Authenticity of Kartarpuri Bir - Global Sikh Studies

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copying could not be done speedily. Here too, the character of
writing as mentioned above goes against the story of copying
from the original bound Bir on way to and from village Mangat.
Fifth, it is impossible to believe, as asserted by the Banno family,
that twelve copyists could be procured in those times of poor
literacy to copy the Granth, written in Gurumukhi script either
on way to and from or at village Mangat.
But, the greatest fact in destroying the credibility of
the Mangat story is that it is unimaginable that after having
prepared this monumental scripture of the Sikhs, the Guru
should have entrusted it to Bhai Banno and then have
remained unconcerned for one and half to sever. months about
the safety or whereabouts of the scripture when the job of
binding should normally have taken only a week or less; and
that be should even not have deputed a person like Bhai Gurdas,
or Bhai Budha to find out the cause of the serious delay during
those disturbed days. According to Gurbilas Parshahi 6 the Guru
was conscious of the insecure times and bad actually cautioned
Bhai Banno not to stay out for long. Nor believable that Bhai
Banno should have taken such liberties with the directions of
the Guru as to delay the job of binding or copying the scripture
for months together and to keep the entire Sangat and the Guru
in suspense and anxiety, and, further, to have introduced in
the copy flagrantly in violation of the tradition and the very
object of preparing an authentic Bir, unauthorized material,
including the unbelievably repugnant story of Raja Shivnabh.
The story is that Guru Nanak on his visit to Raja Shivnabh
expressed the wish to eat the flesh of the only son of the raja;
that the queen and the king killed their son to prepare a meal
for the Guru who was very pleased, restored the son to life
again, and disappeared. 57
Keeping in view the basic objective of the Guru,
namely to authenticate the revealed Bani so as to avoid the
least