Jan-March 2006 - Institute of Sikh Studies

COMPILATION OF SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB25On the contrary, hostile elements, especially Brahmins and Banias,assisted by such elements as having a grouse against Sikhism, scannedthe countryside with the help of certain paid scribes and they removedcertain pages from existing recensions of various Pothis / Granths / SriGuru Granth Sahib, and put, in instead, a number of pages to show thecontinuity of handwriting by inserting certain hostile material, andcause distortions in Sikh ideology. This went on at a large scale,especially keeping in view the hostile atmosphere against Sikhismduring the last phases of Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh,especially the first half of the 18th century. It is hardly possible foranyone to come across a handwritten recension that does not havespurious compositions, spelled out in first para Part V above.Same was the case with induction of Brahminism into Sikhism.Some Sikh scholars, even men like Bhai Santokh Singh were carriedaway by the impact and expounded wrong Sikh ethos. It was theSingh Sabha Movement that put Sikhism on the correct path. SinceKartarpur Pothi had certain in-built safeguards, it has been possible forSikh people to remain on the right side of Sikh religion and philosophy.The publication of G B Singh’s work Prachin Biran in 1944, basedon half-baked material, caused severe damage to Sikhism. Firstly, hedid not see the Kartarpur Bir at all, and despite that chose to passcertain value judgements, that were uncalled for. He rather chose toput forth that Kartarpuri Bir had been destroyed. Secondly, he hadlittle time to study the numerous Birs, including Banno Bir recensions,but chose to pass on half-baked information that caused harm to theSikh body politic.Lastly, he put forth that some of hymns of Guru Nanak had notbeen included in the Sikh scripture, and he cast aspersions on GuruArjun Dev’s finality of the product. He seemed to contend that heknew better than Guru Arjun Dev in the matter.Bhai Jodh Singh, Principal Khalsa College, Amritsar, along withPrincipal Ganga Singh of Sikh Missionary College, Amrtisar, and ProfTeja Singh of Khalsa College, Amritsar, on behalf of Dharma PracharCommittee of SGPC had the opportunity to conduct a detailed studyof Kartarpur recension for some days, and submitted a report onOctober 11, 1945. This caused Bhai Jodh Singh to write a series of