Authenticity of Kartarpuri Bir - Global Sikh Studies

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Mcleod, as we have seen, created the bubble of the Kartarpuri
Bir (with folios 975 in number) being a copy of the Banno Bir
(which has only 467 folios). That bubble stands pricked when
the year of production of the Banno Bir was found to be 1699.
But, having realised that, Pritam Singh has raised another soap
bubble by saying that the Kartarpuri Bir is a copy of another
real Bir of the 5th Guru. 91 If every hand written Bir of the Adi-
Granth including the Banno Bir could be copied in about 467
folios, even when it also contained additional Bani, why should
the scribe of the Kartarpuri Bir have used 974 folios, if it is a
copy, is, indeed, inexplicable, if not ridiculous. Pritam Singh
further gives no reason for his suspicion about the originality
of the Kartarpuri Bir. He says that certain leads in the
examination of the Bir by Jodh Singh suggest that inference
about which he is quite categoric as he is also about there
being another Banno Bir of the year 1604 A.D. or so.
One common feature of all the two critics of the
Kartarpuri Bir is that none of them examined the Kartarpuri Bir
(except may be for a few minutes) or the works of Jodh Singh
and others so as to reject them critically. Mcleod, it seems had
not seen even the Banno Bir. Had he done that his conclusions
could not have been so wildly conjectural and slip-shod.
VII
Conclusion
We have considered the issue of the authenticity of
the, Adi-Granth, and after examining both the evidence in favour
of its authenticity and the criticism of this view, come to the
conclusion that there is not the least doubt that the Kartarpuri
Bir is incontrovertibly the Bir written by Bhai Gurdas.
An objection raised by Mcleod is that in order to
remove scholarly doubts access to the Kartarpuri Bir would