BHAGVANT SIṄGH HARĪJĪ, BHĀĪ (1892-1968), a lover of game, horticulturist and scholar, was born on 15 February 1892 to the erudition of his celebrated father, Bhāī Kāhn Siṅgh, of Nābhā, the creator of the immortal Gurushabad Ratnākar Mahān Kosh. Unobtrusively, and in his characteristically gentle and self-abnegating manner, Bhagvant Siṅgh carried the family learning into the second generation. His home provided the best education then available to a young man, though he did attend formally the Khālsā College at Amritsar, then the premier educational institution of the Sikhs. On 9 November 1915, he married Bībī Harnām Kaur, daughter of Jīvan Siṅgh editor of the Khālsā Sevāk of Amritsar, who was herself a poet of repute and who appreciated and sustained her husband's scholarly interests. Equally vital was Bhagvant Siṅgh's experience watching his father working on the Mahān Kosh, meeting with scholars in different fields who came to see him and listening to or joining the learned discussions that constantly went on in his father's study. This provided him with much valuable training in the art of lexicography.

        "Harījī", as he was affectionately called by his friends and admirers, made Dasam Granth, Book of the Tenth Master, the focus of his study, and prepared a verse index of it which was published posthumously by the Punjabi University, Paṭiālā. This is a work which enjoys high prestige in Sikh letters for its technical perfection and range of knowledge. Another of his books in the field of Dasam Granth scholarship, Dasam Granth dā Bāṇī Beorā, appeared in 1991 (publisher : Punjabi University, Paṭiālā). An earlier publication was Vidhi Nikhedh (a common man's book of do's and don'ts), August 1919.

        Bhāī Bhagvant Siṅgh died on 9 October 1968 after a protracted illness.

Rachhpāl Kaur