Bhai Vir Singh's Gurbani Exegesis (Santhya)

Bhai Vir Singh (1872-1957) is remembered first as a poet and novelist, the writer who helped shape modern Punjabi prose. But he was also a patient student of scripture who spent decades explaining Gurbani word by word. He worked through the institutions of the Singh Sabha reform movement and the Khalsa Samachar press in Amritsar, which printed much of his exegetical work (Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, 2014).

The Singh Sabha period asked Sikhs to read their own scripture carefully and to defend its meaning. Bhai Vir Singh answered that call not with argument but with explanation. His commentaries grew out of teaching: a teacher would sit with students and move slowly through the text, and the printed steeks preserve that classroom care on the page.

The word ਸੰਥਯਾ (santhya) names an old teaching practice: a teacher recites scripture slowly with a student, settling the correct pronunciation, then explaining each word and its sense. It is oral and patient. Bhai Vir Singh's printed commentary carries this practice into book form, so the reader feels they are being walked through the text rather than handed a summary.

Santhya is not the same as a free paraphrase. A paraphrase restates the gist in new words and often loses the exact terms of Gurbani. Santhya keeps the original words in view, gives the meaning of each one as ਪਦ ਅਰਥ (pad arth), and only then builds the full sense, the ਅਰਥ (arth). It also tries to reach the ਭਾਵ (bhav), the inner devotional spirit, without leaving the words behind.

This distinction matters because Gurbani is precise. A single word-ending can change a noun into a verb or a singular into a plural, and santhya is built to notice those small things (Sahib Singh, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Darpan).

Santhya Sri Guru Granth Sahib is Bhai Vir Singh's large, multi-volume commentary on the scripture. It proceeds in order, taking the text in small pieces and explaining each one with great care. The work was unfinished at his death, which itself tells us how slow and thorough the method is: he refused to rush past a line he had not fully explained.

For a difficult line he typically moves through clear steps. First he settles the reading and recites the words. Next he gives the meaning of each word, the ਪਦ ਅਰਥ. Then he uses grammar, ਵਿਆਕਰਣ, to decide how the words join together. He brings in other places in Gurbani where the same word appears, so the scripture explains itself. Finally he draws the full sense and the devotional ਭਾਵ.

The reverence is built into the order: meaning is never asserted before the words have been respected (Bhai Vir Singh, Santhya Sri Guru Granth Sahib).

Bhai Gurdas Dian Vaaran di Steek is Bhai Vir Singh's annotated commentary on the ਵਾਰਾਂ (Vaaran) of Bhai Gurdas. Bhai Gurdas was an early Sikh scholar whose ballad-form poems are widely regarded as a trusted key to Gurbani. Explaining the Vaaran is therefore a natural companion to explaining scripture itself.

The Vaaran are written in a fuller, more explanatory style than the compressed verses of ਗੁਰਬਾਣੀ, which makes them well suited to a steek. Bhai Vir Singh glosses the vocabulary, untangles the imagery, and shows how each verse illustrates a point of Sikh teaching. Because the poems often spell out ideas that Gurbani states briefly, his commentary on the Vaaran also helps a reader return to scripture better prepared.

Here we see the same patient habits as in his scriptural commentary, applied to a text that is one step closer to plain explanation (Bhai Vir Singh, Bhai Gurdas Dian Vaaran di Steek).

Ganj Namah Steek is Bhai Vir Singh's annotated commentary on the Ganj Namah, a devotional work in praise of the Sikh Gurus traditionally associated with Bhai Nand Lal Goya, a poet of Guru Gobind Singh's court. The text praises each Guru in turn, and Bhai Vir Singh's steek explains its language and devotional weight for a reader.

Working on the Ganj Namah shows the breadth of his commentary practice. Beyond scripture and the Vaaran, he was willing to explain the wider devotional literature that surrounds the Sikh tradition. His method stays the same: he glosses the words, clarifies references to each Guru, and brings out the ਭਾਵ of praise, always treating the subject with reverence.

Across all three the reader meets one consistent commentator: careful with words, generous with cross-references, and reverent toward the sacred (Bhai Vir Singh, Ganj Namah Steek).

A useful way to understand Bhai Vir Singh's method is to set it beside another great commentary of the same era, Sahib Singh's Sri Guru Granth Sahib Darpan (Sahib Singh, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Darpan, 1962-1964). Both belong to the broader Singh Sabha effort to read Gurbani carefully and on its own terms.

Sahib Singh is famous for building a formal grammar of Gurbani and then applying it strictly, so that word-endings decide the meaning. Bhai Vir Singh also respects grammar and uses ਵਿਆਕਰਣ, but his santhya gives more weight to devotional ਭਾਵ and to the meditative, teacherly tone of slow recitation. The two approaches are complementary: one leans toward system, the other toward contemplative explanation.

Reading them together gives a fuller picture: the grammar fixes the boundaries of meaning, while santhya invites the reader to dwell within it. Both are central to modern Sikh scriptural study (Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, 2014).