Bhai Gurdas Singh

Bhai Gurdas Singh is the fourth head of the Damdami Taksal in the Taksal's own list, after Baba Deep Singh, Baba Gurbaksh Singh and Giani Soorat Singh. He should not be confused with Bhai Gurdas, the early Sikh who handwrote the first complete Guru Granth Sahib under Guru Arjan and whose Vars were called the key to the scripture; the two share only a name.

The Taksal's website says he was the eldest son of Giani Soorat Singh, born in 1773, a great scholar like his father, who became Jathedar of the Taksal after him and continued the teaching of Gurbani santhia and katha at Sri Harmandir Sahib. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, in its entry on Giani Sant Singh, tells it differently. It calls Gurdas Singh Sant Singh's younger brother, the two of them assigned to recite the Guru Granth Sahib in the Harimandar, and says that Sant Singh, saddened by his younger brother's untimely death, left court life and retired to Amritsar. Its entry on the Giani Sampradai says Soorat Singh was followed successively by Gurdas Singh and Sant Singh. Every source puts him between Soorat Singh and Sant Singh; they disagree on whether he was the elder or the younger brother.

Key moments

• 1773: born, according to the Taksal's website, the eldest son of Giani Soorat Singh.
• After his father: head of the Taksal, and continued the teaching of Gurbani santhia and katha at Sri Harmandir Sahib.
• Year unknown: dies young. The Encyclopaedia calls it an untimely death and tells of Sant Singh's retirement from court after it, in a passage that follows Ranjit Singh's expedition to Mankera of 1821; it gives no year for the death.

Remembered for: being the link in the Taksal's chain between Giani Soorat Singh and Giani Sant Singh, and for carrying the teaching of Gurbani at Sri Harmandir Sahib. The sources we opened give his death neither a date nor a cause.