Guru Angad Dev and the Gurmukhi script

Who: Guru Angad Dev, the second Guru, born Lahina on 31 March 1504 at Matte di Sarai (now Sarai Nanga), about 16 km from Muktsar. He became a disciple of Guru Nanak in his late twenties. Guru Nanak passed over his own sons and named him successor in June 1539, and Baba Buddha applied the tilak at the installation. His wife, Mata Khivi, ran the langar, and the bard Balvand praises her in the Guru Granth Sahib.

What: After Guru Nanak's death in September 1539 Guru Angad settled at Khadur, which became the centre of the Sikh faith until his own death there on 29 March 1552. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says the letters of Gurmukhi existed before him, since they descend from the Brahmi family of scripts, but that the origin of Gurmukhi as a script is attributed to Guru Angad. He modified and rearranged certain letters and shaped them into one standard script: a letter for each Punjabi sound, vowel signs made compulsory, and letters for conjuncts left out. The standard alphabet has 35 letters. The name seems to come from the mukh, the mouth, of the Gurus, because the script was used to record their words. At Khadur Guru Angad taught children Gurmukhi letters in the afternoons. He also set up a wrestling ground, the Mall Akhara, to give instruction in wrestling, and kept a daily routine of meditation, kirtan, care for the sick and a langar open to all. Sixty-three of his shaloks are in the Guru Granth Sahib.

Where: Khadur Sahib, about 19 km east of Tarn Taran in Punjab, sacred to the first three Gurus. Gurdwaras there mark his residence, his place of meditation and the Mall Akhara.

Why it mattered: The Encyclopaedia says Gurmukhi was first used for the Sikh scriptures, and that Guru Arjan used it to write down the Guru Granth Sahib. The script later spread for administration under Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the Sikh chiefs, and helped to settle the standard form of the Punjabi language. For centuries it was the main medium of literacy in Punjab, because the earliest schools were attached to gurdwaras, and it is today the state script of Punjab. The word to read carefully is "origin": the Encyclopaedia does not say Guru Angad created letters from nothing. It notes the script's close resemblance to Lande, Nagari, Sharada and Takri, and credits him with making the alphabet precise and accurate.