Bhai Kahn Singh was a celebrated scholar and encyclopedist, born on August 30 1861 CE at the village of Sabaz Banera, in what then used to be the territory of the princely Sikh State of Patiala. His father was Narain Singh and mother Har Kaur. Narain Singh was a man of saintly character and he succeeded to the charge of Gurdwara Dera Baba Ajapal Singh at Nabha, after the death of his grandfather, Sarup Singh, in 1861. Kahn Singh was the eldest of three brothers and one sister. He did not attend any formal school or college for education, yet he mastered several branches of learning through traditional education. By the age of ten he could recite with ease the Guru Granth Sahib. He read Sanskrit classics from Pundits in and around Nabha and learnt music from a famous Sikh musician, Mahant Gajja singh. He sought Maulavis in Delhi to teach him Persian. In 1883, he went to Lahore where during his two-year stay, he studied Persian texts and assisted Professor Gurmukh Singh, a leading figure in the Singh Sabha, in the publication of his Sudharak. In 1887, he was appointed tutor to Tikka Ripudaman Singh, the heir apparent of Sikh State of Nabha. From the Maharaja's private secretary to judge of the High Court, he held several different positions in the state, serving for a brief interregnum, 1915-17, in the neighbouring State of Patiala.

In 1885, he had a chance meeting with Max Arthur Macauliffe which led to a life-long friendship. Macauliffe depended a great deal on his advice and guidance in the work he was then doing on Sikh scriptures and on the history of early Sikhism. He took him along to England when his 6-volume The Sikh Religion was in print at the Clarendon Press. Such was his admiration for Bhai Kahn Singh that he assigned to him the copyright of the book.

From among Bhai Kahn Singh's numerous works, Gurshabad Ratanakar Mahan Kosh (1930), the first encyclopaedia of Sikhism, will remain a permanent monument to his unmatched industry and erudition. His maiden work Raj Dharam (1884), written at the instance of Maharaja Hira Singh of Nabha. In 1898, he published Hum Hindu Nahin in response to the Arya Samaj propaganda that Sikhs were just a sect of Hindus. This small book set forth forcefully the Sikh standpoint with regard to Sikh identity. The Gurmat Prabhakar, a glossary of Sikh terminology, concepts and institutions, was published in 1898, and Gurmat Sudhakar, an anthology of important Sikh texts, scriptural and historical, in 1899. His Gur Chand Divakar (1924) and Gur Sabad Alankar (1925) deal primarily with rhetoric and prosody employed in Guru Granth Sahib and some other Sikh texts. His Gur Girah Kasauti answers some of the questions raised by his pupil, Tikka Ripudaman Singh, about the meanings of certain hymns in the Guru Granth Sahib, and his Sharab Nikhedh (1907) is a didactic work stressing the harmful effects of drinking. Among his other works are teekas or exegeses of Jaimant Assamedh (1896), Visnu Purana (1903), Sadd and Chandi di Var (1935). From among his works which were published posthumously, Gurmat Martand (2 volumes) which essentially follows the format of his earlier Gurmat Prabhakar but includes much more explanatory material was published in 1960. A travelogue was published in 1984.

Bhai Kahn Singh lived his life totally immersed in his scholarly pursuits, yet his influence transcended the bounds he had created around himself. From the privacy of his study, he continued to enrich contemporary Sikh life in its diverse aspects. A man of aristocratic bearing, he had sharp, chiselled features. He had the interests of an aesthete and loved art, flowers and music. In several spheres, he was the arbiter of taste through his writings, he subtly moulded the course of Sikh awakening at the turn of the century. On latter-day Sikh learning, he has left a permanent imprint. Bhai Kahn Singh died at Nabha on 24 November 1938.