Bhai Vir Singh Was a Poet, Scholar and Exegete, a Major Figure in The

Bhai Vir Singh was a poet, scholar recluse when he was still in his tradition of scholarship in exegesis early teens and spent his entire of the Ckiani school, going back to and exegete, a major figure in the youth in monasteries at Haridvar the times of Guru Gobind Singh. Sikh renaissance and in the and Amritsar acquiring training in His maternal grandfather Giani movement for the revival and traditional Sikh learning. His Hazara Singh compiled a lexicon of renewal of Punjabi literary mother's affection ultimately Guru Granth Sahib, and wrote a traditioin. His identification with all reclaimed him to the life of a commentary on Bhai Gurdas the important concerns of modern householder at the age of 40, when Varan. As a schoolboy, Bhai Vir Sikhism was so complete that he he got married. Adept in Singh used to spend a great deal came to be canonized as Bhai, the versification in Sanskrit and Braj as of his time in the company of Giani Brother of the Sikh Order, very well as in the oriental system of Hazara Singh under whose early in his career. For his medicine, Baba Kahn Singh guidance he not only learnt the pioneering work in its several passed on his interests to his only classical and neo-classical different genres, he is son, Dr Charan Singh. Apart from languages, Sanskrit, Persian and acknowledged as the creator of his sustained involvement in Braj, but also received grounding, modern Punjabi literature. literary and scholarly pursuits, both theoretical and practical, in mainly as a Braj poet, Punjabi the science of Sikh exegesis. Born on 5 December 1872, in prose-writer, musicologist, Amritsar, Bhai Vir Singh was the prosodist and lexicographer, Dr Bhai Vir Singh was the child of an eldest of Dr Charan Singh's three Charan Singh took active interest age in ferment. The extinction of sons. The family traces its ancestry in the affairs of the Sikh Sikh sovereignty in the Punjab, the back to Diwan Kaura Mall (d. community, then experiencing a decline in the fortunes of Sikh 1752), who rose to the position of new urge for restoration as well as aristocracy, the gradual emergence vice-governor of Multan, under for change. of urban middle classes, the Nawab Mir Mu'ln ul-Mulk, With the dissipation of the "national title of Maharaja Bahadur. Baba To this patrimony of Bhai Vir Singh intellectual life" of the Punjab owing Kahn Singh (1788-1878) was was added from his mother's side a to the neglect and decay of perhaps the first in the family to be living kinship With another rich indigenous education of the local regularly sworn a Sikh. He turned a people from their political destiny Bhai Vir Singh had the benefit of Amritsar. aroused among the Sikhs concern both the traditional indigenous for survival and for redefining the learning as well as of modern Unlike the educated young men of boundaries of their faith. Further English education. He learnt his time, Bhai Vir Singh was not challenges arose in the shape of Persian and Urdu from a Muslim tempted by prospects of a career in modernization, of Christian, Muslim Maulawi in a mosque and was government service. He chose for and Hindu movements of apprenticed to Giani Harbhajan himself the calling of a writer and proselytization and the agnostic Singh, a leading classical scholar, created material conditions for a cults such as Brahmo Samaj. for Sanskrit and Sikh literature. He single minded pursuit of it. An year Parallel to the developments then joined the Church Mission after his passing the matriculation foreboding gradual appropriation of School, Amritsar and took his examination, he set up a lithograph Sikhism by the Hindu social order matriculation examination in 1891. press in collaboration with Bhai emerged a powerful end towards At school, the conversion of some Wazir Singh, a friend of his Braj classicism in the Sikh literary of the students provect a crucial father's. As his first essays in the and sdlolarly tradition. experience which strengthened his literary field, Bhai Vir Singh Mythologization of the persons of own religious conviction. From the composed somc Geography Sikh Gurus, mixing of fiction with Christian missionaries emphasis on textbooks for schools. historical fact and interweaving of literary resources, he learnt how Vedantic and Vaisavite motifs into efficacious the written word could the essential Sikh teaching were its Bhai Vir Singh began taking active be as a means of informing and typical features. The response interest in the affairs of Singh influencing a person's innermost arose in Sikhism several Sabha movement. To promote its being. Through his English movements-Nirankari puritanism), aims and objects, he launched in courses, he acquired familiarity Namdhari (militant protestantism), 1894 the Khalsa Tract Society. In with modern literary forms, Singh Sabha (revivalism and November 1899, he started a especially short lyric. While still at renaissance) and Panch Khalsa Punjabi weekly, the Khalsa school, Bhai Vir Singh was married Diwan (aggressive Samachar. He was among the at the age of 17 to Chatar Kaur fundamentalism) . principal promoters of several of daughter of Sardar Narain Singh of the Sikh institutions, such as Chief Khalsa Diwan, Sikh Educational was the first requirement for the Braj literature for his basic Society (1908) and the Punjab and fulfilment of these objectives. In the inspiration and cultural motivation Sind Bank (1908). Interest in meanwhile, the old educational and upon the Punjabi literary corporate activity directed towards system which had till then served tradition for its linguistic community development remained as a channel for communication of components Bhai Vir Singh Bhai Vir Singh's constant concern, the traditional knowledge to the initiated a new literary idiom simultaneously with his creative youth of the race had broken down distinctly different from both. The and scholarly pursuits. In this with the withdrawal, under British tracts produced by the Khalsa engagement and, at the same time, dispensation, of state patronage Tract Society introduced a down to in his eschewal of political activity, from the indigenous institutions, As earth literary Punjabi remarkable the Christian missionary example if to fill the vacuum as well as to for lightness of touch as well as for was apparently his model. build new channels of intra- freshness of expression. In this community communication, Bhai writing lay the beginnings of In determining the basic Vir Singh through his single- modern Punjabi prose. minded cultivation of Punjabi parameters of the modern phase of language as the medium of his Sikhism, Bhai Vir Singh stressed The Khalsa Tract Society theological, scholarly and creative the autonomy of Sikh faith periodically made available under work, resolved the cultural dilemma nourished and sustained by an the title Nirguniara lowcost which the Sikhs faced at the turn of awakening amongst the Sikhs of publications on Sikh theology, the century. On the one hand was the awareness of their distinct history and philosophy and on the Sikh literary tradition in Braj theological and cultural identity. social and religious reforrn. language which had collected Secondly, he aimed at reorienting Through this journal Bhai Vir Singh unmatched riches in multiple the Sikhs' understanding of their established a living contact with an directions during the course of its faith in such a manner as to help everexpanding circle of readers. three-centuries-long elitist career, them assimilate the different He used the Nirguniara as a on the other were the compulsions modernizing influences to their vehicle for his own self expression for mobilizing the common Sikhs historical memory and cultural and some of his major creative through their own language. By heritage. Education of the masses works such as the epic Rana Surat drawing upon the Sikh tradition of Singh, the novel Baba Naudh fascination with the theme of Bhai Vir Singh in the form of a Singh, and the lives of the Gurus widow's desperate urge for a re- fantasy of spiritual ascension. Sri Guru Nanak Chamatkar and Sri union with her dead husband. But Apart from living out her earthly Guru Kalgidhar Chamatkar were in Baba Naudh Singh this search is destiny of suffering and pain, she originally serialized in its columns. situated in a more mundane symbolized the total ethos of the setting. This makes all the Sikh people at that historical In literature, Bhai Vir Singh started difference. The narrative here is moment when they were emerging more realistic in tone, and almost out of their sense of defeat and as a writer of romances which contemporary in its appeal. Bhai despair into an era of a fresh proved to be the forerunners of the Vir Singh weaves into the narrative beginning. Punjabi novel. His writings in this numerous motifs of social reforms genre- Sundari (1898), Bijay Singh moral teaching and religious (1899), Satvant Kaur (published in Bhai Vir Singh's quest for new preaching and depicts several two parts, I in 1900 and II in 1927)- forms of expression continued. situations of intercommunal and were aimed at recreating the heroic Soon after the pubtication of Rana urban-rural confrontation. In 1905, period (eighteenth century) of Sikh Surat Singh in book form in 1919, Bhai Vir Singh started serializing history. Through these novels he he turned to shorter poems and through tracts Rana Surat Singh, made available to his readers Lyrics. In quick succession came the first Punjabi epic, written in typical models of courage, fortitude Dil Tarang (1920), Earel Tupke ( blank verse of Sirkhand, variety. and human dignity. 1921), Lahiran de Har (1921), This long narrative of over 14,000 Matak Hulare (1922), and Bijlian de lines is a striking imaginative Har (1927).

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