ABOUT COMPILATION OF SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB
By Sahib Singh Translated by Dalip Singh
Lok Sahit Parkashan, 186 Green Avenue, Amritsar, India, 1996.
Pages : 271; Price : Rs 500, $50.00

Professor Sahib Singh's name is well known to those who have even a modicum of serious interest in gurbani grammar and exegesis. His careful analyses and rigorous logic have formed the gold standard by which other scholarly writings are often measured. But all of his original works are in Punjabi and, therefore, not available to the increasing numbers of Western scholars. The Sikhs of the Diaspora, too, are less comfortable in following his intricate analysis in Punjabi.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the early history of Sikh Canonical writings. From the time of Guru Nanak in the fifteenth century to the era of Guru Arjan in the seventeenth, and finally to its installation as the Guru in early eighteenth century, how were the writings in the Guru Granth collated and edited? Don't forget that several Gurus and many more saints and poets of the time contributed to the Guru Granth. Early copies were handwritten by scribes, the printing process did not exist.

Professor Sahib Singh in this work originally published in 1970,and Dalip Singh in this translation, deal very effectively with the textual differences between the Adi Granth and its other recensions, particularly Bhai Banno's. The authorship and content, often spurious, of Puratan Janam Sakhis are competently explored. How was extraneous matter added to the Guru Granth and under what circumstances is also well presented. It is a riveting story.

Translations have their own inherent difficulties. The translator needs to be equally at home with the structure, idiom and culture of each language, and even with the intricacies of the subject itself.

Dalip Singh's translation is quite adequate, if not always graceful. Sahib Singh's prose in Punjabi is marked by an easy flow, which is not always possible to capture. Some minor glitches appear in translation. For example, Dalip Singh (p. 23) translates Giani Gian Singh as saying "He (Guru Arjan) arrived at the conclusion that a religion and its followers are sustained on the basis of their sacred book alone." On comparing with the original it seems that the word "alone" should not be there. I point this out because the word seems to add emphasis where there is none. The meaning of the text may thus be altered, even though unintentionally. On page 25, "sahitak" is translated as "cultural". I wonder if the meaning would be closer to "literary." Even though the translation is largely correct, an occasional awkwardness of style intrudes, such as from page 88: "Let us have deeper thinking of this problem."

The whole of page 90 constitutes one single paragraph, which does not make the reader's job any easier. (Sahib Singh's original text is free of such irritating features.) There are extensive quotations from epic poetry of Suraj Parkash. But don't look for verse in translation. It is rendered in serviceable prose and summarized. In defense of Dalip Singh, I must say that translation of Suraj Parkash is a few shades beyond difficult, and I am grateful for the adequate prose.

Pages 196-197 present stories of "Boons and Curses" which run into a hymn of Guru Nanak without indicating where one ends and the other begins. Pages 234-242 of the Punjabi text do not appear in the translation, but then that material does not pertain to the compilation of the Guru Granth. Some typos were noted, particularly in the last appendix, but they were few.

Some chapters have been rearranged but, in translation, Dalip Singh hews faithfully to the original. Three appendices have been added; they are a summary of the book, biographical sketch of Sahib Singh, and finally a commentary on the Sikh religion. Of these the most intriguing was the note on Professor Sahib Singh. Most readers would not know that he was born a Hindu "Nathu Ram" in a very impoverished family where an aunt had to pawn her jewelry so that he could attend school. He became a Sikh while still in school at his own initiative. He was the founder of perhaps the first seminar series on gurbani where Sikhs undertook to parse the history, grammar and meaning of gurbani. The third appendix - A Brief Note on Sikhism - presents not a historical narrative of the religion but rather a philosophic overview of some of its concepts and underpinnings.

My first reaction was to the title of the book. Sahib Singh's "Adi Birh Barre" has been translated as "About Compilation of Guru Granth." True that the Adi Granth compiled by Guru Arjan in 1604 forms the main body of the Guru Granth. However, the Guru Granth installed by Guru Gobind Singh as the Guru of the Sikhs a hundred years later differs from the Adi Granth at least in one major detail - the writings of Guru Tegh Bahadur are not found in the Adi Granth. This distinction is often lost but should it be ?

The book carries a foreword by Professor Noel Q. King and Dr. Darshan Singh Bhatia of Atlanta assisted with the translation.

Dalip Singh's connections with Professor Sahib Singh were long-standing; Sahib Singh rightly acknowledged the encouragement of Dalip Singh in his ten-volume magnum opus "Siri Guru Granth Sahib Darpan" which remains the definitive exposition of the mysteries of the sacred writings of the Sikhs.

Dalip Singh has rendered a labor of love in his translation of this classic work from Punjabi into English. It makes fascinating reading and will prove important to scholars of Sikhism who need to peruse their sources in English.


Dr. Inder Jit Singh is Professor & Co-ordinator in Anatomy, New York University. Among other publications, he is the author of two books: 'Sikhs and Sikhism: A View With a Bias' and 'The Sikhs Way: A Pilgrims Progress'.

I.J. Singh is on the editorial advisory board of 'The Sikh Review', Calcutta and 'The Encyclopedia of Sikhism', Punjabi University, Patiala.