On the occasion of his 119th birth anniversary Bhai Vir Singh could be evaluated from a variety of stand points. Perhaps the common ad Yet most illuminating lines of enquiry may be to essay an appraisal of his contributions as a maker of modem Punjabi literature and as poet of Punjabi renaissance To see him in his dual role is to seize the essence of his gens
Bhai Vir Singh was born on December 5, 1872 in Amritsar the city of sacredness and learning. The Punjab at that time was in ferment of new ideas. The social and cultural milieu was fast changing. A quarter century had gone by since the fall of Sikh kingdom and its substation by the British. The Punjab was the last major territory in India to become part of the English dominions. With the advent of the British the barriers broke down and the Punjab came within the orbit of the new consciousness arising in the country as a result of the introduction of \western education. One of the important consequences of the intercommunication of Western and Indian cultures was the development of indigenous languages and literatures. The stimulus for tis came from the work of Christian mission arise the English schools and colleges and orientalist who studied and discovered the beauty and richness of Indian thought and learning.
The challenge of Western science and Christian ethics and humanitarianism provoked self-examination and reinterpretation in religions. The result was a wide movement of reformation which took pronouncedly sectarian forms in the Arya Sama fundamentalism in Hinduism and Ahmadiya heresy in Islam. The more liberal expressions were the Brahma Sabha later now as Brahma Samaj founded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy in Bengal Pranthana Samaj which began in Bombay in 1867 and the teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1834-64).
For Sikhism strangely somnolent since the forfeiture of political authority this was a provocative situation. Under the new influences that had arisen it was set on a course of self-understanding. The formalism and ceremonial which had accumulated during the period of courtly power were recognized as accretions and adulterations contrary to the teachings of the Gurus. Survival was linked with the expunction of these abuses and recovery of purity of belief and usage. This spirit of resurgence was incarnated into be Singh Sabha Among other important aims of this movement was the rejuvenation of Punjabi leters. Concern with the wider motive of regeneration thought for issues of social reform patriotism universal education and quality of the sexes.
Bhai Vir Singh was one man in the Punjab who grasped the vital implications of the prevailing urges and impulses of that period. In his sensitive soul was shaped a subtle and vital response to the challenge of the time. This he verbalized with the full integrity of his intellectual and spiritual resources. Through his writings he brought about a transformation in Punjabi letters; trough his writings not poetry alone he stirred the Sikhs to anew awareness of their tradition and destiny. A sprit of enlightenment thus broke forth among the people emancipating them from the debilitating and superstitious beliefs and practices which had overgrown the simple teachings of the founding Guru Bhai Vir Singh awakened and shaped the conscience of the this neo Sikhism. He moulded a whole generation and introduced it to new modes of thought and aspiration. In recovering and reshaping the Sikh identity his task was crucial
From Bhai Vir Singh’s pen issued in a mighty flow novels poetry drama epic exegesis biography juvenile literature tract and periodical essay. Some of these forms were new to Punjabi and were introduced by him for the first time. Apart from its spiritual and social conscience which in itself was of no. small consequence this writing originating in the last decades of the nineteenth century completely changed the tenor and style of Punjabi literature. With it began anew chapter in its history. Ina very real sense modem Punjabi literature is of Bhai Vir Singh’s creation. Literary historian’s trace to him the origin of Panjabi prose novel lyric epic drama historical research biography and so on.
Classical learning was in Bhai Vir Singh’s family. His father was a widely read man in Sanskrit Braj Sikh texts and Ayurveda. His maternal grandfather Giani Hazara Singh was in the direct line of a influential school of exegesis of the sacred texts from the time of Guru Gobind Singh. “Apart from what he learnt from his father and grandfather Vir Singh was apprenticed to Giani Harbhajan Singh a leading classical scholar for Sanskrit and Sikh literature. He also attended the Amritsar Mission School from where he took his matriculation.
The school experience had an abiding influence on him. The devotion of the missionaries to evangelizing and humanitarian works the vast structure behind this under taking and the personal courtesy and humility of teachers were factors Which shaped his own responses and ideas. Apparently he reacted with some vehemence to instances of conversion of school boys as is evident from his writings. Nothing excited his sense of persiflage more than the sight of an Anglicized or Christianized Indian.
Rejecting an offer of Government appointment Bhai Vir Singh established printing press in Amritsar in 1892. The following year he founded the Khalsa Tract Society. Service to the country and of the Khalsa Panth was declared to be its objects. The accent was on disseminating the ideals of reform. The prevalent social ills and superstitions were censured. Simple values of faith and equality were preached through parable and folktale and quotations from the scripture .Most of the tracts more than 90% was from Bhai Vir Singh’s pen. The Society has survived to this day and has so far brought out more than 1300 tracts. This tract Arian movement had a high cultural potential it had a broadening impact on the Punjabi mind. I. brought maturity to Punjabi prose writing and produced an ever widening readership. Literacy improved through it and customs such as the celebrations of Gurpurb came to be established.
In 1899 Bhai Vir Singh founded his weekly newspaper the Khalsa Samachar. In the first issue brought out on the birthday anniversary of Guru Nanak on November 17 Bhai Vir Singh wrote”. This is the age of education. Education alone can raise the standard of the community. Among the means of education and of national and religious advancement the newspaper ranks very high. With a view to enhancing the prestige of our community and religion and to render true service to society the need was felt to start from this city (of Amritsar) a newspaper”.
The Khalsa Samachar one of the earliest Punjabi newspapers. Like all other institutions begun by Bhai Vir Singh it is still actively in existence. In his newspaper and tract Arian writing Bhai Vir Singh maintained a high level of literary and intellectual culture. He kept scrupulously aloof from the interreligious polemic then raging furiously. His attitude towards the faiths of other men was one of reverence. Besides Sikhism he had studied with deep care Hinduism Buddhism Christianity and Islam. About the comparative study of religions he had a definite philosophy which sounds significantly modern. As he said in a note in the Khalsa Samachar (August 5.1903).
“For understanding different religions the emphasis is not so much on points of similarity as of uniqueness. There are many things common between a cow and the buffalo but the cow and the buffalo are not one”
In 1898 Bhai Vir Singh published Sundari which waste first novel of the Punjabi language. This was a work of historical fiction. Bhai Vir Singh had probably made acquaintance of the form at school where he may have read some of the works of Sir Walter Scot. Some of the English novels were in any case then available in Urdu translation. The plot was suggested by a touching Punjabi song come down the generations on young maidens tongues. Intender notes it exhumed from the historical psyche of the people the tragic memory of innocent girls being forcibly abducted from their homes by marauding invaders in the disorderly decades of the century gone by Sundari a brave and thrilling tale was followed by two other similar novels Bijay Singh and Satwant Kaur All these three novels were stories of Sikh courage and endurance in face of severe trial and persecution.
Bhai Vir Singh’s fourth novel Baba Naudh Singh published in 1921 was set in a contemporary locale. In motivation it was not dissimilar from its historical predecessors. Baba Naudh Singh lived in village in the Punjab in more settled times. In that simple and rustic sting the hero of the novel personified Panjabi common sense mother wit and 38surance. He was an ideal Sikh character.
“To enter the imaginative world Rana Surat Singh published in 1905 is to encounter the mind and soul of Bhai Vir Singh at their subtlest and most intimate. In this epic of more than twelve thousand lines his genius and his ultimate concerns are more authentically expressed than anywhere else. In poetry he found his true and lasting meter The grand design he creates in Rana Surat Singh reveals the uncanny leap of hi sight the sustained power of his inspiration and the mystic color of his experience. The poem is unique in Panjabi literature not only forts Size and form but also for its artistic decor. Although the pm has been variously interpreted its central motif rests upon the sustained anguish and interminable quest of recognizable individual in this ease 2 young and beautiful widowed queen haunted by a sense of desolation. Rana Surat Singh Bhai Vir Singh gave shape and substance to the dignity of persona suffering. In this process Punjabi poetry became more introvert end lent itself to the expression of the private and the individual inhuman experience as distinguished from the public and collective sentiment which had still then been its mainspring.
Poetry so entirely native to his temperament did not exhaust Bhai Vir Singh’s genius. A parallel dimension in which it expressed itself assiduously and creatively was scholastics. Bhai Vir Singh commuted between the two realms with such sovereign ease and with such equally welcome and lasting results that it would be difficult to decide Whether to count him among the most learned of the poets or the most poetical among the learned. He did not write any new novels after 1907 Fiction was thus only a passing phase and he did not attempt more than one drama Raja Lakh data Singh published in 1910. But poetry and scholarship were his lifeblood and he sustained himself on these throughout his long years. In both he exhibited early interest as well as promise richly fulfilled as time passed. His place in the Punjabi poetic tradition is unassailable: So is his place in Punjabi learning. His work as annotator of old texts as lexicographer as historian will continue to command respect for the depth and maturity of his scholarship.
Vast was the size of Bhai Vir Singhs literary production. Not many authors in world literature could claim a corpus neither as voluminous as his nor as diverse a genre. This meant for him fulltime engagement the complete absorption and enlistment of his mental and spiritual powers. Yet he did not allow himself to be overwhelmed or submerged by the weight of his creation. The magnitude of his personality came Clearly through the magnitude of his output. There existed in fact a very delicate balance between his life and work .Both harmonized visibly.
Curtesy of Sikh Review
Article extracted from this publication >> January 24, 1992
