Bhai Vir Singh

Bhai Vir Singh (December 5, 1872, Amritsar, - June 10, 1957, Amritsar) was a poet, scholar and theologian and a major figure in the movement for the revival and renewal of Punjabi literary tradition. His contributions were so immense and significant that he came to be canonized as "Bhai", the Brother of the Sikh Order, very early in his career. For his pioneering work in its several different genres, he is acknowledged as the creator of modern Punjabi literature.

Early life

Born in 1872, in Amritsar, Bhai Vir Singh was the eldest of Dr. Charan Singh's three sons. The family traced its ancestry to Diwan Kaura Mal, who rose to the position of vice-governor of Multan, under Nawab Mir Mu'ln ul-Mulk, with the title of "Maharaja Bahadur". Hi grandfather, Baba Kahn Singh (1788-1878), spent his entire youth in monasteries at Haridwar and Amritsar, acquiring training in traditional Sikh learning. At the age of forty, he got married. Adept in Sanskrit and Braj as well as in the oriental systems of medicine (such as Ayurveda, Siddha and Yunani), Baba Kahn Singh passed on his interests to his only son, Dr. Charan Singh. Apart from being a Braj poet, Punjabi prose-writer, musicologist and lexicographer, Dr. Charan Singh took an active interest in the affairs of the Sikh community, then experiencing a new urge for restoration as well as for change.

In addition to this, Bhai Vir Singh's maternal grandfather, Giani Hazara Singh was a scion of a scholarly tradition that went back to the time of Guru Gobind Singh. He compiled a lexicon of the Guru Granth Sahib, and wrote a commentary on the "Vars" of Bhai Gurdas. As a schoolboy, Bhai Vir Singh used to spend a great deal of his time in the company of Giani Hazara Singh under whose guidance he not only learnt the classical and neo-classical languages, Sanskrit, Persian and Braj, but also received grounding, both theoretical and practical, in Sikh theology.

He is rightly referred to as "SIXTH RIVER" of Punjab.

The Punjab at the time of Bhai Vir Singh's birth

Bhai Vir Singh was the child of an age in ferment. The extinction of Sikh sovereignty in the Punjab, the decline in the fortunes of Sikh aristocracy, the gradual emergence of urban middle classes, the dissipation of the "national intellectual life" of the Punjab owing to the neglect and decay of indigenous education of the local people from their political destiny aroused among the Sikhs, a concern for survival and for redefining the boundaries of their faith. Further challenges arose in the shape of modernization, of Christian, Muslim and Hindu movements of proselytization and agnostic cults such as the Brahmo Samaj. Parallel to the foreboding about gradual absorption of Sikhism by the Hindu social order, emerged a powerful trend towards Braj classicism in the Sikh literary and scholarly tradition. Mythologization of the persons of the Sikh Gurus, mixing of fiction with historical fact and interweaving of Vedantic and Vaishnavite motifs into the essential Sikh teaching were its typical features. The response arose in Sikhism in the form of several movements: Nirankari(puritanism),Namdhari(militant Protestantism), Singh Sabha (revivalism and renaissance) and Panch Khalsa Diwan(aggressive fundamentalism).

Education and marriage

Bhai Vir Singh had the benefit of both the traditional indigenous learning as well as of modern English education. He learnt Sikh scripture as well as Persian, Urdu and Sanskrit. He then joined the Church Mission School, Amritsar and took his matriculation examination in 1891. At school, the conversion of some of the students proved a crucial experience which strengthened his own religious conviction. From the Christian missionaries' emphasis on literary resources, he learnt how efficacious the written word could be as a means of informing and influencing a person's innermost being. Through his English courses, he acquired familiarity with modern literary forms, especially short lyric. While still at school, Bhai Vir Singh was married at the age of seventeen to Chatar Kaur, the daughter of Narain Singh of Amritsar.

Literary career

Beginnings

Unlike the educated young men of his time, Bhai Vir Singh was not tempted by prospects of a career in government service. He chose the profession of a writer. A year after his passing the matriculation examination, he set up a lithograph press in collaboration with Bhai Wazir Singh, a friend of his father. As his first essays in the literary field, Bhai Vir Singh composed some Geography textbooks for schools.

Awards

He was honored with the Sahitya Academy Award in 1955 and the Padam Bhushan Award in 1956

Language as a means for preserving cultural identity

Bhai Vir Singh stressed that:

*The unique nature of Sikhism could be nourished and sustained by creating an awakening amongst the Sikhs of the awareness of their distinct theological and cultural identity.
*He aimed at reorienting the Sikhs' understanding of their faith in such a manner as to help them assimilate the different modernizing influences to their historical memory and cultural heritage.

Education of the masses was the first requirement for the fulfilment of these objectives. In the meanwhile, the old educational system which had till then served as a channel for communication of the traditional knowledge to the youth of the community had broken down with the withdrawal, under British dispensation, of state patronage to indigenous institutions. Bhai Vir Singh through his single-minded cultivation of the Punjabi language as the medium of his theological, scholarly and creative work, resolved the cultural dilemma which the Sikhs faced at the turn of the century. In this writing lay the beginnings of modern Punjabi prose.

Works

Bhai Vir Singh began taking an active interest in the affairs of the Singh Sabha Movement. To promote its aims and objects, he launched the Khalsa Tract Society in 1894. The tracts produced by the Khalsa Tract Society introduced a down-to-earth literary Punjabi, remarkable for lightness of touch as well as for freshness of expression.

The Khalsa Tract Society periodically made available under the title "Nirguniara", lowcost publications on Sikh theology, history and philosophy and on social and religious reform. Through this journal, Bhai Vir Singh established contact with an ever-expanding circle of readers. He used the Nirguniara as a vehicle for his own self expression. Some of his major creative works such as "Sri Guru Nanak Chamatkar" and "Sri Guru Kalgidhar Chamatkar", were originally serialized in its columns. In literature, Bhai Vir Singh started as a writer of romances which proved to be the forerunners of the Punjabi novel. His writings in this genre - "Sundari" (1898), "Bijay Singh" (1899), "Satwant Kaur" (published in two parts, I in 1900 and II in 1927), were aimed at recreating the heroic period (eighteenth century) of Sikh history. Through these novels he made available to his readers, models of courage, fortitude and human dignity.

The novel "Subhagji da Sudhar Hathin Baba Naudh Singh", popularly known as "Baba Naudh Singh" (serialized in Nirguniara from 1907 onwards and published in book form in 1921) shares with the epic "Rana Surat Singh" (which he had started serializing in 1905), Bhai Vir Singh's fascination with the theme of a widow's desperate urge for a reunion with her dead husband.

Soon after the publication of Rana Surat Singh in book form in 1919, he turned to shorter poems and Lyrics. These included "Dil Tarang" (1920), "Tarel Tupke" (1921), "Lahiran de Har" (1921), "Matak Hulare" (1922), "Bijlian de Har" (1927) and "Mere Salan Jio" (1953). Through these works, he paved the way for the emergence of the Punjabi poem.

Even the first play written in Punjabi, "Raja Lakhdata Singh" (1910) came from the pen of Bhai Vir Singh.

In November 1899, he started a Punjabi weekly, the "Khalsa Samachar". He revised and enlarged Giani Hazara Singh's dictionary, "Sri Guru Granth Kosh", originally published in 1898. The revised version was published in 1927. He published critical editions of some of the old Sikh texts such as "Sikhan di Bhagat Mala" (1912), "Prachin Panth Prakash" (1914), "Puratan Janam Sakhi" (1926) and "Sakhi Pothi" (1950).

Monumental in size and scholarship was his annotation of Bhai Santokh Singh's magnum opus, "Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth", published from 1927 to 1935 in fourteen volumes covering 6668 pages.

Demise

After Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth, Bhai Vir Singh began work on what would prove to be his last project. This was a detailed commentary on the Guru Granth Sahib. He devoted himself unsparingly to the commentary, but it remained unfinished. A lifetime of unrelieved hard work and the weight of advancing years began to tell at last . In early 1957, signs of fatigue and weakness appeared. He was taken ill with a fever and died at his home in Amritsar on June 10, 1957. The portion of the commentary - nearly one half of the Holy Book - he had completed was published posthumously in seven large volumes.

References

*http://www.sikh-history.com/sikhhist/personalities/literature/veer.html
*"Encyclopaedia of Sikhism" edited by Harbans Singh.
*"Bhai Vir Singh: Life, Times and Works" by Gurbachan Singh Talib and Attar Singh, ed., Chandigarh, 1973
*"Bhai Vir Singh" by Harbans Singh, Delhi, 1972
*"Bhai Vir Singh: Poet of the Sikhs" by Harbans Singh and Gurbachan Singh Talib