Guru Angad Dev Ji

From Lehna to Angad

Born in 1504 at Matte di Sarai in central Punjab, Lehna was a devout worshipper of the goddess Durga until, in middle life, he heard Guru Nanak’s hymns and travelled to Kartarpur to meet their author. He stayed to become the community’s most self-effacing servant; the tradition’s stories of his testing all turn on obedience the Guru’s own sons would not give. Nanak renamed him Angad — “of my own limb” — and installed him as Guru in 1539.^1,2

The script of the scripture

From his seat at Khadur Sahib, Guru Angad gave the community durable institutions. He standardised the Gurmukhi script — “from the Guru’s mouth” — in which the scripture and the language of Sikh life have been written since, collected Guru Nanak’s hymns, and added his own shloks, which the Granth preserves. Schools for children, wrestling grounds for the young, and a langar famously kept by his wife Mata Khivi — remembered by name in the scripture itself — made Khadur a working model of Nanak’s Kartarpur.^1,2

Passing the light

Following his teacher’s precedent, he passed over his sons and installed the aged, tireless Amar Das as third Guru in 1552 — the succession by merit now a settled principle of the Guru period.^1,2