The True Bargain

The boy came home in the evening with an empty purse and a calm face.

His father was waiting for him. That morning he had given his son twenty rupees, a great deal of money, and sent him off to trade. Now he wanted to know what profit the boy had made.

The boy's name was Nanak. Many years later, people would call him Guru Nanak, the first Guru of the Sikhs. But on this evening he was simply a son who had to explain himself to his father.

A father's worry

This story comes from the Janamsakhis, the old accounts of Guru Nanak's life that Sikhs have read and told for centuries. They were written down long after his lifetime, and the details differ from one version to another. This is how the story is usually told.

Nanak grew up in the village of Talwandi, in Punjab, in the late 1400s. Today the town is called Nankana Sahib, and it lies in Pakistan. His father, Mehta Kalu, was the village accountant, a practical man who kept careful records and expected his son to make his way in the world.

But Nanak was not like other boys. He loved to sit quietly and think. He spent his time with wandering holy men and asked them questions about God. He showed little interest in fields, cattle or shops. His father worried. How would such a boy ever earn a living?

So one day Mehta Kalu decided to test him. He handed Nanak twenty rupees. Go to the market town, he told him, and buy goods that you can bring back and sell. Make a good bargain, a true bargain, one that brings a real profit.

In many tellings, a companion named Bala went with him.

The holy men under the trees

The two young men set out along the road. On the way, near a place called Chuharkana, they passed through a stretch of woodland. Under the trees sat a group of sadhus, holy men who had given up their homes and possessions.

Nanak stopped to speak with them. He soon saw that they had not eaten for days. They were thin and weak. Some had hardly any clothes to protect them from the weather.

He looked at them for a long time. Then he looked at the money in his hand.

Bala reminded him of his father's instructions. The money was for trade, not for gifts. Mehta Kalu would be angry.

Nanak thought about what his father had said. He had been asked to make a true bargain, one that brought real profit. What, he asked, could be a truer bargain than feeding people who were hungry? Money spent in the market would bring back a little more money. Money spent on the hungry would bring back something that could not be counted.

The meal

So Nanak went to the market. But instead of goods to sell, he bought flour, lentils, ghee, salt and other food. He carried it back to the trees, and a meal was cooked and served to the holy men until every one of them had eaten.

The sadhus blessed him. Nanak sat among them, content. The twenty rupees were gone.

Then he and Bala began the walk home. As they came near Talwandi, the story says, Nanak grew uneasy. He did not regret what he had done. But he knew his father would not understand. In some versions, he sat under a tree outside the village for a long while before he went in.

The empty purse

When Mehta Kalu heard what had happened, he was furious. Twenty rupees, given away to strangers! In several tellings, he struck his son in his anger.

Nanak did not argue or run away. He said quietly that he had done what he was asked. He had made a true bargain.

Others took the boy's side. In some versions it is his elder sister, Nanaki, who loved him dearly and was the first to understand him. In others it is Rai Bular, the landlord of Talwandi, who had already seen something unusual in the boy, and who told Mehta Kalu not to be harsh with him.

A meal that never ended

Mehta Kalu never quite understood his son. But the bargain Nanak made that day did not end that day.

Guru Nanak grew up to teach that God is one, that all people are equal, and that a good life means honest work, remembering God, and sharing what you have with others. From his teaching grew the Sikh custom of langar, the free community kitchen, where anyone at all, of any faith or background, can sit down side by side and eat.

Today, in gurdwaras around the world, langar feeds a great many people every single day. At the place near Chuharkana where the holy men are said to have been fed, there stands a gurdwara called Sacha Sauda, the True Bargain.

About this story

The story of the Sacha Sauda comes from the Janamsakhis, traditional accounts of Guru Nanak's life written down from the 16th and 17th centuries onwards. The versions differ in their details, such as Nanak's age at the time and who stood up for him. Max Arthur Macauliffe retold many of these accounts in English in The Sikh Religion (1909). This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.