Among all the 10
gurus of the Sikhs only Baba Nanak was born
in west Punjab where the Lehnda dialect of
Punjabi is spoken and which has produced the
best Punjabi poetry in old and modern times.
Only Baba Nanak visited the extreme eastern
parts of India and on the western side he
travelled upto Makkah and in Baghdad he met
one of his teachers , Shah Murad, and one of
his junior contemporaries, Shah Behlol, the
mentor of Lahore's sufi poet and
non-conformist mystic, Shah Husain. Both the
teacher and the disciple were poets and
whatever they wrote was in western Punjabi.
Both were brought up against a background
common to Baba Nanak.
Some of the most stirring incidents in Baba
Nanak's life are related to places in west
Punjab like Hasan Abdal, Eimanabad, Nankana
Sahib (his birthplace from where he received
his education from a learned Muslim scholar,
Syed Hasan), Khanewal and Diwan Chawali
Mashaikh (Vehari) and Manzoorpura in Narowal
district on the right bank of the river Ravi
where he died in 1539, the year Shah Husain
was born in Lahore. Because of the damage
caused by floods, the Sikhs had abandoned
the original spot where Nanak's shrine was
and had moved it to the left bank of the
river now in district Gurdaspur.
Baba Nanak was much inspired by the poetry
of the sufis and he not only collected the
poetry of the 12-13th century poet Baba
Farid of Pakpattan but also included it in
his compilation, later known as the Grant
Sahib, from which the pieces included in
the book under review have been taken.
It was during his last journey that Baba
Nanak was captured by the invading forces of
the emperor Babar. Though he was released by
Babar himself, Nanak wrote a wonderful piece
on that barbarous attack and the human
miseries that followed.
The tresses that adorned
these lovely heads
And were parted with vermilion,
Have been shorn with cruel shears
Desecration and desolation
Follow in the footsteps Of
the great Mughal Babar.
None, none in Hindustan,
can eat his supper in peace
For the Muslim woman
The hour of prayer is past
For the Hindu The time of
worship is gone.
And Nanak, how completely
helpless Mere men are.
This and another piece about the Mughal
invasions, though very beautiful, have not
been translated by Khushwant Singh who is an
authority on the Sikh religion and its
history. This book includes poetry pieces of
five other Gurus but out of the total 222
pages, 146 go to Baba Nanak whose poetry has
been translated into English by many Sikh
and non-Sikh translators. One such
translation was done by Prof J.R. Puri, head
of the department of philosophy, Punjabi
University, Patiala, and the book was
published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Dera
Baba Jaimal Singh in 1982.
Both Puri and Khushwant Singh have
translated a number of pieces that are
common and there are similarities found in
both the translators' works.
Khushwant:
Beyond comprehension,
without end Beyond reach
beyond description
Immortal, beyond cause
and effect Beyond the pale
of caste and castelessness
Beyond the cycle of life,
death and rebirth Self existent
and alone Without
desire, without delusion.
Puri:
Unknowable is my Lord,
without end Unfathomable
is He, beyond
description Immortal,
beyond cause and effect
Beyond the pale of caste
and castelessness Beyond
the cycle of life, death and
rebirth Self existent and
alone Without desire,
without delusion.
There is another translation of Bara Mah.
Khushwant's translation is:
If the husband comes not home, how can a
wife
Find peace of mind?
Sorrows of separation waste away the body
The koel calls in the mango grove,
Its notes are full of joy.
The Chet Puri version is:
If the husband comes not home
How can a wife find peace of mind?
The sorrows of separation wastes away her
body.
The koel calls in the mango grove,
Her notes are full of joy
In Khushwant's view the language used by the
Sikh gurus was Punjabi of the 15th and the
16th century. That is not correct. Punjabi
of that time was used by Shah Husain. The
entire work is set to metres of classical
Indian music in which the hymns had been
arranged. The copy with the viewer is
without 16 pages (161-176) which speak of
the standards of quality control of the
publisher. |
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