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Interesting Websites On Early Panjabi Manuscripts In The Uk


amardeep

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http://www.punjabimanuscripts.org/Index.aspx

There are nearly 500 important manuscripts written in the Punjabi language in various UK public collections. These manuscripts undoubtedly hold a great deal of interest for the UK’s Punjabi community. Their existence pays tribute to the cultural remnants of Punjab’s pre-modern medicinal, theological, poetical and religious literature, as well its highly developed scribal and artistic traditions.

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Found this description:

Author:

Nathmal

Title:

Rajnit Chanaka

Folios:

12v-19v

Notes:

The text is a verse translation in eight adhyays by the Brahman Nathmal of the Sanskrit Rajnit of Chanakya; the translation states that it was completed in S 1827 (1770-71 CE)

Looks like our people were showing an interest in political science even back then. O, how we have fallen.....

Edited by dalsingh101
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Something quite superstitious attributed to Guru Amardas ji???

Guru Amar Das (attributed)

Title:

A text on auspicious days

Folios:

26r-27r

Notes:

The text begins ‘sri guru amar das ji ka bolna’ and contains instructions on auspicious actions to undertake before travelling on the different days of the week, directions that are inauspicious to travel in on different days, and days on which bathing and putting on new clothes are auspicious or inauspicious; the colophon gives the name of the scribe as Tara Singh

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When the centre of the faith was more urban, it seems to have valued literature and learning more.

Today we associate Sikhs with pendu rustics who don't really have much interest in literary pursuits, but all of the manuscripts in your link show that this is a relatively new development.

Edited by dalsingh101
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http://www.punjabimanuscripts.org/Index.aspx

There are nearly 500 important manuscripts written in the Punjabi language in various UK public collections. These manuscripts undoubtedly hold a great deal of interest for the UK’s Punjabi community. Their existence pays tribute to the cultural remnants of Punjab’s pre-modern medicinal, theological, poetical and religious literature, as well its highly developed scribal and artistic traditions.

i hope there planning on uploading the manuscripts online.

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i hope there planning on uploading the manuscripts online.

Can you read the older stuff where the words aren't separated?

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Amardeep ji

Punjabdigital library site is great. I urge everyone to sign up. You can view eevry page of many granths including, suraj parkash, various janamsakhi's ie bhai bala ji, bhai mani singh ji etc. These are all handwritten granths written in larivar(no spaces between word) form. The handwriting is just beautiful.

However the best collections they have are of puratan saroops's of Guru Granth Sahib ji.

I now try to read as much bani in larivar as possible. Its difficult at first but I assure you its well worth the effort. Its hard to explain but you get more rass reading from larivar. Sign up, then just search for 'guru granth' then click on manuscripts. Its interesting how different the akhars look in handwritten saroops as compared to online akhars such as sikhitothemax. Writing full saroop of Guru Granth sahib is no easy task, making sure you get each laga matra right. The likharis of Guru Granth Sahib maharaj deserve great respect.

Punjab digital library have done a great job. However the site hasn't been updated in a while. It could be due to financial issues. I hope they continue with their work. It would be awesome if they could digitise the kartarpuri bir.

The british library currently has a 17th century Guru Granth Sahib:

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/other/033ori000002748u00031v00.html

If you zoom onto first page you can see that the word denda has a bindi above it, yet in modern printed saroops the bindi is not there. Unfortunately due the haste of sgpc wanting to print saroops of maharaj, they failed to do enough research into old handwritten saroops to make sure paath printed was correct.

I know this is off topic, but all handwritten saroops of Guru Granth sahib were in written in larivar form. Even granth's such suraj parkash were written in larivar. It's unfortunate we have given up reading in larivar form.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

Edited by osingh1
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I think it would be very very valuable for people to read through these old scriptures! Even to read through Suraj Prakash would be very very useful!

Amardeep - the only Nirmala texts I can see in these lists are the works of Pandit Gulab Singh Ji (four of them). The text opens with Ik Ongkar not Ganesh! Ganeshaya Namah means salutations to Ganesh, which in old texts is the custom for undertaking any literary or artistic effort followed by a mangal to Sarasvati. In some of the original texts being translated thats how the text begins itself. Anyone with a cursory understanding of his works will recognise that his ishta is nirgun Braham, since that is what his lengthy text establishes through defeating all other possible philosophies. I recall Kamalroop Singh trying to argue the same that Pandit Gulab Singh Ji worshiped devtas. So please read on...its available on Panjab digital library website. You'll find the same traditional mangals to Sarasvati in Kavi Santokh Singh Ji's works...which I'm sure you'd recognise was not written by a Hindu Purohit. In fact you can see in the old photo a murti of Ganesh placed over the doorway of the Bunga dedicated to the Gyanis in Amritsar in which resided Gyani Sant Singh Ji, granthi of Sri Darbar Sahib, part of the lineage of Damdami Taksal and Kavi Ji's guru.

There is also a mistake on the site when it says that Siddhantvind is a work of Sankaracharya. Its undoubtedly the commentary called Siddhant-Bindu on the Dash-shaloki of Sankaracharya written by the 17th Century Sri Madhusudan Sarasvati.

Edited by tSingh
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Sant Jagjit Singh ji put out a copy of Chanakya as well, it's online somewhere...

Has it ever been translated in English?

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Amardeep ji

Punjabdigital library site is great. I urge everyone to sign up. You can view eevry page of many granths including, suraj parkash, various janamsakhi's ie bhai bala ji, bhai mani singh ji etc. These are all handwritten granths written in larivar(no spaces between word) form. The handwriting is just beautiful.

However the best collections they have are of puratan saroops's of Guru Granth Sahib ji.

I now try to read as much bani in larivar as possible. Its difficult at first but I assure you its well worth the effort. Its hard to explain but you get more rass reading from larivar. Sign up, then just search for 'guru granth' then click on manuscripts. Its interesting how different the akhars look in handwritten saroops as compared to online akhars such as sikhitothemax. Writing full saroop of Guru Granth sahib is no easy task, making sure you get each laga matra right. The likharis of Guru Granth Sahib maharaj deserve great respect.

Punjab digital library have done a great job. However the site hasn't been updated in a while. It could be due to financial issues. I hope they continue with their work. It would be awesome if they could digitise the kartarpuri bir.

The british library currently has a 17th century Guru Granth Sahib:

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/other/033ori000002748u00031v00.html

If you zoom onto first page you can see that the word denda has a bindi above it, yet in modern printed saroops the bindi is not there. Unfortunately due the haste of sgpc wanting to print saroops of maharaj, they failed to do enough research into old handwritten saroops to make sure paath printed was correct.

I know this is off topic, but all handwritten saroops of Guru Granth sahib were in written in larivar form. Even granth's such suraj parkash were written in larivar. It's unfortunate we have given up reading in larivar form.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

Punjabdigital library is a good site but this kind of service should be provded free not trying to make money. They could finace there work through donations which the sangat will happily provide. I dont think all those people who own the texts got any money or were told there work was going to be sold. The manuscripts and books need to be pdf and should be availble to the sikh sangat. Not something that you have to pay and can't print out.

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namdhari55

The site is free. You sign up and then you are allowed access to all granths. According to Gurnihal Singh Pirzada Director, PDL’s board member,

"PDL is the only non-profit, non-governmental organization to have initiated a digitization project for the preservation and upkeep of Panjab archives, and perhaps the only one in India ”

Therefore I assume all profits are reinvested. At the end of the day, from the comfort of my home, I can read suraj parkash, bhagat ratnavali etc in

handwritten form. If it wasn't for this site, I would never had the fortune to have darshan of numerous handwritten puratan saroop's of

Guru Granth Sahib.

I doubt the organisation is making money off the site. Just read 'behind the scenes' people working with PDL are volunteers. Infact as I have stated above, I think PDL is barely keeping afloat because the site hasn't been updated in a while. Maybe they are charging for print outs because they need more funds.

waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh

Edited by osingh1
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namdhari55

The site is free. You sign up and then you are allowed access to all granths. According to Gurnihal Singh Pirzada Director, PDL’s board member,

"PDL is the only non-profit, non-governmental organization to have initiated a digitization project for the preservation and upkeep of Panjab archives, and perhaps the only one in India ”

Therefore I assume all profits are reinvested. At the end of the day, from the comfort of my home, I can read suraj parkash, bhagat ratnavali etc in

handwritten form. If it wasn't for this site, I would never had the fortune to have darshan of numerous handwritten puratan saroop's of

Guru Granth Sahib.

I doubt the organisation is making money off the site. Just read 'behind the scenes' people working with PDL are volunteers. Infact as I have stated above, I think PDL is barely keeping afloat because the site hasn't been updated in a while. Maybe they are charging for print outs because they need more funds.

waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh

When i signed up awhile ago it was free for couple of months and when the 2 or 3 months run out they said i had to upgrade to a paying membership and i couldn't log back in. How long have it been since you signed up i believe the trail is only for a couple of months. Can someone confirm this.

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I signed up some time ago. I think it was 1 year free access, but so far I've not been barred from access (not sure if I've got to a year yet).

I'm as stingy as the next guy but this thing is one of the few I would have no problems spending money on. What they are doing is priceless, especially given what happened to our historical literature in 84.

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To be fair its only been a few months since iv'e signed up. Regardless, I wouldn't have any problems paying for subscription. They should keep the fee to a minimum, which they should be able to do if they have volunteers working for them. I appreciate efforts of PDL, scanning page by page is no easy task. As their is currently no other similar service available, we should be supporting PDL not criticising.

However it looks as if their operations have come to a halt. The scrolling news on main page is all from 2010. There is an organisation that definitely has the funds and resources to offer a free and better site than PDL. SGPC should have taken up this task long time ago, scanning pages is hardly new technology. They should have at least scanned all pages in their own reference library instead outside organisation like PDL has to do it for them. I'm actually surprised SGPC let them scan their documents. Unfortunately no puratan saroops(hand-written) of Guru Granth Sahib have been digitised from SGPC. They must have them in their collection. I remember that in their museum their as an aad granth signed by Guru Hargobind Ji on display. I'm not sure why puratan saroops were not digitised from SGPC collection.

Unfortunately in 1984 Ghallughara many puratan saroops were lost when army deliberately set reference library on fire. There was one saroop that was

supposed to be highly shud in regards to spellings and order of bani. This was written by hazoori likhari of Guru Gobind Singh ji, bhai Hardas ji.

I have a feeling before army burnt library, they took all the literature out first then burnt it. Some of our most valuable literature could be

in possession of indian government!

rabb rakhe

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Looks like the SGPC is digitizing all it's material in sikh reference library. This is good work by SGPC. However all manuscripts, books etc should

be available online rather than just at the library itself.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110413/punjab.htm#1

Also mention of efforts to pursue stolen documents form indian government. We can't just rely on SGPC to persue this matter. This is matter for the whole panth, so all jathebandiya, samprdaia should make a stand. Unfortunately there just is not the hunger in the panth to pursue these matters. There is lack of interest when it comes to puratan saroop's, manuscripts etc. These documents are priceless, they are part of our history.

To date, Damdami bir has not been found. Whole panth should get together to find what happened to this saroop. This was the saroop that was dictated to bhai Mani Singh ji by Guru Gobind Singh ji. Even if Abdali took it I'm sure it was kept safe somewhere. Alas, many sikh's dont even know what the damdami bir is! The current saroop of Guru Granth Sahib is based on this bir. Also karatarpuri bir should be given to SGPC or at least it should be digitized. It seems there is little interest in these matters.

rabb rakhe

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