Bhai Vir Singh.pdf - Vidhia.com

Father of Modem Punjabi Literature / 23
imagery to communicate such subtle nuances as the original
had.Hisworkontheragasormusicalmeasures (GurmatSangeet
Nirnaya), verse forms (Sri Guru Granth Beam) and rhetorical
figures used in Sikh Scripture (Shabad Britt Prakash) and on
the Sikh martial patois (Gargajj Bole) showed the search and
care of a schola.r. In this and in his didactic Punjabi prose (Sri
Maharani Sharab Kaur) with a degree of smoothness of style
and inventiveness of character and episode, he anticipated
some of the aspects of the genius of his son Bhai Vir Singh. He
also took active interest in rising the Singh Sabha movement.
Vir Singhwas the eldest of Dr Charan Singh's family of six
children. His grandfather Baba Kahan Singh, advanced in
years, was still alive at the time of his bIrth. Both father and
grandfatherhadno otherambition butthatthe childshouldbe
brought up in the besttraditions of the learning of the period.
As was the custominSikh families, he was startedonthe Guru
Granth which he completed by the time he was eight years of
age. He readPersianandUrdu witha Muslim maulawiandwas
apprenticed to Giani Harbhajan Singh, a leading classical
scholar, for Sanskrit and Sikh literature. Thereafter, he joined
the Church Milssion School. He passed the middle school
examination at the age of seventeen. Two years later, he took
his matriculation topping the list of examinees in the district
and winning a gold medaL
Most ofhis sparetime duringhis schooldaysBhaiVir Singh
spentwithhis maternal grandfather, Giani Hazara Singh, who
was himself a reputed man of letters. Giani Hazara Singh was
in the direct line of an influential school of exegetes from the
time of Guru Gobind Singh, thetenthandlast ofthe Sikhgurus,
or prophet-teachers. He wrote a commentary on the Vars of
Bhai Gurdas, valued for its learning and lucidity to this day. A
glossary of the Gum Granth he prepared and published was
reissued years later, in a revised and enlarged version, bythe
grandson. Giani HazaraSinghheldthepositionof aninspector
of schools in the Church system. As such, he prepared some
school textbooks in Punjabi by making translations from the
Urdu. He also :rendered into Punjabi Saadi's classics Gulistan
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