Mata Sulakhni Jiਮਾਤਾ ਸੁਲੱਖਣੀ ਜੀ

Mata Sulakhni Ji (about 1473-1545) was the wife of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of Sikhism, and the mother of his two sons, Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das. She was the daughter of Mool Chand, a revenue officer of Pakhoke village near Batala, and she married Nanak at Batala in 1487. She kept the Guru's home through his long years of travel, raising their sons and feeding all who came to hear him. She spent her last years at Kartarpur, the town Nanak founded on the Ravi, and died there in 1545.

Who was Mata Sulakhni Ji?

Mata Sulakhni Ji is one of the least written about people in Guru Nanak's family, and that is part of why her story matters. She was not the Guru's mother. That was Mata Tripta Ji, her mother-in-law, who raised Nanak at Talwandi. Sulakhni was the wife who shared Nanak's adult life, from a teenage marriage in Batala to the farming town of Kartarpur where they both ended their days. The sources remember her as a devoted wife and mother who supported her husband's mission and took part in it as a devotee herself, singing hymns and feeding all who came to their door.

Even her name comes in more than one form. The Bala Janamsakhi calls her Sulakhni, the Meharban Wali Janamsakhi calls her Ghummi, which scholars think may be a form of Choni, her clan name. Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha wrote in his Mahan Kosh that the name Sulakhni was given only to girls of rare qualities.

Her early life in Pakhoke

Sulakhni was born in Pakhoke, also written Pakkhoke Randhave, a village in what is today the Gurdaspur district of Punjab. Her father was Mool Chand, sometimes called Mul Chand Chona, a Chona Khatri who held a minor revenue office, the work of a patwari, in his village. Her mother was Chando Rani. The year of her birth was never recorded. On the basis of her year of marriage it is usually given as about 1473, which would have made her around fourteen when she married.

The wedding at Batala

The marriage was arranged by Jai Ram, the husband of Nanak's elder sister Nanaki. Jai Ram worked for the governor of Sultanpur Lodhi and visited Pakhoke on official business, where he came to know Mool Chand and proposed the match. The engagement is dated to Visakh 5, 1542 in the Bikrami calendar, and the wedding to Harh 24, 1544, which falls in 1487. The exact day varies: the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism gives 24 September 1487, SikhiWiki gives 8 July 1487, and the wedding is still celebrated at Batala every year in late August.

The place is also given differently. Most sources, including the Meharban Janamsakhi, say Batala, where the shrines marking the wedding stand today. The Bhai Bala Janamsakhi says Sultanpur, and the Nanak Bans Prakash says Talwandi. Batala remains the most widely accepted place, and this entry follows it.

The wedding is remembered for what Nanak refused to do. He would not have the Brahmin priests fix an auspicious hour by horoscope, saying any time was a good time for a wedding, and he took four rounds around the sacred fire instead of the prescribed seven. Mool Chand wanted a traditional ceremony and pressed the priests to debate the point. The story says that while the debate went on, Nanak sat beside a leaning mud wall, a kandh, weakened by the rains. Sulakhni sent a messenger to warn him it might fall, and Nanak answered that the wall would not fall for centuries. Part of that wall is still preserved inside Gurdwara Kandh Sahib at Batala, and Gurdwara Dera Sahib marks the house of Mool Chand where the wedding party was received.

Life at Sultanpur Lodhi: a mother of two sons

After the wedding, Nanak left for Sultanpur Lodhi, where Jai Ram had found him work in the storehouse of the local ruler, Daulat Khan Lodi. Sulakhni stayed at Talwandi until about 1488, when Nanak sent for her, and the couple set up their own home at Sultanpur, where they lived for more than a decade, an ordinary trading-class household, while Nanak worked and his following quietly grew.

Two sons were born to them at Sultanpur. The elder, Sri Chand, was born in 1494, though some sources give 1491. The younger, Lakhmi Das, also called Lakhmi Chand, was born in 1497, though some sources give 1496. Udasi lore says that their mother had a vision of the god Shiva while giving birth to Sri Chand, and the boy did grow up deeply drawn to the spiritual life. He would later found the Udasi tradition, a path of renunciation inspired by his father's teaching. Lakhmi Das took the opposite road, choosing trade and family life. For a time, Bebe Nanaki took the young Sri Chand into her own care, as was the custom of the day.

The long years of travel

Sulakhni's life changed in about 1499, when Nanak went to bathe in the river Bein at Sultanpur and did not come back for three days. She was frightened, and she told her sister-in-law Nanaki that her husband was missing. When Nanak returned, he said the words that began his public mission: there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim. He gave up his post, gave away his belongings to the poor, and set out on the long journeys, the udasis, that would carry his teaching across India and beyond.

Sulakhni did not travel with him. Her sons were only five and six when he first left, and travelling then was hard and dangerous. She stayed at home, raised the boys, and kept the small congregation together, singing hymns, feeding all who came, and carrying on the langar, the free kitchen, with Baba Budha at her side. When Nanaki and Jai Ram died within days of each other, she took her elder son back into her care. She had once asked to go with Nanak, the stories say, but she stayed to raise their sons. In his absence she was, in effect, the guardian of the young Panth her husband had begun.

Kartarpur: langar, farming and a hard question

In about 1521, after years of travel, Nanak settled on the banks of the Ravi and founded Kartarpur, a town of farming and prayer where his followers could live and work together. Sulakhni moved there with him, cooking, serving in the langar, working the farmland beside her husband, and seeing that visitors had food and a place to rest. Nanak's aged parents came to live with them there, and the household became the model of the life Nanak taught: honest work, shared food, and remembrance of God.

One decision at Kartarpur tested her more than any other. When the time came to name his successor, Nanak passed over both of their sons and chose his devoted disciple Bhai Lehna, who became Guru Angad Dev Ji. Sulakhni was displeased, as any mother might be. She went to the Guru with her two sons and asked what would become of them if Lehna were to lead the Panth. Nanak answered simply that she should put her trust in God. Sri Chand's path was renunciation, not leadership of a household faith, and Lakhmi Das had no interest in the Guruship. The choice stood, and the line of Gurus passed to Lehna.

Guru Nanak Dev Ji died at Kartarpur on 22 September 1539. Sulakhni survived him by some years and spent the rest of her life in the town they had built together, still serving the sangat as she always had. She died at Kartarpur in 1545.

How is Mata Sulakhni Ji remembered today?

No gurdwara bears her name alone, but her wedding is still marked at Batala, where Gurdwara Kandh Sahib and Gurdwara Dera Sahib draw visitors through the year and the marriage anniversary is celebrated each August. Her story is told in every Janamsakhi, whose paintings show her beside her husband at the wedding fire and later with her two sons.

The Punjabi poet Amrita Pritam wrote a poem about her, giving voice to a woman who raised two sons alone while her husband walked the world with his message. Sulakhni's life is remembered as proof of the householder ideal at the heart of Nanak's teaching: the spiritual life lived inside marriage and family, through honest work and shared food, not by leaving the world behind.