This woman came one day to Nanac, and said: “I have, upon the way of God, rendered thee a service, and now they revile me for it.” Nanac answered: “To-morrow will the gate of the fort be shut, but shall not be opened unless thou appliest thy hand to it.” The next day, in spite of all efforts to open the gate, they could not succeed, and remained in great consternation. Men and beasts, far from water, could not go out to fetch it. The inhabitants addressed themselves to all men who had a reputation for sanctity, but their prayers were in vain. At last they had recourse to Nanac, and said: “O durvish, what is there to be done?” He answered: “The gate shall not be opened except by the hand of a woman who never lost her virtue with a stranger.” The inhabitants brought all the women who had a reputation for chastity to the gate of the fort, but it remained shut: on that account they sat down hopeless. At the time of evening prayer came at last the friend of Baba Nanac to the gate. The people laughed at her; her husband and her relations were ashamed and abused her. The woman, without listening to the speeches of the people, struck the gate with her hand and it opened. All men were astonished and ashamed: they fell at the feet of the woman. The _báni_,[444] that is to say the poems, of Nânac, are, as it were, perfumed with devotion and wisdom, still more can this be said of his speeches about the grandeur and sanctity of God. All is in the language of the _Jats_ of the Panjab, and _Jat_ in the dialect of the Penjab, means a villager or a rustic. Nânac’s disciples are not conversant with the Sanscrit language. The precepts and regulations which Nânac established among them will be explained hereafter. Nânac said in his poems that there are several heavens and earths; and that prophets, and saints, and those that are supposed to have descended from above (avatárs), and persons distinguished by piety, obtain perfection by zeal in the service of God; that whoever devotes himself to the veneration of God, whatever road he may choose, will come to God, and that the means to this is, to avoid hurting any living being. “Be true and thou shalt be free; Truth belongs to thee, and thy success to the Creator.”[445]