kashmir, and toward the Himalayan peaks — a very different landscape from the southern journey — continuing the same universal mission with new interlocutors and new geographic contexts.

12. Legacy of the Second Udasi

Extending the Geographic Scope of Early Sikhism

The Second Udasi's most obvious legacy is geographic: it extended the Sikh movement's reach from the Punjab heartland to the far south of the subcontinent and beyond. The communities established during the Second Udasi along the Deccan route, in Tamil Nadu, and at Rameshwaram demonstrated that Guru Nanak's teaching was not a regional tradition but claimed universal applicability. This geographic reach became a founding claim of Sikh universalism — the teaching is for all people, all places, all traditions. The Second Udasi made this claim concrete and embodied, not merely theoretical (Grewal 1969, 150).

The Nath Yogi Dialogue: Setting Up the Third Udasi

The Second Udasi's extensive engagement with ਨਾਥ yogi communities in the Deccan and south prepared the ground for the Third Udasi's even more intensive dialogue with Nath Siddhs in the Himalayan region. The debates with Nath yogis that the Janamsakhis record from the Second Udasi laid out the theological framework that would reach its fullest expression in the Sidh Gosht (ਸਿਧ ਗੋਸ਼ਟਿ) — the great dialogue with the Siddhs that is one of Guru Nanak's most important compositions. The southern engagement with Nath practice thus flows directly into the northern debate, creating a thematic continuity across the udasis (McLeod 1968, 148).

The Universalism of the Second Udasi

Perhaps the most enduring theological legacy of the Second Udasi is the demonstration of Sikh universalism in practice. Guru Nanak engaged Shaivites, Vaishnavas, Nath yogis, Muslim Sufis, and communities across the caste spectrum during the southern journey — and in each case his engagement was respectful, substantive, and ultimately transformative. He did not treat other traditions as mere errors to be corrected but as genuine spiritual paths whose practitioners deserved serious engagement. This approach models an interfaith method that remains central to Sikh theological self-understanding: the divine is One, all sincere seekers are seeking the same reality, and the Guru's role is to point toward the deepest truth within each tradition and beyond all of them toward the ਨਾਮ that transcends every name.

References & further reading

  1. Santokh Singh, Kavi. Sri Nanak Prakash. Amritsar: Khalsa Samachar, 1843.
  2. McLeod, W. H. Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.
  3. Grewal, J. S. Guru Nanak in History. Chandigarh: Panjab University, 1969.
  4. Kohli, Surindar Singh. Janam Sakhi Traditions. Patiala: Punjabi University, 1969.
  5. Singh, Harbans. The Heritage of the Sikhs. New Delhi: Manohar, 1994.
  6. Lorenzen, David N. The Kapalikas and Kalamukhas: Two Lost Shaivite Sects. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
  7. McLeod, W. H., trans. and ed. The B40 Janam-Sakhi. Amritsar: Guru Nanak Dev University, 1980.

From the source text

(੧੭੬) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ਹੈ, ਤਿਸ ਬੀਰਜ ਤੇ ਹੀ ਸਰਬ ਕੀ ਉਤਪਤੀ ਹੈ। ਅਰ ਜਲ ਕੇ ਬਰਸਬੇ ਤੇ ਸਰਬ ਉਤਭੁਜ੧ ਕੀ ਉਤਪਤੀ ਹੈ। ਇਸੀ ਹੇਤ ਕਰਿ ਸਰਬ ਜਗਤ ਕੋ ਪਿਤਾ ਜਲ ਹੈ। ‘ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤਿ ਮਹਤੁ’=ਸਰਬ ਜਗਤ ਕੀ ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤੀ ਹੈ। ਕੈਸੀ ਧਰਤੀ ਹੈ? ‘ਮਹਤੁ’ ਕਹੀਏ ਬਡੀ ਹੈ।
(176) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Yes, from that seed, everything originates. And from the raining of water, all vegetation originates. For this reason, water is the father of the entire world. ‘Mata dharat mahat’ = the earth is the mother of the entire world. What kind of earth is it? It is called ‘mahat’, meaning great. A mother is one who supports and raises a child, nourishes them by producing milk from her own body, and bears the impurities of the child; in the same way, the earth relates to the entire world. First, it supports and holds everything upon itself; second, the earth produces grain and other sustenance within itself to feed everyone—the nourishment of all comes from the earth, and everything that originates from it consumes it.
— from Garab Ganjinee Teeka. Gurmukhi is the author's original text (OCR); the English is a machine translation. Both are short study excerpts — refer to the original for an authoritative reading.Read the full work on SikhLibrary ↗

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Course test

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1. The Second Udasi's traditional dates place it approximately in which period?
2. Which major southern pilgrimage site, associated with Vishnu worship on the Kaveri river, did Guru Nanak visit during the Second Udasi?
3. The Nath yogi tradition emphasized which approach to spiritual liberation that Guru Nanak challenged?
4. According to janamsakhi tradition, whom did Guru Nanak encounter in Lanka during the Second Udasi?
5. The city of Bidar, visited during the Second Udasi, was historically significant as:
6. Guru Nanak's engagement with Vaishnava traditions at Shri Rangam differed from his challenge at Hardwar in what key way?
7. What was the significance of the Lanka crossing in the symbolic geography of the janamsakhi tradition?
8. The Second Udasi's extensive engagement with Nath yogis contributed directly to which major composition of Guru Nanak?
9. For Guru Nanak, the social critique of caste was:
10. The simple meeting places Guru Nanak established at key stops on the Second Udasi were called:

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