Professor Sahib Singh

Professor Sahib Singh was a Sikh scholar and teacher whose Gurbani Viakaran, a textual grammar of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, and ten-volume commentary, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Darpan, remain widely used aids to reading Gurbani. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he was born on 16 February 1892 at Phattevali village in Sialkot district, in undivided Punjab, into a Hindu family, and named Natthu Ram. His father, Hiranand, kept a small shop. At high school in Pasrur he took the Khalsa rites in 1906 and the name Sahib Singh, and he later took his bachelor's degree at Government College, Lahore.

Key moments

• 1917: lecturer in Sanskrit at Guru Nanak Khalsa College, Gujranwala.
• 1921: joint secretary of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.
• 1922 and 1924: jailed during the Guru ka Bagh agitation and the Jaito morcha.
• 1929 to 1952: taught at Khalsa College, Amritsar. After retiring he was principal of Shahid Sikh Missionary College, and he also served as principal of Gurmat College, Patiala.
• 1932: published Gurbani Viakaran.
• 1962 to 1964: the ten volumes of Darpan were published. All About Sikhs says he wrote them between 1957 and 1961.
• 1971: honorary Doctor of Literature from Punjabi University, Patiala.
• 29 October 1977: died of Parkinson's disease at Amritsar.

His work: The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism counts nearly 50 works published between 1927 and 1977; All About Sikhs counts 30 books, nearly all in Punjabi. All About Sikhs says Gurbani Viakaran is a milestone for understanding the language of the Guru Granth Sahib and that later exegesis relies on its principles, especially on how vowel endings of nouns and verbs are read. Of Darpan it says that it explains difficult ideas in simple Punjabi and is widely read by scholars, preachers and students. He was honoured by the SGPC for Gurbani Viakaran, by the Patiala and East Punjab States Union government in 1952, and with a life fellowship of the Punjabi Sahit Akademi in 1970.

Remembered for: giving Sikh readers a grammar of Gurbani and a verse-by-verse commentary in plain Punjabi. All About Sikhs calls him a Sikh scholar of the highest order.