Jangveer Singh
Tribune News Service
Dr Manmohan Sehgal displays a translation of Guru Granth Sahib along with other works.
— Photo by Rajesh Sachar |
Patiala, September 1
The only scholar who translated Guru Granth Sahib in Devnagri script alongwith its Hindi explanation has been ignored during the 400th anniversary of the installation of the Granth. His translated volumes, starting from 1980, have run into four editions and have sold more than 20,000 copies.
Even Punjabi University, where Dr Manmohan Sehgal put in more than 20 years of service as head of the Hindi Department and to whose library he donated his 3,000 strong collection of books after retirement, forgot to even invite him at a special seminar organised yesterday to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the holy book.
Dr Sehgal is dejected at being left out of the celebrations. “Not being recognised by Punjabi University on such an occasion irked me but it is possible that the new dispensation does not know about me”, he adds by way of explanation. Working on Guru Granth Sahib for a major part of my life has given me tremendous satisfaction and I am happy at continuing the tradition of Punjabiat which has made Guru Granth Sahib a universal book rather than one belonging to the Sikhs only”, he added.
In fact it was love and respect for Guru Granth Sahib which first got Dr Manmohan Sehgal working on it. “My father and my grandfather loved Gurbani and it was natural for me to take up ‘philosophical elements of Guru Nanak’s poetry’ as the topic for my Ph.D thesis in 1962’’, he adds. He says after completing the Ph.D, he thought of studying entire Guru Granth Sahib instead of limiting himself to Guru Nanak. “This started an odyssey”, he says adding “I first did my D. Litt on ‘Cultural Survey of Guru Granth Sahib’ and went on to embark on translating the entire Granth later.
“Before me only two persons tried this exercise. Sant Arjun Singh translated only 350 pages of the Granth in an earlier attempt while Vaid Mohan Singh could translate even a lesser number of pages”.
The scholar, who is the only teacher in North India to be appointed National Professor by the UGC, says the translations could take place because of the unique mission of the Guru Vani Trust in Lucknow which has taken upon itself the responsibility of translating holy works of all major religions of the world into Devnagri. He said after a five-year project, he translated entire Guru Granth Sahib in four volumes with the first volume appearing in print in 1980.
Sehgal’s translation exercise, which has been approved by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee besides eminent personalities like Sant Harchand Singh Longowal and Giani Lal Singh, is not one to rest on his laurels. A sprightly 73-year-old, he is now working on a Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) project on “Lord Krishna and Social Transformation”.
