Sikhan di Bhagatmala, dated between the 1730s and 1780s, is said to record Bhai Mani Singh’s (d. 1737) explanations of the prominent Sikhs mentioned by Bhai Gurdas (1551-1636) in his eleventh var, an ode or ballad.¹ Among these accounts is a sakhi (witnessed-narrative) about a Sikh named Bhai Harvans Tapa. Bhai Harvans was said to help run a Dharamsal, the original term for the Gurduara, a Sikh place of worship and learning. He fed hungry Sikhs and gave tired passersbys a place to rest. Every morning at amritvela, or the ambrosial hours of the early morning before sunrise, he would read from the Adi Granth (the first recension of Guru Granth Sahib), and later in the morning, he would read Bhai Gurdas's compositions. Other Sikhs questioned whether it was right to be reading Bhai Gurdas’s Bani (wisdom, utterances) in addition to Bani from the Adi Granth. They argued that Bani other than what was revealed in by the Guru Sahibs was prohibited. To answer the Sikhs’ question, Bhai Harvans Tapa asked in an ardas (supplication) to Guru Arjan Sahib if Bhai Gurdas’s Bani could be read. The Guru is said to have responded: “The ignorant ones claimed relation and have uttered [their own] Banis and did not take the shade of Guru’s Sabad (Infinite Wisdom; excerpts from the Bani of Guru Granth Sahib), those Banis have been forbidden, but know that Bhai [Gurdas] Ji’s Bani is Sabad’s tika (explanation).”² According to Sikhan di Bhagatmala, the Guru explains that the Bani of someone fully merged with the Guru’s Sabad should, without doubt, be read.

This sakhi shows that Bhai Gurdas's Bani holds a distinct place in Sikh practice and history. Bhai Harvans Tapa is said to have read Bhai Gurdas’s Bani after Adi Granth Sahib, presumably to supplement his amritvela encounter with Bani as the day wore on. The Sikhs’ concern about the advisability of reading Bhai Gurdas’s writing as Bani is entirely rational, as rival groups vied to have their writing given the status of Bani. Importantly, the Guru is said to have authenticated Bhai Gurdas’s verses not as Sabad, but as instructive Bani that could help Sikhs cultivate their own relationship with the Guru’s Sabad. 

This sakhi is often cited when discussing Bhai Gurdas. While the word tika, explanation or commentary, appears in published versions of Sikhan di Bhagatmala, Guru Arjan Sahib is often said to have described Bhai Gurdas’s writings as a “key” to understanding Bani.³ The key metaphor is powerful. If Guru Arjan Sahib’s mundavani (seal or riddle) authenticates the physical form of the Guru Granth Sahib, then this sakhi seems to offer his Sikhs a tool to break the seal, or solve the riddle, with the help of a Sikh who has completely merged with the Guru’s Sabad. Bhai Gurdas’s writings guide Sikhs as they develop their own relationship with the Sabad. While only the Guru Granth Sahib contains authenticated Gurbani, the writings of an exemplary Sikh who studied Bani deeply could help other Sikhs develop their own love for Sabad.

Bhai Gurdas was a significant figure whose life intersected with the Guruships of Guru Amardas Sahib through Guru Harirai Sahib.⁴ He is celebrated for helping compile the Adi Granth Sahib under Guru Arjan Sahib. Alongside Baba Buddha, he was one of the earliest caretakers of Akal Takht Sahib in Amritsar and was left in charge of the institution when Guru Harigobind Sahib was imprisoned.⁵ His writings, which include his Panjabi vars and his Braj savaiye, demonstrate his familiarity with Panjabi, Braj, Persian, and Sanskrit. They also reveal his deep engagement with Sabad. As suggested by the sakhi from Sikhan di Bhagatmala described above, in the context of competing claims to Guruship by Prithi Chand and his followers, Bhai Gurdas advanced an understanding of Guru Nanak Sahib’s way as distinct, variously referred to as “Nanak’s Panth, Gursikhi, Gurmukh Panth, the true Panth.⁶

Bhai Gurdas’s writings do not generally record Sikh history. However, by the time Bhai Gurdas emerged as a Sikh of Guru Ramdas Sahib in 1579, a century of Sikh history had already unfolded, and his assertion of the distinct Panth of Guru Nanak Sahib laid claim to a certain history: the inauguration of Guru Nanak Sahib’s Raj (Rule) and its subsequent succession in the form of Guru Angad Sahib through Guru Harigobind Sahib. As such, Bhai Gurdas’s vars do contain some crucial historical information, even as it may be secondary to his explanatory purposes. For example, his first var recounts Guru Nanak Sahib’s travels, his settlement at Kartarpur, and his encounters with the Nath Yogis and the Qazis and Pirs of Mecca and Baghdad.⁷ Beginning with Guru Nanak Sahib’s appointment of Bhai Lahina as Guru Angad Sahib, Bhai Gurdas also describes the succession of Guruship from Guru Nanak Sahib through Guru Harigobind Sahib. Gurtej Singh refers to the vars as offering a “spiritual biography” of the Guruship. After all, for Bhai Gurdas, the succession of embodied Gurus is the unbroken conveyance of the Sabad across time. Bhai Gurdas uses multiple metaphors to describe succession of the Guruship, each of which emphasizes the continual flow of Sabad as the substance of succession of Guru Nanak Sahib’s Raj: Guru Angad Sahib is to Guru Nanak Sahib as a wave is to the River Ganges.⁸ Guru Angad Sahib is the fruit of amrit (Immortal Nectar) borne from the tree of amrit that was Guru Nanak Sahib.⁹ Just as multiple forms of cloth can be woven from cotton, the embodied Guru is one of the many displays of the ultimate Sovereign, Brahm.¹⁰ Most directly, Bhai Gurdas describes the procession of Guruship in the language of lineage, showing that succession rests on something other than genealogy. In fact, despite not being biologically descended from Guru Nanak Sahib, Bhai Gurdas refers to Guru Arjan Sahib as the son of Guru Ramdas Sahib, who is referred to as the son of Guru Amardas Sahib, who is the son of Guru Angad Sahib, who is the son of Guru Nanak Sahib.¹¹

Bhai Gurdas shows us that the history of the embodied Gurus is the history of Guru Nanak Sahib’s lineage, which illuminated the world with the light of Sabad. Guru Nanak Sahib’s lineage unfolded through time in the form of the embodied Gurus, but time, which ages the body and transforms social and political conditions, did not constrain Guru Nanak Sahib’s Raj, which continued to flow through the Gurus that succeeded Guru Nanak Sahib. Though Bhai Gurdas narrates succession only up to Guru Harigobind Sahib, we can extend his framework through Guru Gobind Singh and the ultimate granting of Guruship to the Guru Granth and Guru Khalsa Panth. 

Whereas historical analysis might demand that we place each embodied Guru in their own historical context, accounting for how the world they entered both enabled and constrained their work, Bhai Gurdas’s insistence on the unbroken lineage of Sabad as characterizing the succession of Guruship lets us ask different questions. While we may account for the Gurus’ lives and backgrounds, understanding them to have emerged onto the scene of history through a particular set of social and political circumstances, including their family backgrounds and the character of state, economy, and society in which they entered the world, we ought to foremost understand them as contributors to the unbroken lineage of Guru Nanak Sahib. Further, the lineage in which they contributed was one concerned with both Raj and Jog (union or connection), and therefore not simply historical in the sense of being situated in time, but also theological and political.¹² Conveyed through Sabad, this lineage was never limited to the constraints of the present. However, Bhai Gurdas shows how we can impose the temporary constraints of time to investigate the earliest centuries of Guru Nanak Sahib’s Raj.

References

¹    Bhai Mani Singh was a prominent Sikh of Guru Gobind Singh Sahib’s whose family was famously dedicated to the Sikh Panth. Bhai Mani Singh was the scribe for the final recension of Guru Granth Sahib, the Damdami Bir, and was appointed by Mata Sundari and Mata Sahib Kaur as the caretaker of the Harimandar Sahib Complex. Both the Gian Ratnavali (a janamsakhi of Guru Nanak Sahib) and Sikhan di Bhagatmala are associated with Bhai Mani Singh, but were likely written by his students and not by him directly. Bhai Mani Singh’s birth date is debated in the scholarship. The date of his martyrdom is known. The critical edition of Sikhan di Bhagatmala is Bhai Mani Singh, Bhai Mani Singh Racita: Sikhān dī Bhagatmālā (Adhiain ate Sampadan), edited by Dharam Chand Vatish (Ludhiana: Lahore Book Shop, 1979). 

²     This is a translation of the sakhi as it appears in the critical edition of Sikhan di Bhagatmala edited by Dharam Chand Vatish.

³     The word tika appears in both the critical edition edited by Vatish and the edition edited by Bhai Vir Singh, which first appeared in 1912. 

⁴     Bhai Gurdas met the future Guru Harirai Sahib before he became Guru, as Guru Sahib was born in 1630.

⁵     For more on the known biographical information on Bhai Gurdas, see Rattan Singh Jaggi, “Bhai Gurdas,” Encyclopedia of Sikhism, ed. Harbans Singh (Punjabi University, Patiala, 1992).

⁶     Gurtej Singh, “Bhai Gurdas on Guru Nanak and His Mission,” Sikh Review (1972), 8. Panth refers to a collective or community. Gursikhi refers to Sikhi of the Guru. Gurmukh refers to Guru-centered beings.

⁷     After introducing Guru Nanak Sahib, in his first var, Bhai Gurdas describes Guru Nanak Sahib’s encounters with the religious authorities of the major religious traditions prevalent in Northern India at the time. Guru Nanak Sahib engages in debate and discussion with the Nath Yogis, the Siddhs, at both Sumer Parbat (Mount Meru) and Achal Batala. He also engages in discourse with Islamic religious authorities in Mecca, Baghdad and Multan. These episodes constitute much of the first var.

⁸     See Var 24, Pauri 5. For all references to vars in this essay, see the critical edition edited by Gursharan Kaur Jaggi. Bhai Gurdas Bhalla, Vārāṅ Bhai Gurdās (Sampādan Ate Paṭh Nirdhāraṇ), ed. Gursharan Kaur Jaggi (Publication Bureau Punjabi University, 1999).

⁹     See Var 24, Pauri 8.

¹⁰    See Var 24, Pauri 11. Brahm refers not to Brahma but rather to the Divine, IkOankar, as the Supreme Being.

¹¹    See Var 24, Pauri 19.

‍¹²    The phrase “raj jog” appears in the Var 24, Pauri 14: “ਰਾਗ ਦੋਖ ਨਿਰਦੋਖੁ ਹੈ ਰਾਜੁ ਜੋਗ ਵਰਤੈ ਵਰਤਾਰਾ,” which can be translated to “Free from attachment and vices, raj-jog are dispersed by the pervader.” This phrase also appears in the savaiye in praise of the Gurus. For example, in the savaiye in praise of Guru Nanak Sahib by Bhatt Kalyasahar Ji, Guru Nanak Sahib is repeatedly referred to as the one who enjoyed both raj and jog. For a full translation of the Bhatt Kalya Ji’s savaiye in praise of Guru Nanak Sahib, see The Guru Granth Sahib Project.