JAVALA SINGH, SANT

JAVALA SINGH, SANT (1878-1938), a pious and learned Sikh who also worked as a royal tutor for a time, was born at the village of Dham Tari Kalari, in Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab, on 26 October 1878. He learnt to read GurmukhT and the Sikh Scripture at the hands of an Udasi priest, GianT Prem Das, and continued further religious study under different scholars and theologians, including Sant Khalsan Singh Virakt of Sukkho in Rawalpindi district (now in Pakistan). The death register of the Municipal Committee of Patiala where he died shows him, in the parentage column, as chela or disciple of Sant Gulab Singh. Such was Sant Javala Singh`s reputation as a scholar that he was in 1905 appointed to instruct Maharaja Bhupindcr Singh of Patiala (1891-1938), then a young prince of 14, in Sikh texts and doctrine.

Brought up in the austere way of a Nirmala sddhu, Sant Javala Singh now adopted the attire of a courtier, though he remained at heart a deeply religious person. Collection of rare articles became one of his hobbies. He also wrote humorous verse in Braj.  However, none of his writings has survived, except a six page Siharfi Veddnt Svarup Bodhm, published in 1892. 

It is an acrostic in Punjabi, in baint metre, based on letters of the Persian alphabet.Sant Javala Singh died at Patiala on 24 March 1938 in a stampede occurring in the funeral procession of Iris own pupil, Maharaja Bhupinder Singh. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ganesha Singh, Mahant, Nirmal Bliushcin nrthdl Itihfis Nirmal Jihfkh. Aniritsar, n.d. Gs.S. JAVALA SINGH, SANT (1889-1957).

widely revered for his piety especially among Sikhs in tlic Doaba region of the Punjab, was born on 1 May 1889 at Larigeri, a village in Hoshiarpur district. His parents, Narain Singh and Raj Kaur, were known as highly religious persons. Javala Singh was their eighth child and tine only brother of seven sisters. He received instruction at the village primary school and at the gurudwara.

Tall and of athletic built, he joined the army on 5 January 1907 as a soldier in the 35th Sikh Battalion. It was during his service at Rawalpindi that lie came in contact with Sant Aya Singh, spiritual successor to the ccle braied saint Sant Karam Singh of Hoti, a village near Mardan cantonment in the North-West Frontier Province. He formally became disciple of Sant Aya Singh on 5 March 1911. Javala Singh saw action in France during World War I, but resigned from the army on 1 January 1917 and Joined the derd at Hot! to devote himself to a life of contemplation and service.

At the persuasion of Sant Harnam Singh of his native Hoshiarpur district and with the permission of his religious mentor, Sant Aya Singh, Javala Singh returned home to the Doaba in December 1918 and settled in a lonely place between the villages of Harkhoval and Pandori Bibi, about 11 km south-west of Hoshiarpur. Santgarh, the name by which his rfero came to be known, attracted Sikhs in increasingly large numbers.They came drawn by Sant Javala Singh`s pious manner and by the simplicity and lucidity of his religious discourses. Thousands received the rites of Khalsa initiation at his hands, among them being Maharaja Yadavinder Singh, ruler of Patiala state.

Sant Javala Singh supported the Akall and Babar Akali movements and set himself staunchly against the heresy preached by the Parich Khalsa Diwan of Bhasaur. At his initiative several giirdwdrds were raised or rebuilt at Sikh holy places, such as Anandpur, Patna and TalvandT Sabo. Sant Javala Singh died at DomclI, a village in Kapurthala district of the Punjab, on 13 November 1957.