BHAG SINGH CHANDRA UDAYA, an undated manuscript preserved in the Punjab State Archives, Patiala, under accession No. M/773, deals with the life and achievements of Sardar Bhag Singh Ahluvalia (1745-1801), who succeeded Sardar Jassa Singh Ahluvalia as ruler of Kapurthala state in 1783. Its author, Ram Sukh Rao, was tutor to Bhag Singh`s son and successor, Fateh Singh Ahluvalia (1784-1836). The latter, after his accession in 1801, commissioned Ram Sukh Rao to write biographies of Sardar Jassa Singh and Sardar Bhag Singh. Bhag Singh Chandra Udaya, a biography of the latter, comprises 188 folios, size 22 x 16 cm, each page containing 16 lines.
GURBILAS PATSHAHIDASVIN, a poeticized account of the life of Guru Gobind Singh by Bhai Sukkha Singh. The poet, a convert to Sikhism from the barber caste, was born at Anandpur in 1768 and completed the work in 1797 when he was barely twenty-nine. The poetry is more Braj than Punjabi, but the script used is GurmukhT. Recently, the Languages Department, Punjab, has brought out an edition in Devanagari characters also. The oldest printed edition of the work available is the one published in 1912 by Lala Ram Chand Manaktahia from Lahore.
PARCHIAN PATSHAI 10 is an anonymous and so far unpublished work, comprising 50 parchts or stories from the life of Guru Gobind Singh (MS. held at the Khalsa College, Amritsar, under MS. No. 2300E). Of the 45 folios, 14 describe in brief the lives of the first nine Gurus; the rest are devoted to Guru Gobind Singh. Special mention is made of the Zafamdmah at which point the Guru`s major battles against the hill chiefs and the Mughal government are alluded to.
SUNDARI, by Bhai Vir Singh, first published in 1898, is commonly acknowledged to be the first novel written in the Punjabi language. The story, set in the eighteenth century, depicts the trials and heroism of an imaginary character, Sundar Kaur (Sundari for short) who, born in a Punjabi Khatri Hindu family, embraces the Sikh faith in unusual circumstances and spends her short, eventful life in prayer and service of the crusading Khalsa. Sundari`s tribulations begin with her catching the local Mughal chief`s attention as the latter, out hunting with a body of retainers one day, passes through her village.
GUR KIRAT PRAKASH, by Vir Singh Bal, is a versified account of the lives of the first nine of the ten Gurus or spiritual teachers of the Sikh panth. Written in Braj, Gurmukhi characters, the work was completed in 1891 Bk/ AD 1834. The manuscript, two copies of which are available one each in the Punjab State Archives at Patiala (No. 682) and the Punjabi University at Patiala, has since been published (Punjabi University, 1986). The work is divided into ten chapters, here called hulas, each dealing with the life of one of the nine Gurus. The opening chapter on Guru Nanak comprises 414 chhands or stanzas, followed by one on Guru Angad (135 stanzas).
SWARAN SINGH (1907-1994). Tall and wiry, Sardar Swaran Singh, was born on 19 August 1907 in a farming family of the village of Shankar in Jalandhar district. He was married to Charan Kaur (1925). The family laid much store by education. One of the two sons was sent up to attend the Government College at Lahore, where he picked a prestigious Master`s degree in one of the sciences. That was Swaran Singh who had a legendary career as a teammate of India`s charismatic prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Swaran Singh had taken his intermediate from Randhir College, Kapurthafa.