Shield-Words: Baba Gajjan Singh's Teeka of the Brahm Kavach and Bhagauti Astotar in the Tarna Dal Tradition

Baba Gajjan Singh is remembered in the Tarna Dal Nihang tradition as a scholar who wrote a teeka on two short but important compositions: the Brahm Kavach and the Bhagauti Astotar. A teeka is not a new poem. It is an explanation. The author takes a sacred text and walks the reader through it, often word by word, so that an ordinary reader can understand what each line is saying.

This makes the author into a teacher. When you read his teeka, you are sitting in his classroom. He becomes, in effect, your professor. That is why this course is built around him and his work rather than around a topic alone.

The two texts he chose are both short. A ਕਵਚ (kavach) means 'armour.' A kavach poem is recited as a kind of spiritual shield. An ਅਸਟੋਤਰ (astotar) is a litany, meaning a list of names or qualities recited in praise. Both belong to the protective and devotional poetry connected to the Dasam Granth and to the wider Sikh court tradition (Rinehart 2011).

In this course we describe these texts. We do not reproduce their passages. We treat them with respect, the way they are treated by the people who recite them daily.

To understand Baba Gajjan Singh's work, you first need to understand the craft of the ਟੀਕਾ (teeka). A teeka is a layer placed on top of a source text. The source text stays unchanged. The commentary sits beside it and opens it up.

A traditional teeka usually does several things at once. The table below shows the common steps.

This method is old and careful. The author is not free to invent. He works within a ਸੰਪਰਦਾਇ (samparda), a teaching lineage, where meanings are passed down from teacher to student (Pashaura Singh and Fenech 2014). His job is to make the inherited meaning clear, not to replace it.

This is why a teeka is trusted. It carries the weight of the chain behind it. When Baba Gajjan Singh explains a word, he is usually repeating what his own teachers taught, now written down so it will not be lost.

The first text is the Brahm Kavach. The word ਕਵਚ (kavach) means 'armour' or 'coat of mail.' In this kind of poetry, the recitation itself is imagined as armour. The reciter asks for protection and feels surrounded by it, the way a warrior is surrounded by metal plates.

The word Brahm points to the Divine, the boundless reality. So the title can be read as 'the armour of the Divine,' meaning protection that comes from the Divine and rests upon the one who recites.

This idea fits the Sikh court tradition, where the saint and the soldier were joined together. The same person who meditated also carried arms. A protective poem made perfect sense in that world (Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh 2005). For the Nihang, who live as warrior-ascetics, an armour-poem is not strange at all; it matches their whole way of life.

Baba Gajjan Singh's teeka takes this text and explains it piece by piece. He shows what the protective images mean, what is being asked for, and how the reciter is meant to feel. He keeps the explanation grounded, so a reader without deep training can still follow it.

It is important to be honest about scholarship here. Questions about the exact history and authorship of compositions in this tradition are still debated by academics (Rinehart 2011). The teeka is a devotional and explanatory work; it serves the reciting community, and it does not need to settle every historical question.

The second text is the Bhagauti Astotar. An ਅਸਟੋਤਰ (astotar) is a litany, a long recited list of names or qualities offered in praise. You say one praise after another, building up a kind of garland of words.

The word ਭਗੌਤੀ (Bhagauti) carries two linked meanings in this tradition. One is the sword, used as a powerful symbol. The other is the Divine power itself. In the famous opening of Sikh court prayer, Bhagauti is invoked first of all. So a 'Bhagauti Astotar' is a litany praising that Divine power, often pictured through the image of the sword.

Here is a simple comparison of the two texts in this course.

Baba Gajjan Singh's teeka on the Astotar explains what each praise means and why it is offered. A litany can seem repetitive to an outsider, but each line adds a shade of meaning. The commentary helps the reader see those shades instead of letting them blur together (Pashaura Singh and Fenech 2014).

To understand why these texts are read the way they are, you need to know about the community that reads them. The ਤਰਨਾ ਦਲ (Tarna Dal) is a branch of the Nihang order. The name means roughly 'the youthful army.' It grew, with the Buddha Dal (the 'elder army'), out of the eighteenth-century Khalsa fighting forces (Grewal 1998).

The ਨਿਹੰਗ (Nihang) are Sikh warrior-ascetics. They are known for blue robes, tall turbans, and the carrying of arms. But they are also keepers of scripture and tradition. Reading, reciting, and explaining sacred texts is part of their daily discipline, not separate from their warrior life.

For such a community, a protective kavach and a praise astotar are practical and spiritual at once. They are recited at set times, used to steady the mind, and treated as living words rather than museum pieces.

The teaching passes down through a ਸੰਪਰਦਾਇ (samparda), a chain of teachers and students. A scholar like Baba Gajjan Singh stands inside that chain. When he writes a teeka, he is fixing in writing what the chain has carried by voice. This is how a living tradition protects itself against forgetting (Pashaura Singh and Fenech 2014).

Why study a short kavach and a short astotar at graduate level? Because they sit at a meeting point of several big things: devotion, poetry, warrior culture, and the craft of explaining sacred words.

Baba Gajjan Singh's teeka matters because it keeps these texts open to people who could not read them alone. A teeka is a bridge. On one side is a difficult old poem. On the other side is an ordinary reader. The commentary lets that reader cross over (McLeod 1997).

For the careful student, three kinds of questions stay separate and must not be mixed up:

Good scholarship keeps these apart and treats each fairly (Rinehart 2011). It does not flatten a living devotional practice into a mere historical puzzle, and it does not pretend that open historical questions are already closed.

In the end, the author teaches us twice. Once through what he explains about these armour-and-praise poems. And once through how he explains: patiently, inside a trusted chain, with respect for words that a community holds sacred.