BHAI VIR SINGH'S ACHIEVEMENTS - Panth Rattan

BHAI VIR SINGH’SACHIEVEMENTSA BRIEF INTRODUCTIONGurbachan Singh TalibFrom the book : Bhai Vir SIngh - Life Times &Work, Published by Bal Krishna M.A.,Sectretary ,Publications Bureau, PunjabUniversity Chandigarh, 1973.Influences and ProfileBhai Vir Singh’s long creativecareer of over sixty years (he livedto be eighty-five) was a manysplendouredfulifiment. He was thepioneer who caught through theantennae of a keen sensibility andan imagination strongly responsiveto new urges, the novel tones whichwere to be heard in Englishliterature, particularly of theRomantic and the Victorianperiods.With whatever opportunities hehad at that time eighty years ago, toacquaint himself with certain piecesor texts from English literature, hetried to mould his own creativeefforts on lines suggested in these.Others before him had tried thesame process in Urdu, the languagewith whose literature most welleducatedpeople in the Panjab,Muslims as well as others, hadacquired acquaintance in varyingdegrees. What had beenaccomplished in this direction inlanguages of regions situated faraway from the Panjab, or even inHindi did not make that impact onthe mind and thought of thePanjabis as the mass of new creativework in Urdu, the Ianguage ofeducation and official work currentthen. The work of MaulanaMuhammad Hussain Azad inhistory-writing, in belles-lettresmodelled on certain imaginativepieces from Addison and otherwriters, his new didactic poetry asalso the poetry of Maulana Hali inthe same vein and his Criticalwritings would be known to BhaiVir Singh. So also the piecescomposed under the same strain ofinspiration by writers only slightlyless celebratedthoughdistinguished each in his own way,such as Deputy Nazir Ahmed,Maulvi Zakaullah, Sir Syed AhmedKhan, Babu Piare Lal Ashob andseveral others. Drawing hisinspiration from such writcrs, whohad opened a nee mine of realismand a wide sense of socialresponsibility in their comipositionsin prose and verse, he too wouldhave directed his creative powers toachievements in the same field.Both through the vast mass of hiswork, through its artistic qualityand vast influence exerted inushering a great new era, heremains without doubt the greatestman of letters in Panjabi of the newcreative urges and the newexperiments, after the traditional,neo-classical age in which Panjabihad been either merely a folkliterature or was Braj literature withPanjabi overtones in the Gurmukhi.Apart, of course, from what BhaiVir Singh learnt of the new

influences from English for his owncreative efforts, he would naturallyhave studied also patches ofEnglish literature in the original.Most of our Indian writers went forimitation and adaptation to Englishwriting of the nineteenth century,particularly the romanticismtempered with the moral sensibilityof the Wordsworth variety, the mildhumanism and tendersentimentalism of ‘pre-romantics’like Cowper and Collins, thewistfulness and surface moralizingof Gray and the general didacticismof the writers from the middle class,from Addison on. Further, after thesurfeit with pseudo-romanticismand conceits of Indian writing theycaught with great avidity on thepeculiar Victorian inculcation of thedomestic virutes of a Smiles oroccasionally a Tennyson, thoughthe supreme art of Tennyson wouldnaturally elude them. The heroicand epic treatment of history byScott and the nineteenth centuryballadists again appealed to ourwriters, whose sensibility wasseeking new values of thedemocratic age for expression andinculcation in place of the limitedthemes of the traditional ages withtheir feudal background ofreference. In style too, the attemptwould be at a realistic delineationof a factual or emotional situationrather than the embroideries of neoclassicalartifice with all its mouldsand devices. All these influencesare visible and traceable in theIndian writers of this period,though their acquaintance withEnglish literature was restricted bytheir circumstances only to a fewspots in it. The situation changeswhen we come to a Tagore or anlqbal or latterly an Aurobindo withtheir vast background of Westernlearning and their transmutation ofits deepest secrets and moreintimate nuances both of theme andart.To enquire into the totality of theinfluence of Western literature inBhai Vir Sing’s creative work wouldbe a subject for an ample discussionin a book or a thesis, whichobviously cannot be attemptedhere. Only a few of the directionswhich his creative powers took inthis respect can be indicated in briefhints. Nor can a proper appraisal ofthe quality and value of hisachievement be made at thisjuncture, for towards Bhai VirSingh the attitude of large sectionsof influential and fairly wellinformedpeople is one ofveneration only ‘this sideidolatory.’ So in this respect too,while a great laudation is calledforth by his truly greatachievements in scholarship and hisinterpretation of the principles ofhis faith through several media ofliterary creation, the spirit ofcriticism must discipline itself intoan attitude of reverential silence.Maybe that at a time not far (for awidely studied writer like Bhai VirSingli cannot long be kept in aninsulated and sealed temple ofadoration and adulation alone) he

will be objectively discussed as awriter rather than merely placed ona pedestal as a teacher. Moreover,in a volume like the present,intended to present the variousaspects of his achievement on theoccasion of the centenary of hisbirth, any exhaustive criticalexamination of him would beclearly out of place. With all this, itmight be said that so far hardly anyserious attempt has been made tofind out and to phrase forth the truequality of his total achievement as awriter and to define the principle ofhis intellectual being.Art attempt of this nature isobviously c forth. partly to temperthe purely laudatory and oftenvapid rhetoric poured forth abouthim by encomiasts whose literaryculture is not appreciably above theelementary level and equally tomeet the somewhat unkind attacksof certain contemporary ideologicalgroups who hold a narrow,utilitarian view of literature inrepudiation of its aesthetic values.Moreover, this latter kind ofcriticism is allergic and even hostileto the particular social orientationwhich Bhai Vir Singh attemptedthrough his writings, and whichwas part of a vast process ofregeneration of the Sikh people.About such regeneration more thanone writer in the essays that followhas made reference , hence itspoints need to be reiterated here. Beit said however that nounsympathetic attempts atdevaluing Bhai Vir Singh can stripthis colossus of his fine draperywhich he would continue to wearwith grace and distinction, thougha few frills here and there of writingreprsenting his moments of weakinspiration may be snipped off inthe process. Such a process may beappl ied with parallel results to anypopular writer. Bhai Vir Singhremain s vastly popular and hisachievement is solid and ha s itsroots in real inspiration and power.A Synoposis of his WorkBhai Vir Sing’s creative work fallsinto three main genres-Poetry,Biographical and DisquisitionalProse and Fiction. He also tried hishand at Drama, but this attemptsuffered from the handicap whichin Bhai Vir Singh’s fictional effortsone perceives in general—the lackof a capacity to create full, roundedcharacters. His characters fall into‘types’ and are made in accordancewith certain formulae. So his fictiondoes not rise into the realm where itmight be valued as such, and not aspart of a larger scheme for thepropagation of religious ideals.Despite his shortcomings however,his novels became extremelypopular with the Sikh readingpublic, and one particularlySundari, still remains a best-seller.This is because to the average Sikhreader, unqualified to judge of thetechnical features of fiction, thesenovels bring in a highly appealingform the history of the grimstruggle of their forefathers. The

small Sikh people had by thenpassed though their ordeal of firefor nearly half a century, andthrough sheer faith and unswervingheroism of spirit were able tooverthrow their well-entrenchedoppressors. In these novels there isidealization of the Sikh character ofcourse, but then the reality wasitself so noble and heroic, partakingso much of the superhumancharacter. that the idealization notonly is convincing, but led thewriter on to itself by a process ofinevitability. Not only Bhai VirSingh and the other Sikh writers onthe period, but Europeans and evenMuslims delineating the quality ofthe Sikh character of the period hadnot been able to withold the tributeof high admiration.This period in the history of thePanjab is so rich in a vast heroiceffort —not in the manner of feudalindividual heroism on a fixed spattern of certain graces. but thecolossal and mighty effort of awhole oppressed people to wagetheir struggle of liberation overseveral generations—that it calls fora great epic to catch something ofits scale and power. Such an efforthas so hr not been made. Except infragments such as Bhai Vir Singh’snovels and that portion of GianiGyan Singh’s Panth Prkash dealingwith it, there is very little literaturein existence on it. While Bhai VirSingh’s work is in the form only ofthree small-sized novels, GianiGyan Singh’s work suffers frombeing unequal in execution. Butgiven a great occasion, he rises totrue poetic eloquence as in thewhole portion on Bhai Mani Singhor Ghallughara, and he has shownwhat can be made poetically of thisgreat material.ProseBefore taking up a brief study ofBhai Vir Singh’s poetry, I mayglance at the large mass of hisprose. Apart from the prose writtenby him in his works purelyscholarship there are his greatbiographies of Guru Nanak, GuruGobind Singh and the remainingGurus of the Sikh faith. Then thereis the second portion of the work offiction Baba Naudh Sing This secondportion is disquisitional with onlythe thinnest connective thread ofcertain narrators and their listeners,giving to it just a faint pretence offiction. But interspersed in it arepowerful and splendid passagesand episodes.Bhai Vir Singh’s prose is poetic intone and style, though its structureis modelled close to the spokenidiom of the average educatedperson. This last remark appliesonly to the structure-skeleton, thesyntax, for which the models wereprovided by good Urdu prose, avast quantity of which was inexistence by the time Bhai Vir Singhtook up pen as writer, and byEnglish prose which had then fortwo centuries been acquiring the‘spoken’ character. Bhai Vir Singh’swork in the field of journalism andtract-corn- posing further

confirmed this spoken idiom styleof his, to which he gave through hisown writings a finish and charmwhich no one since has beencapable of. A comparative study ofBhai Vir Singh’s prose-writings andof all those who have written prosesince say, 1900 in Panjabi will easilyshow the glaring contrast—thegrace and beauty of Bhai VirSingh’s pages and the crude andstilted efforts of others. Here andthere in small patches some otherstoo may have been able to achievequality in their writings. Butaltogether in grace and felicitywhich appear to be the naturalelement in which he disports, BhaiVir Singh remains still the supremeartist in Panjabi prose, besides ofcourse, being the great poet andscholar thatIt is in his diction bearing theperfume of Panjab’s sacredliterature and the expression ofsensibility that Bhai Vir Singhachieves the poetic quality. Veryoften his sensibility declines tosentimentality and the femininesmall-change of feeling—but riseswith recurring spurts to the trueemotional level. But whenever thespirit moves him on a greatoccasion from Sikh religioushistory, and the more tenderfeelings of pity and humanitarianmelting of the heart are involved,he is also capable of rising to trueemotional and imaginative writing.Then he is no less the great poet inprose than he is in verse. If onewere to venture a statement abouthim in terms of the Indian systemof poetics, he is strong in portrayingthese tender emotions of pity andsorrow, along with the softer strainsof romantic love, which in his casegets always transmuted into thelove of the soul, called in Indianparlance, Bhakti. Such momentswhen he writes at the higher levelof poetic creativity in prose comefrequently—as a matter or fact, inthe midst of bathetic patches ofsentimentality and paddedverbiage one constantly encounterspowerful, emotional writing inmoving strains of sensitivelyrenderedmusic, which mells intothe heart and rising even higher,the soul.This is what makes Bhai Vir Singhthe great artist in prose. He releasedprose from the constricting mouldof its earlier stylized idiom, simpleand generally crude in structure,and only here and there having themasterly touch in writing such asthe Purakin Janarn Sakhi ofunknown authorship of the earlyseventeenth century. As I haveventured to state earlier, in additionto the sheer largeness of the mass ofhis prose-writing and the totalawareness of the related spiritualand theological background that itdisplays, there is no prose inPanjabi to compare in grace, charmand power with Bhai Vir Singh’s.Teja Singh, Puran Singh,Gurbakhsh Singh and GurmukhSingh Musafir, each a considerablewriter in his place, would standdwarfed by his side. The main point

of difference is that while his is theprose of art, in the case of the othersthe level is either merely functionalor at best ‘play’ of the mind in arather lower key.PoetryBhai Vir Singh’s essential image inthe public mind is fixed as a poet.His achievement in the poetic fieldagain, even more than in prose isthe great glory of Panjabi literature.His total output in poetry—thatwhich is of literary worth, iscomparatively small. Certaindevotional ‘songs’ of his arepopular, but not genuine poetry.Besides the epic, Rana Surat Singh,there are four slender volumes orverse containing short lyrical pieces; some poems with the thoughtcontentpredominating and abouthalf a dozen ‘romances’. The greatpopularity and influence of BhaiVir Singh as poet is perhapssomewhat out of proportion to thetotal volume of his poeticalcreation, since Rana Surat Sing, along work is not popularly read.Requiring a comprehensive viewand considerable application fromthe reader, besides greatperseverance to follow it throughits numerous abstract portions, it isgenerally left half unread. Thesource of Bhai Vir Singli’spopularity therefore, must be basedmainly on the shorter pieces in theother collections. These, when theyappeared at rather long intervals inthe first third of the presentcentury, took the Panjabi readingpublic by a kind of storm Not onlydid they bring to it a taste of poetryemancipated from the traditionalneo-classic ‘rules’ and the variouselements of artifice, which madesuch poetry sterile of true creativeeffort and imaginative appeal, butbrought also sweet lyrical strains inthe language of ‘cultivatedconversation’, in a diction whichwas familiar as well as elevatedwith echoes of the great pieces inthe earlier mystical and romanticThe main influences whichcontributed to shaping the poeticart of Bhai Vir Singh came from theEnglish poetry of the nineteenthcentury, as stated in the beginningof this brief survey. Wordsworthand some minor didactic poetsbecause of their moral slant wouldappeal to the Indian mind in thosetimes around the last quarter of thenineteenth century and shortlyafter. To a generation which hadhad an overplus of the baroque anda static and decadent romanticismcouched in artificial verbalcraftsmanship, the nineteenthcentury English treatment of reallire in poetry made an inevitableappeal. Moreover, to generationsaroused to a sense of socialresponsibility such as the educatedIndians were, around this periodbeginning soon after the 1857Revolt, poetry with a didactic,social and philosophical slantappeared to be exactly what thecountry needed. Theories as to thenature and function of poetry,

formed, perhaps, on an imperfectunderstanding of nineteenthcenturyEuropean ideas on thesubject, all emphasized this newcontent and treatment. Not only inIndia, in most parts of Asia therewas in evidence a new ferment ofideas, giving rise to new blends ofliterature along with theirsupporting theories.So, the particular tone and tendencyof Bhai Vir Singh’s poetry must beunderstood in the light of thesenewly-aroused urges. In his case ofcourse, the immediate source of hisinspiration was the state of the Sikhpeople, at that time trying to findan identity and group-stabilitythrough the Panjabi language andthe reinterpretation of the Sikhreligious thought, which suitedremarkably the new ideas of socialresponsibility, in which it hadactually anticipated the modernEuropean humanism by more thanthree centuries..Besides this influence from theWest, which went on to shape thecontent of Bhai Vir Singh’s poetry,there were also minor influences,mainly from the Sufistic strain inMuslim thought. These came toBhai Vir Singh partly via Persian, inwhich his learning was fairly soundand partly also through Urdu,which had inherited the maincharacteristics of Persian. Sufismwas also established in Panjabiright since the centuries of Muslimproselytization in the Panjab, andPanjabi has a rich stock of suchpoetry, with its own imagery andbackground of reference apart fromPersian. While echoes of the Sufis ofthe Panjab are frequent in Bhai VirSingh’s short pieces and quatrains,here and there one catches evenechoes of lqbal, one side of whosepoetic personality expressed Sufiticidealism. But these influences fromthe literature of Islam are mainlyperipheral the core off Bhai VirSingh’s poetry derives fromnineteenth century Englishinfluences.This English influence also helpedto shape form. Neo-classical andtraditional Indian poetry, includingPanjabi, was form’-based, like theclassical and neo-classical poetry ofEurope. It was from theseventeenth century on that the‘poem in English as an autonomousstructure entered as the do form.After the first half of theseventeenth century, the ‘poem’was any short piece, embodyingany conception and built on anytechnical principle. Earlier, shortpieces called songs or lyrics, werelooked upon as minor, almostplayful exercises thrown around bya poet who must prove his masteryin art by composing a considerablepiece in one of the established‘forms’— Epic, Tragedy, Comedy,the Philosophical Poem or other.Not so now. A poet did notnecessarily have to establish hissupremacy by any such work. Hemight compose only short pieces,

now indiscriminately to be called‘poems’, and be yet acknowledgedgreat. By the time of the Romanticmovement, this trend was alreadywell established, and got a furtherwidespread vogue during thenineteenth century details of whichwould not be in place here. WhenEnglish poetry came within the kenof our own English-educated class,they grew familiar with thisphenomenon. The autonomousform of the short ‘poem’ had aliberating influence on the poetry ofour various languages. Poets nowno longer mastered for use thepoetic craft of older times, but withsome skill in composition and thenew kind of thinking could claim tobe masters in the art.In Urdu and Persian. the ghazal, acomplete-in-itself short form wasalready well established. Such ashort form with the same literaryprestige was not established inPanjabi or Hindi, except perhapsthe devotional piece called bhajan(shabad in the Sikh tradition) or thesong. Now, with this new formimported from the West, the poetsfound a new horizon ofachievement in the higher kind ofpoetry opening out before them.They naturally made good use ofthis new opportunity. It is in thelight of this phenomenon that BhaiVir Singh’s shorter poems may beviewed. They are in meters whicharc based in the Panjabi traditionbut with rhyme schemes andstructural patterns suggested by thesacred poetry of Sikhism, as also bythe Urdu ghazal. In places headopted the stanza-form hand- ledwith such mastery by Bhai Gurdasin his Vats. In his last work, in the‘free verse’ style he has composedpoems of admirable quality. Adetailed discussion of these featureswould be out of place in a shorttreatment such as the present. So,only the main influences fromwhich he derived and perfected hisform are indicated.Fount of Inspiration—MysticismThe supreme source of inspirationof Bhai Vir Singh as suggestedearlier, are the teachings of the Sikhfaith. The Sikh Religion in essenceis a blend of elements mystical andethical—each of these with aparticular orientation given by thegreat Sikh Teachers, the Gurus.Mysticism in Sikhism takes theform of the experience of the One,undifferentiated. eternal Realitycalled Omkar, Brahmann and Akalthe spiritual vision formulated byGuru Nanak. The Divine Reality isconceived of also as the SupremeBeing, the universal soul which isAll-Love and All-Beauty andcapable of responding to theworship of the human devotee. Thehighest form of such worship is theLove with the yearning of the finiteindividual self to merge into theuniversal Self. The course of thespiritual quest in the Sikh faith is asmuch the intuitive Realization ofthe Eternal, called Gyan (Jnan) asDevotion or Love, called .Bhakti.Only the course of this Gyan does

not lie through the apprenticestages of knowledge of aspects ofthe Divine, that is, through deities,nor the Love through Love of thevisible, incarnated forms like thevarious gods and goddesses. WhileSikhism shares with idealisticHinduism certain basic postulates,it has also done a vast degree ofpruning, so that it has emerged aswhat for all practical purposes is anew religion. In that particularphase of its development, which isstill continuing, in the thoughtclimateof which Bhai Vir Singhgrew up, the emphasis was onpoints of departure from what isordinarily known as Hinduism thanon discovering inter-relationships.This was due to certain historiccompulsions which in the interestof their sheer survival as a peoplethe Sikhs had to highlight. WhileBhai Vir Singh’s poetry is notpolemical except in some portionsof .Rana Surat Sing the religiousthought which emerges from hispoetry is the quest of the eternalSupreme Being as known to Sikhthought.Bhakti or Devotion within Sikhismhas taken the form, as just said, ofLove of the Eternal, the essence,unincarnate and hence extremelydifficult to fix in the consciousness.It is the Love of the soul which,transcending passions andemotions based in the carnal body,yet is capable somehow ofexperiencing the etherealized,distilled essence of love, in whichnothing is left except the mysticalurge, seeking absorption into theDivine. Such love, should the soulbe inspired with it, passes throughphases and stages, some of whichare akin to the strong urges of thebody for the deeply stirringexperience of the passionateembrace. This is the form suchexperience takes in the life ofmystics all the world over. Theimagery and symbology of suchquest and such experience is notdifferent from that of physicalpassion. In the Indian mysticaltradition, shared by Sikhism, suchlove and passion takes the form ofthe yearning of the love-sick female,separated from her spouse, thebeloved. In her state of separationshe passes through a variety ofmoods of despair, sorrow andpassionate remembrance. seekingnothing so much as his return toher in the warm security of thehome and the connubial bed.In the soul thus represented as theyearning female the supremepassion is surrender of the self atthe feet of the object of her love, herlord. The deepest experience of thetender feminine sensibility thusgoes into voicing this strain ofpoetry. This feminine sensibility is aconstant . characteristic of theliterary creations of Bhai Vir Singh,both in prose and verse, and ineither form he has given deeplysatisfying expression to it,notwithstanding that whenever heis composing at a low key ofinspiration he falls to thesentimental. In this strain the

devotional quest takes theanthropomorphic form wherein thedevotee in a tender ‘dramaticsituation is face to face with theDivine Beloved, alone with IRealization is thus achieved, andthe world, maya shed off. Thecareful, sensitive reader will thuscatch in reading his poetry suchtender quest and unionconstantly—no less in theoutpourings of his soul in his lastwork, Mere Saiyan Jio, written whenhe was approaching his eightiethyear than in those of severaldecades earlier. The other strain ofGod-consciousness at the moreintellectual level is met with alsoconstantly, though what he haswritten ii the devotional strain ismuch the more impressive. This ishis most intimate phase of themystical quest, and perhaps thepeak of his poetic achievement.Ethical thought in Sikhism hastaken the direction of a strongpuritanical emphasis in individuallife and a keen sense of socialresponsibility in the life of theorganized group, whether it be thecircle limited to one’s co-religionistsor the larger circle of the nation orof humanity in general. Generally,despite all the imperfections towhich the process of reducingideals to practice is subject, theSikhs have tended to keep beforethem- selves the essence of thisethical teaching. The masterlyexpression of such ethical idealismoccurs woven into the plot,somewhat thin, of the epic RanaSurat Sing But in the shorter poemstoo, where the theme is some phaseof the life of action, this thinkingemerges. The patriotic passion, thecall to courage and self-sacrifice,and a robust philosophy of fruitfulaction forms the basis of suchpoems. When Bhai Vir Singlimanages to emancipate his thoughtfrom the weaker strains ofsentimentality, he is the wisepatriarch, guiding a people on tothe path of noble, socially beneficialendeavour. His whole life as livedshowed such a pattern clearlyemerging from it. In this respect hepartakes of the character of the bardof a people, their spokesman andtheir inspirer.ScholarshipOne aspect of Bhai Vir Singh’sachievement, his scholarship, isknown naturally to a much smallernumber compared to those whoknow and appreciate his work inthe more popular fields of poetryand colourful prose-writing.Scholarship descended to Bhai VirSingh from his father, grandfatherand his maternal grandfather—allfamous scholars and savants of theSikh people in their day. A studyeven of those of Bhai Yin Singh’swritings, not expressly fallingunder the category of scholarshipwill reveal behind every statementa rich background of learning andinformation. The history of the Sikhpeople and of India in general,knowledge of Indian philosophyand the several languages from

which religious learning in thePanjab has derived, such asSanskrit, Persian and Braj Bhashacome in constantly to buttress hisarguments and conclusions, inmaking which he shows a highlyresponsible sense of scholarlythoroughness and integrity. Just afew examples to illustrate thisaspect of his achievement will soonfollow.A significant thing to note about hishistorical fiction the four novels andRana Surat Singh is the absence ofany anachronisms. This shows anever-alert scholarly conscience,built upon his vast learning, whichwas aware even of the minutiae ofliterary culture.Besides the great scholarshipimplicit in his creative work, asforming the basis and frame-workof it, such as the biographies of theGurus of the Sikh faith and RanaSurat Singh, he accomplished amassive amount of work ofscholarly editing and glossing oftexts. In this respect his supremeachievement is the editing of BhaiSantokh Singh’s Guru Fartap Suraj,an epic history of the Sikh faithcomposed by a supremely greatpoet in a highly ornate style in BrajBhasha. Completed in 1843, thiswork, the richness and intricacy ofwhose art, besides the vast ‘nine ofinformation that it is, should makeit one of the supreme expressions ofthe poetic genius in . Its linguistictexture, woven thickly of scholarlywit’ in the ‘metaphysical sense andflowing on like a mighty river inflood, Con extremely wideknowledge of classical and postclassicalIndian literature for itsexplication. Allusions and literarypuns (called in Indian Poetics,Anupras and Yainak in theirnumerous forms) came to this poetwith a facility which would makepeople in earlier ages believe insome divinity guiding his pen. Tohave adequately edited this work ofsome 6000 pages and to have dealtwith all its literary features and thephilosophy of which the composerof the work was an accomplishedmaster. called for powers ofscholarship which hardly anyoneelse besides Bhai Vir Singhpossessed. And it is not merely thathe glossed the difficult text orexplicated allusions and the poeticconceits. Where the occasion callsfor it, Bhai Vir Singh goes into thestatements made by the poetryconveyed by his sources, andexamines them critically at fulllength in the light of contemporaryscholarship. One greatexample of such examination is thestatement about the allegedworship of the goddess Dunga byGuru Gobind Singh. Over twentyfourpages of a closely arguedthesis, taking evidence fromcontemporary historical researchand thought, Bhai Vir Singhdisproves the false statement of theGuru’s worship of Durga. Thispoint has been dealt with ably byDr. Bhai Jodh Singh, in the essaycontributed by him to this Volume.

Bhai Vir Singh besides, was the firstto discover from Jahangir’s Tuzukthe real background of themartyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev.After his discovery of it, the storyabout Chandu being mainlyresponsible for the Guru’smartyrdom recedes into thebackground. This part from theTuzuk was not known to Macauliffeand the band of great scholars whoassisted him. Now of course, notonly this statement from the Tuzuk,but further facts have come to lightabout this episode in Sikh religioushistory. But credit is due to Bhai VirSingh for making the discovery.Similarly, Bhai Vir Singh appears tohave been one of the few personswho knew in detail the manuscriptPothis of Goindwal which providedpart of the preserved Gurbani fromwhich the Adi Granth wascompiled. The famous miracleattributed to Guru Nanak, of the.Kaaba revolving in whateverdirection his feet turned, and whichwas sought to be explainedmetaphorically, has been discussedas fact in a highly interesting noteby Bhai Vir Singh from theevidence of Muslim hagiology. It issaid that the Kaaba has oftenmoved from its fixed place to granta sight of itself for blessing Allah’schosen devotees when they couldnot visit it. One such to whom itappeared was the Sufi IbrahimAdham. Another was the piouslady Rabia. So, Bhai Vir Singh’sarument runs, Kaaba might as wellmove in consonance with themovement of a holy person likeGuru Nanak. This discovery fromthe history of Islamic piety isincorporated in Guru NanakChmatkar, the biography of GuruNanak. Such scholar ship onecomes upon constantly in readingBhai Vir Singhs work.Besides editing Guru Parlap Suraj,Bhai Vir Singh began but could notcomplete a work of the exegesis ofAdi Granth. Now this is a greatfragment in seven volumes. On thescale at which Bhai Vir Singhattempted the work, it would takeabout fifty such volumes. His stylewas somewhat expansive, and hislearning leaned on the side ofamplitude and plenty rather than ofscarcity. So, with summarizing thehymns, their paraphrase, exegeticalexposition and the glossary ofterms, allusions and expressions,such of this work as could beaccomplished is satisfying to thescholarly intellect. Difficult pointsof exposition have been wrestledwith, and points made by allimportant previous authorities havebeen mentioned and what theauthor considers to be definitiveconclusions stated. Wherenecessary, texts from the Sanskritand other learned sources arequoted, and individual wordsexplained with their sources, andtheir history of mutations traced.There is besides, Guru Grant/i Ka adictionary of the Adi Granth inthree volumes. This, besidesexplaining important terms andallusions authoritatively, contains

several appendices rich withlearned and ample information onthe system of musical notationadopted for the Adi Granth, alongwith the parallel musical systemscurrent among differentdenominations in the centuriesaround the emergence of the Sikhfaith. Here again, the vastness andamplitude of this learning is rareand shows the kind of schol2rshipthat looks like an inexhaustiblemine.He wrote a biography of the greatpoet Bhai Gurdas whosecompositions because of his deepinsight have been called the ‘key’ tothe under standing of the Gurus’Word. He also prepared a definitiveversion of the oldest Biography ofGuru Nanak, known as PurajanJanam Sakhi, after critically collatingits several versions, available tillthen only in manuscript form.His rendering of the mysticphilosopherBharthani Hari’s Shatakinto Panjabi poetry from theSanskrit is another scholarlyachievement of his.It was a somewhat belatedrecognition of his greatness whenthe Panjab University, then reestablishedin India at Solanconferred on him the degree honoriscausa of Doctor of OrientalLearning. A few other marks ofrecognition followed, but all thesecame to him as he was crossing hiseightieth year, and was probablyindifferent to them like Dr. Johnson,to whom also recognition camerather late. He neverthelessreceived these honours in the spiritof the deep humility of faith, in thewords of the Holy Granth—’But forthe Guru’s grace who would carefor me, a mean worm crawling indust ?’ The province of his birthhad been indifferent on t whole tohis greatness. Only hen the countrybecame free, the propitious momentarrived to recognize it. But his boatwas already, in his own phrase inMere Saiyan Jio, sliding downstreamin the direction of the Unknown.