ABSTRACT

This volume brings together works by established and emerging scholars to consider the work and impact of Bhai Vir Singh. Bhai Vir Singh (1872-1957) was a major force in the shaping of modern Sikh and Punjabi culture, language, and politics in the undivided colonial Punjab, prior to the Partition of the province in 1947, and in the post-colonial state of India. The chapters in this book explore how he both reflected and shaped his time and context and address some of the ongoing legacy of his work in the lives of contemporary Sikhs. The contributors analyze the varied genres, literary, and historical that were adopted and adapted by Bhai Vir Singh to foreground and enhance Sikh religiosity and identity. These include his novels, didactic pamphlets, journalistic writing, prefatory and exegetical work on spiritual and secular historical documents, and his poems and lyrics, among others. This book will be of particular interest to those working in Sikh studies, South Asian studies, and post-colonial studies.

chapter 1|24 pages

Introduction

Bhai Vir Singh as an Author, Scholar, and Reformist

chapter 2|22 pages

Innovation in Punjabi Literature

Considerations on the Advent of Literary Modernity

chapter 4|23 pages

The Conversion Loop

Gender, Identity, and Storytelling in Bhai Vir Singh's Sundarī

chapter 5|16 pages

Revisiting The Khalsa Samachar (1899–1900)

Women's Issues and Concerns

chapter 6|15 pages

Didacticism and Punjabi Theatre

Bhai Vir Singh's Experimental Raja Lakhdata Singh

chapter 7|16 pages

Beyond the Past

Poetry as a Notation of the Present

chapter 8|15 pages

Intertextuality and Reception History

Connecting Bhai Vir Singh's Srī Kalgīdhar Camatkār to Gurbilās Literature 1

chapter 10|19 pages

Bhai Vir Singh's Puratan Janamsakhi

Sikh Book Culture and the Historical Turn

chapter 11|28 pages

Transcendence and the Modern Sikh Subject

Analyzing Bhai Vir Singh's Theology