MAHIMA PRAKASH

MAHIMA PRAKASH, by Sarup Das Bhalla, is a versified account, in Gurmukhi script, of the lives of the ten Gurus, completed according to inner evidence, in 1833 Bk/AD 1776. Three copies of the manuscript, are still extant: one (No. 176) in the Languages Department, Punjab, Patiala, the second (No. 792) in the Punjab State Archives, Patiala, and third (No. 3200) in the Khalsa College Library, Amritsar. A fourth copy of the manuscript existed in the Sikh Reference Library, Amritsar, until it perished in 1984. The work has since been published (1970) in two volumes by the Languages Department, Punjab, Patiala.

The first volume (pp. 348) contains sixty-five sakhis relating to the life of Guru Nanak, whereas the second volume (pp. 900) comprises another 172 sakhis of which sixteen deal with the life of Guru Angad, thirty-two are about Guru Amar Das, eight about Guru Ram Das, twenty-two each about Guru Arjan and Guru Hargobind, twenty-two about Guru Har Rai, four about Guru Har Krishan, nineteen about Guru Tegh Bahadur and twenty-seven about Guru Gobind Singh.At the end of these there is one more sakhi about Banda Singh Bahadur(1670-1716). The main sources utilized by the author, according to his own testimony, were Puratan Janam Sakhi and Adi Sakhian, and information received from the descendants of the Gurus and some other prominent Sikhs. This is the first work of its kind giving a connected account of the lives of all the Gurus. However, it is not plain history, nor is it free from inaccuracies of fact.