<div>Guru Nanak SAHIB or Guru Nanak DEV
by HARJINDER SINGH DILGEER
English version from vol. 1 of SIKH HISTORY
Guru Nanak's parents gave him the name NANAK only. Later, the Sikhs added Sahib as suffix, as a mark of respect; while others used Baba as a prefix. Most of the earlier writers, however, preferred using Baba Nanak; Sahib too was a later usage. In the second half of the nineteenth century some Brahmanic writers began using Dev as suffix with Guru Nanak's name; until that no book or manuscript or even any verse had ever used DEV for Guru Nanak Sahib. But, like the usage of 'SRI' in Sikhism, the term DEV was so much popularized by the Brahmin writers that a simple minded person considers Guru Nanak's name as incomplete if it is without the suffix DEV.
An argument was presented that DEV was added because all other Guru-names had two words (i.e. Amar Das, Ram Das, Hargobind, Har Rai, Harkrishan, Tegh Bahadur, Gobind Singh) hence DEV should be added to the names of the other three Gurus also i.e. with Nanak, Angad and Arjan); this is ridiculous logic that names of three Gurus should be changed (adding a new word is
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by HARJINDER SINGH DILGEER
English version from vol. 1 of SIKH HISTORY
Guru Nanak's parents gave him the name NANAK only. Later, the Sikhs added Sahib as suffix, as a mark of respect; while others used Baba as a prefix. Most of the earlier writers, however, preferred using Baba Nanak; Sahib too was a later usage. In the second half of the nineteenth century some Brahmanic writers began using Dev as suffix with Guru Nanak's name; until that no book or manuscript or even any verse had ever used DEV for Guru Nanak Sahib. But, like the usage of 'SRI' in Sikhism, the term DEV was so much popularized by the Brahmin writers that a simple minded person considers Guru Nanak's name as incomplete if it is without the suffix DEV.
An argument was presented that DEV was added because all other Guru-names had two words (i.e. Amar Das, Ram Das, Hargobind, Har Rai, Harkrishan, Tegh Bahadur, Gobind Singh) hence DEV should be added to the names of the other three Gurus also i.e. with Nanak, Angad and Arjan); this is ridiculous logic that names of three Gurus should be changed (adding a new word is
More...