Giani Sant Singh Maskeen

Giani Sant Singh Maskeen was one of the best known Sikh preachers and commentators on Gurbani of the late twentieth century. He is remembered for his katha, his books and his broadcast discourses, and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee honoured him with the title Panth Rattan, the Jewel of the Panth.

He was born in what is now Pakistan, in the north-west frontier country, and the sources differ on the year: The Tribune's obituary gives 1931 and Wikipedia gives 1934. The Tribune places his birth in Lak Makwat tehsil, and a PTI report it carried names Lakhi tehsil in Bannu district. Partition cut short his schooling. The Tribune's obituary says he had to skip his matriculation examination because of Partition, though later in the same piece it calls him "just a matriculate". Wikipedia says he could not continue his studies after the move because his schooling had been in Urdu and Persian. His family settled in Alwar, Rajasthan, where he lived for the rest of his life, and he married Sundar Kaur in 1958. They had three sons and two daughters.

Key moments

• Despite his limited formal education, he studied the religious texts in depth. The Tribune says he reviewed 23 commentaries on Japuji Sahib and was at home with Ghalib and Iqbal, the Bhagavad Gita and the Quran.
• He travelled widely giving discourses on Gurbani at gurdwaras and religious gatherings, and his programmes were broadcast on television. Wikipedia lists his languages as Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Persian and Arabic.
• He wrote books on Gurmat and Gurbani, among them Guru Chintan, Ras Dhara, Shabad Guru, Ratnagar and Amrit Manthan. The Tribune's PTI report counts eleven, and Wikipedia says more than a dozen.
• The SGPC gave him the title Panth Rattan. After his death it also gave him the Bhai Gurdas Gold award, worth one lakh rupees, and the Gurmat Vidya Martand award, according to Wikipedia.
• 18 February 2005: he died of a massive heart attack at Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, where he had gone for a wedding, and he was cremated at Alwar. The SGPC and the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee closed their offices for two days. The Jathedar of Sri Akal Takht Sahib, Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti, called him a successful preacher with a strong command of several languages, and the SGPC president, Bibi Jagir Kaur, said he had taken the message of Gurbani into every home.

What he is remembered for: taking Gurbani to Sikh homes through katha, books and television. A man of limited formal education who studied the texts in depth, he was, in the words of the SGPC president quoted by the Tribune, a preacher who carried the message into every home.