Bhai Vir Singh and the Puratan Panth Parkash
Bhai Vir Singh, a prominent Sikh writer and scholar, edited not only the work of Bhai Santokh Singh – Suraj Parkash – but also the Panth Parkash (Puratan) by Bhai Ratan Singh Bhanggu. Over the years, so many attempts have been made by some writers to prove Bhai Vir Singh wrong. The reason behind that was his knowledge of the Sikh Religion and the acceptance of his writing among many old and modern Sikhs. His editing of Suraj Parkash is troublesome for some people because he extensively used the footnotes wherever anti-Gurmat stories were there to deny their truthfulness.
The new accusation levied against Bhai Vir Singh was that he changed few words in Puratan Panth Parkash, like interchanging Hindu word with a Sikh word, implying Bhai Ratan Singh Bhanggu had this conception that Sikhs were Hindu but it’s going against the writing of Bhai Vir Singh, so he changed it. This is a very big accusation.
While editing the work of Bhai Santokh Singh, Bhai Vir Singh writes that people asked him to remove the anti-Gurmat stories, but it’s decided not to. If he didn’t change then, why Ratan Singh Bhanggu’s work?
During the translation of the mangals, some people’s suggestion came to me that the anti-Gurmat parts should be removed from this scripture and new ones should be added. But this work of removing some parts from the source and adding new, didn’t seem right to me. This is the worst thing in the world of literature. Because of this the books of the famous writers aren’t in the original form. Mannu Smriti, from Balmiki Ramayana to the Persian book, it becomes impossible to segregate the fake from original. See in our own religion: at the time of the fifth Sikh Guru, many verses were created in the name of Guru Nanak Dev ji and the originals were changed and disseminated. For this reason, the fifth Sikh Guru combined all the original work in the granth in 1661 Bikarmi, and restricted not to add/remove anything. At that time, the Guru had many sources to make a difference between a fake and original, and the power of analysing the spiritual things he already had. If the Guru hadn’t done that, then it would have been impossible to separate fake from the original. For this reason, I have decided not to add or remove anything from any work. After this discussion, it’s decided that the original work should be kept as it is, nothing should be added or removed; but in the footnotes it should be mentioned that the poet wrote it correctly but the readers misunderstand them; wherever the poet made a mistake, it should be corrected in the footnotes. Also, the fake, corrected verses, and the difference of the words among the different copies should be written.[1]
This was the integrity of Bhai Vir Singh. If he wrote the footnotes in detail about the anti-Gurmat stuff in Suraj Parkash, he would have done the same when it comes to the Puratan Panth Parkash rather than changing the words.
Now the question is: did he really change something? Or the work that he was editing had the different copies available? There’re three different editions of the Puratan Panth Parkash: Bhai Vir Singh’s, Dr Jeet Singh Seetal’s, and Balwant Singh Dhillon’s. Balwant Singh Dhillon shed some light about the controversy of Bhai Vir Singh’s Panth Parkash and how he couldn’t have been blamed for this:
By analysing the hand-written copies, it seems like Bhai Vir Singh omitted the stories from Shri Gur Panth Parkash which’re against Gurmat and history while editing the work. Similarly, the verses of some of the stories don’t match with the handwritten scriptures. There’re examples of the different numbering at the end of the verses also. Some of the differences which’re seen from the perspective of religion and history are respectful and important. From these differences, Dr Harinder Singh Chopra didn’t just raise a question in his analysis about the editing skills of Bhai Vir Singh but also levelled the accusation against him that he didn’t give the complete scripture. For the easy understanding of the readers, Bhai Vir Singh’s editing skills are also questioned. Because the purpose of Dr Chopra was to analyse the editing skills of Bhai Vir Singh, that’s why he didn’t pay attention to the correct verses of Shri Gur Panth Parkash. For the aforementioned reasons, Shri Gur Panth Parkash’s verses seem to be questionable. This raised the question about its historical importance. For this reason, there’s a need to bring out a new copy of Shri Gur Panth Parkash from the scratch to give in a correct form.
As it’s said before, Bhanggu wrote that he wrote two Panth Parkash in 1841 at Amritsar. Were these two different scriptures or the copy of the same? If these were different, then which one reached in our hands? Which one is the oldest one? What’s the difference between the two? Did Bhanggu edit his work during his lifetime? Among the handwritten scriptures and Bhai Vir Singh’s, there are many differences. The question is: Did Bhai Vir Singh have the scripture that didn’t reach us?[2]
Bhai Vir Singh’s work would be discredited in future as well. What we need to look into is his books and his analytical skills before believing heresy. Some ‘Sikhs’ in Canada also blamed Bhai Vir Singh for the addition of Ragmaala in Guru Granth Sahib that how on his command this was added in the Granth, another heresy. For decades, the Sikhs have gone back to the writing of Bhai Vir Singh to understand the historical and philosophical aspects of the Sikh Religion. From his young days to his last days, his pen never stopped pouring out the Truth that he realised in his life, and that Truth is still resonating in his books.