Kavi Santokh Singh

Kavi Santokh Singh (8 October 1787 – 19 October 1843 or 1844) was a Sikh literati, poet, hagiographer, and historian.[2][3] He is regarded as the first scholar of the Nirmala sect of Sikhism.[4]

Kavi Bhai

Santokh Singh

Ji Churamani[1]
Born8 October 1787
Sarai Nurdin, Punjab (modern-day Kila Kavi Santokh Singh, Tarn Taran district, Punjab, India)
Died19 October 1843 or 1844
Known forSikh literati
SpouseRam Kaur
Parents
  • Deva Singh (father)
  • Mai Rajadi (mother)
AwardsVillage of Morthali (land grant gifted by the ruler of Kaithal state)

Biography

Early life

Santokh Singh was born into a poor yet educated family of cloth-printers on 8 October 1787 in Nurdin village (also known as Sarai Nurdin) near Tarn Taran to the northwest.[2] His father was Deva Singh of the Karir subcaste of the Chhimba caste, and his mother was Mai Rajadi.[2][5] He had an elder brother named Gurmukh Singh.[5] He was associated with the Nirmala sect.[6] His father, Deva Singh, had been well-educated in Gurbani and Vedantic philosophy.[5] In his earliest years, his father was his mentor.[5] After that, he was educated by his uncle, Ram Singh, at Amritsar.[5] Thereafter, he was instructed by the famous Giani Sant Singh in Amritsar after an encounter with the aforementioned.[5] Until the end of the first decade of the 19th century, he had the personal bunga of his teacher, Giani Sant Singh, as his place of residence.[5] He had a strong educational basis in Sanskrit but his command of Persian was lacking.[5]

Later life

He married Ram Kaur from Jagadhari, who belonged to the Rohilla subcaste, in 1821.[5] After his time spent in Amritsar, he found employment as a katha (religious discourse) performer in the court of the chief of Dyalgarh, Bhagwant Singh, at the Buria estate, where he remained until 1823.[5] In 1829, he came under the sponsorship of the ruler of Kaithal state, Udai Singh.[5] After being impressed by his work, the ruler bestowed a jagir grant, of the village of Morthali, to the author in 1834.[5] He died on 19 October 1843 or 1844, shortly after completing his final work of literature, the Suraj Prakash, which he had presented to the Sikh clergy at the Akal Bunga in Amritsar after completion.[2][5]

Scholarly accomplishments

He expounded the Sikh scriptures based on Vedantic and Brahminical understandings.[4] He wrote the Garab Ganjani Teeka to counter the interpretation of Guru Nanak's Japji Sahib composition by the Udasi scholar Anandghan.[4][7] His magnum opus was the Suraj Prakash, completed in 1843, a volumous poetic text which documents in-detail the lives of all the Sikh gurus in fourteen volumes, intended as a sequel to his earlier work, Nanak Parkash.[8] He was the first scholar to elaborate on the Dusht Daman incarnation of Guru Gobind Singh in a previous lifetime, connected to Hemkunt, a tale narrated by the guru in his Bachittar Natak composition.[9]

Legacy

Later Sikh scholars, such as Vir Singh, would reference his literature in their own works.[9] Karam Singh was highly critical of Kavi Santokh Singh's works, specifically accusing him at taking sources at face value without questioning their historicity and veracity, such as in the case of the Bhai Bala janamsakhi tradition.[10]

Bibliography
  1. Naam Kosh (1819) - a translation of the Sanskrit dictionary, Amar Kosa, into Braj[5]
  2. Garab Ganjani Teeka (1829) - a translation of the Japji Sahib written in the Sadhukari-language[4]
  3. Balmiki Ramyan (1834) - a translation of the Valmiki Ramayana into the Braj-language[5]
  4. Atam Purayan Teeka - a commentary on the Atam Puran of Vedantic philosophy (not extant)[5]
  5. Sri Guru Nanak Parkash (popularly known simply as the Nanak Prakash; 1823) - hagiographic text about Guru Nanak based on the Bhai Bala janamsakhi tradition[11][4][8]
  6. Sri Gur Partap Suraj Uday Granth (popularly known simply as the Suraj Prakash; 1843) - hagiographic text about all the Sikh Gurus in Braj[4][12][8]

See also

References
  1. Gupta, Hari Ram (1973). History of Sikh Gurus. U. C. Kapur. p. 185.
  2. Singh, Harbans (1992–1998). The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism. Vol. 4, S–Z. Patiala: Punjabi University, Patiala. pp. 51–52. ISBN 0-8364-2883-8. OCLC 29703420.
  3. Objects of Worship in South Asian Religions: Forms, Practices and Meanings. Volume 13 of Routledge studies in Asian religion and philosophy. Knut A. Jacobsen, Mikael Aktor, Kristina Myrvold. Oxfordshire, England: Routledge. 2014. ISBN 978-1-315-77162-5. OCLC 891384284. In his Japji Sahib commentary, the nineteenth-century hagiographer Kavi Santokh Singh invokes the sword of Guru Gobind Singh alongside the one god and ten gurus.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. Singh, Pashaura (2003). "5. Nirmala Pranali". The Guru Granth Sahib: Canon, Meaning and Authority. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199087730. The origin of the Nirmala sect within the Panth is obscure, although there is some evidence that it existed during the Misal period in the late eighteenth century. There is no evidence to support the traditional claim that Guru Gobind Singh himself deputed five Sikhs to Kashi for Sanskritic learning. The first recognized Nirmala scholar was Kavi Santokh Singh, who wrote the celebrated works Nanak Prakash and Suraj Prakash in the first half of the nineteenth century. He also wrote a commentary on Japji, popularly known as Garbganjani Tika, 'A Commentary to Humble the Pride [of Udasi Anandghan].' Santokh Singh took strong exception to Anandghan's interpretation that Guru Nanak acknowledged six Gurus in a line from Japji. He was also strongly critical of the esoteric interpretation of gurbani presented in the Udasi work. It appears that the scriptural interpretation was one focus of conflict among various sects within the Panth in the nineteenth century. Like Udasis, however, the Nirmala scholars were equally inclined towards Vedantic interpretations of gurbani. They maintained that gurbani was essentially an expression of the Vedic teachings in the current vernacular language (bhakha). In his commentary on Japji, for instance, Santokh Singh frequently employed the Puranic myths and examples from the Vedas to make a point. Basically, he interpreted certain key Sikh doctrines from a brahminical perspective.
  5. Sagar, Sabinderjit Singh (1993). "1. Bhai Santokh Singh and His Times". Historical Analysis of Nanak Prakash by Bhai Santokh Singh (1st ed.). Amritsar, India: Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. pp. 10–20.
  6. Malhotra, Anshu; Murphy, Anne (2023). Bhai Vir Singh (1872–1957): Religious and Literary Modernities in Colonial and Post-Colonial Indian Punjab. Routledge Critical Sikh Studies. Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-032-26778-4. OCLC 1365386108. Despite certain differences with the Udasi sect, Nirmala scholars of the early to mid-nineteenth century such as Kavi Santokh Singh, Pandit Tara Singh Narotam, Giani Gian Singh, and Gulab Singh were equally inclined toward Vedantic interpretations of gurbani maintaining that gurbani was essentially an expression of ancient Vedic teachings in the current vernacular (Taran Singh 1980).
  7. Mandair, Arvind (2009). Shared Idioms, Sacred Symbols, and the Articulation of Identities in South Asia. Volume 11 of Routledge Studies in Religion. Vol. 11. Michael Nijhawan, Kelly Pemberton. New York: Routledge. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-203-88536-9. OCLC 1082242146.
  8. Mukherjee, Sujit (1998). A Dictionary of Indian Literature. Vol. 1. Hyderabad: Orient Longman. p. 124. ISBN 81-250-1453-5. OCLC 42718918. Gurupratap Suraj (1843; Panjabi) of Bhai Santokh Singh: a lengthy verse-narrative telling the life-stories of the nine Sikh gurus who came after Nanak Dev. It is a sequel to this poet's earlier work on the first guru's life Sri Guru Nanak Prakash (1823). The language of the work is Brajbhasha, written in Gurmukhi script; consists of 51,829 couplets and took the poet ten years to complete.
  9. Gurdwara In The Himalayas - Sri Hemkunt Sahib. M.S. Siali, Suparna Rajguru. Hemkunt Press. 2001. pp. 9–10. ISBN 9788170103080.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. Global Sikhs: Histories, Practices and Identities. Routledge Critical Sikh Studies. Opinderjit Kaur Takhar, Doris R. Jakobsh. Taylor & Francis. 2023. ISBN 978-1-000-84732-1. OCLC 1373813226. Karam Singh was highly critical of Kavi Santokh Singh (1787-1843) and Giani Gian Singh (1822-1921), two prolific writers of Sikh histories. The former, Karam Singh argued had taken the Bala Janamsakhi at face value when he wrote his biography of Guru Nanak and the latter had uncritically accepted mythical narratives when he wrote his master narrative of Sikh history in the late nineteenth century. Both Kavi Santokh Singh and Giani Gian Singh are highly respected figures in Sikh historiography and for Karam Singh to question the veracity of their narratives was unprecedented. But in questioning founding figures, Karam Singh was driving home the point home that all historical knowledge is provisional and can be subjected to critique.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  11. Singh, Bhupender (23 December 2022). Baba Nanak Shah Fakir (1st ed.). Blue Rose Publishers. p. 23. ISBN 9789357046602. 6. Nanak Prakas by Santokh Singh: This work on Guru Nanak, written in AD 1823, is based on the janamsakhi ascribed to Bala Sandhu and suffers from the same disqualifications.
  12. "Panjab Past and Present". Panjab Past and Present. Department of Punjab Historical Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala. 35 (69–70): vii. 2004.
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