GURŪ GOBIND SIṄGH, by Ṭiṅkarī Banerjee, is a biography, in Bengali, of Gurū Gobind Siṅgh, the tenth and last of the spiritual teachers of the Sikh faith. The author, a noted nineteenth-century litterateur, felt moved by once listening to Gurū Gobind Siṅgh's Bhagautī hymns and this led him to undertake a biography of the Gurū which "took thirty years of his labour and throughout this period he received all possible help from the Baṛā Bāzār Sikh Saṅgat" and the bhāīs, i.e. Sikh priest-preachers, of the Baṛā Bāzar Gurdwārā in Calcutta. The book, first published in AD 1896, had three fourths of it devoted to the lives of the nine preceding Gurūs with the last three chapters describing the career of Gurū Gobind Siṅgh. However, the bulk of the second edition which came out in 1918 was taken up with the story of the Tenth Gurū. The new edition also included portraits of the Ten Gurūs and two maps, one of which showed the major political centres and religious places connected with the life of Gurū Gobind Siṅgh. The attitude of the author towards the Gurū is one of wholehearted admiration and reverence. He considered him a true messenger of God, and he sums up his historical role as the creator of a body of men, saints as well as soldiers, committed to the defence of the weak and to challenging State tyranny.

Himādrī Banerjee