Authenticity of Kartarpuri Bir - Global Sikh Studies

Parkash (1801 A.D.) the reply of Bhai Gurdas to a query
in this regard: “Just as a devoted wife can recognise the speech
of her lord, I too have the intuitive capacity to spot and identify
the Bani of the Gurus.” 14 The difficulty of the task can be
gauged from the fact that even a person like Bhai Gurdas
sometimes made slips in his preliminary selection and recording
which is evident from the corrections got made by the Guru in
all these cases. Obviously, the final approval, “Sudh”, was
invariably given by the Guru himself and what was an error
was directed to be rectified by its omission, obliteration,
rewriting or otherwise (‘Sudh Keeche’). The task of collection
from the multifarious sources was equally difficult. It is wrong
to assume that the Bani of the different Gurus stood recorded
at one place, or what stood collected at one place seemingly as
the Bani of the Gurus, and of the Bhagats was authentic. In
each case the Bani of the Gurus, collected from whatever source
was, before its final inclusion, scrutinized by Bhai Gurdas and
the Guru.
In order to remove any misunderstanding, it is necessary
to mention that the Bani in the Mohan Pothis was only a part of
the Bani of the Gurus and Bbagats. The Mohan Pothis, according
to Teja Singh and Prem Singh Hoti Mardan, had only 524 pages.
Each page had 13 lines and each line contained 13 letters in a
very bold hand. 15 Dr. Jodh Singh has by way of a sample given
a photocopy of a page of a Mohan Pothi in his book “Kartarpuri
Bir De Darshan”. 16 The first Pothi contained Bani in 10 Rags
only and the second had it in 4 Rags only. Second, the Pothis
contained the Bani of Gurus Nanak. Angad and Amar Das
and Bhagats Kabir, Namdev, Tarlochan, Sain, Ravidas and
Jaidev. Third, that not all the Bani of the Gurus and Bhagats
mentioned above is in these Pothis. Fourth, the words in these
Pothis scarcely have the use of ‘lags’ and ‘matras’ and their
deciphering could not be an easy task. Fifth, not all the Bani in
these Pothis was included in the Guru Granth. All we wish to
say is that
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