GURU NANAK PRAKASH PRESS

GURU NANAK PRAKASH PRESS, a litho printing press, started around AD 1859 in the village of Pipri, near Gorakhpur in the Uttar Pradesh, by Karivar Jagjot Singh, grandson of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and son of Karivar Pashaura Singh, for printing books in Gurmukhi script with a view to promoting Punjabi literature and culture. Jagjot Singh had been exiled from the Punjab, along with several other Sikh princes and chiefs upon the annexation of the Punjab in 1849 to the British dominions.

He employed three scholars, namely Kishan Singh, Devi Daft and Bishan Datt, for writing books originally in Punjabi as well as for rendering into the language some of the old classics. Among the works published were Punjabi translations of Mitdshn `Hkd or Manu Smrti (total number of pages 77) by Devi Datt, Rdjmfi Granth (a book on political theory; pp. 136) by Bishan Datt and Kishan Singh, and Bhoj Prabandh Sdr (a book on prosody; pp. 37) by Bishan Datl.

Published in the seventies of the nineteenth century these books dealing with Hindu ethics, political theory and prosody, respectively, were abbreviated adaptations into Punjabi of the Sanskrit classics, and were meant for free distribution. The press ceased to exist by 1880, but was revived in 1892 at Sialkot (now in Pakistan) where Jagjot Singh had settled down in 1884 after the withdrawal of the ban on his entry into the Punjab. However, it had to close down soon after when only 284 pages of the Punjabi book of Paras Bhag (second edition) had been printed. The first edition of this work and Prem Sdgar, a biography of Lord Krsna, had also been got printed by Jagjot Singh, but at another press.