HARI SINGH KAHARPURI, SANT

HARI SINGH KAHARPURI, SANT (1888-1973), Sikh saint and preacher, was born in 1888 in a Liddar Jatt family of the village of Jian, in Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab. He was the youngest of the three sons of Avtar Singh and Atar Kaur. He received instruction in religious texts from Sant Dalip Singh of Domeli. He grew up to be a youth of a strong, athletic build and enlisted in the 25th Punjab Battalion as a sepoy in 1904, serving in the North-West Frontier Province. Under the influence of Sant Harnarn Singh, who also belonged to the village of Jian and who was also then serving in the army, his native religious inclination asserted itself and he became more and more preoccupied with gurbdni and meditation.

He resigned from the army on 31 March 1909, and for the next four years served in Guru ka Langar at the dera or monastery of the much revered saint, Sant Karam Singh of Hot! Mardan. He returned to the Punjab in 1913 and established, on the bank of a choor seasonal rivulet, near Kaharpur village in Hoshiarpur district, his own dera, where he preached and ran a Guru ka Larigar or community kitchen. Sant Hari Singh Kaharpuri, as he came to be known, gave himself to preaching the Sikh faith as well as to the spreading of modern education among tlie rural masses.

e had Khalsa schools established at Kukkar Bariari, Jian, Nasrala and Mahalpur. The last named has since developed into a flourishing degree college. Sant Hari Singh Kaharpuri is also remembered for supervising, during 1936-44, the reconstruction of Takht Sri Kesgarh Sahib at Anandpur, where he also renovated. Gurdwara Manjl Sahib and Guru ka Talab. He also constructed dharamsalds at Jian and Bariari. Sant Hari Singh Kaharpuri died on 18 November 1973.