Gopal Singh
Dr. Gopal Singh (1917-1990), an eminent Punjabi writer, poet, journalist and critic, was born in Amritsar, Punjab, India to a respected Sikh family was were tradesman. His father's name was Bhai Atmaram Singh. He did his M.A. in English at Khalsa College, Amritsar and for some time edited the weekly magazine Mauji of S.S. Charan Singh 'Shahid' after his death. While working as a lecturer in D.A.V. and Khalsa Colleges at Rawalpindi, he began to take interest in politics and founded an English weekly paper "Liberator".
After partition he also worked for nearly a year and a half as editor in the Publication Bureau of the Punjab University (then named as East Punjab University) stationed at Solan, Shimla. He got his Ph.D. degree in 1943 from Punjab University, Lahore for his thesis "New Trends in Punjabi Literature". He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha and was then sent as Ambassador to Bulgaria in 1970. Then he was posted as the Lt. Governor of Goa, Daman and Dieu. He was honoured by the Punjab Government in 1961 as an outstanding writer of Punjabi. His pen name is 'Dardi'.
Basically a poet and a critic, he also wrote biographies of Guru Gobind Singh in 1966 and Guru Nanak Dev in 1969 respectively. His monumental work and the most renowned in the Sikh community is the translation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib into English published originally in two volumes.
His other prominent works are: Romantic Punjabi kavi (1933), Jhanan (poetry, 1943), Punjabi sahit da itihas (1947), Hanire sawire (poetry, 1949), Sahit diparakh (1950) and Sri Guru Sahib di sahitak visheshta (1958) in the field of literary criticism.
First Translation of SGGS
Dr Gopal Singh was responsible for completing the first complete translation of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib into English in 1960. It believed that initially it was published in 2 volumes although the present publications are published in a four volume set. As the first English translation, it was very welcomed by non-Punjabi readers and received a wide distribution. The 'International Edition' published by the World Sikh University Press in 1978, has a light blue cover.
Dr. Gopal Singh's stellar reputation for scholarly work in service of the Dharma is well deserved. In fact, the introduction to the work, in the first of the four volumes, is a remarkable work in and of itself. Especially readable and worthwhile is Section II: On the Philosophy of Sikh Religion. In this treatise on comparative religion, he traces the common threads of religious thought throughout the ages, giving one a deeper appreciation of Sikh Dharma. His brief explanation of the Kundalini and Yogic traditions is well-done.
When Miss Pearl S. Buck, a Nobel laureate was given a copy of the translation, this is what she said:
| “ | I have studied the scriptures of the great religions, but I do not find elsewhere the same power of appeal to the heart and mind as I find here in these volumes. They are compact in spite of their length and are a revelation of the concept of God to the recognition and indeed the insistence upon the practical needs of the human body. There is something strangely modern about these scriptures and this puzzled me until I learned that they are in fact comparatively modern, compiled as late as the 16th century when explorers were beginning to discover the globe upon which we all live is a single entity divided only by arbitrary lines of our making. Perhaps this sense of unity is the source of power I find in these volumes. They speak to a person of any religion or of none. They speak for the human heart and the searching mind. | ” |
References
- 1. Amarjit Singh, Punjabi sahit da itihas—Qissa kal, Amritsar, 1981.
- 2. Kohli, S.S., Punjabi Sahit da Itihas, LUDHIANA, 1955.
- 3. Mohan Singh, A History of Punjabi Literature, Amritsar, 1956.
- 4. Ramdev, Jaginder Singh (ed.), Punjabi Likhari Kosh, Jullundur, 1964.
- 5. Sekhon, S.S. .and K.S. Duggal, A History of Punjabi Literature, Delhi, 1992.
