MANMAT PRAHĀR LAṚĪ (lit., a series to overcome heresy) comprises tracts written by Bhāī Mohan Siṅgh Vaid of Tarn Tāran between 1903 and 1908, denouncing un-Sikh customs and rituals to which the Sikhs had succumbed. This had been one of the primary objectives of the Siṅgh Sabhā reform and a most forceful exponent of it was Giānī Ditt Siṅgh, a prolific writer and editor of the Khālsā Akhbār. With his death in 1901, a vacuum occurred in the reformers' crusade against ignorance and superstition among the Sikh masses. Bhāī Mohan Siṅgh Vaid entered the arena in 1903 and attempted to fill this gap. The series that flowed from his pen consisted of six books. The first four were published by Khālsā Agency, Lahore, and the last two by the author himself.

         Sharādh Prabodh, the first in the series, was published in1903, with a reprint brought out in 1905. The booklet aims to bring to the readers true understanding of sharādh, ritual feeding of the Brāhmaṇs as homage to one's departed ancestors. Bhāī Mohan Siṅgh presents the custom as unworthy of a Sikh. Gurmat Anusār Mritak Saṅskār de Lābh commends the simple Sikh custom of cremation amid, and followed by, recitation of gurbāṇī, kīrtan and ardās or prayer for the departed soul. The third in the series, entitled Birdh Vivāh, Durdashā Nāṭak is a play, published in 1904, depicting the plight of young innocent girls given away in marriage by greedy parents to those advanced in years. There was at the time much misleading criticism of Sikhism by Ārya Samāj. The Gurmat Gauravatā dilates on the dignity of the Anand form of marriage, mustering quotations from the Sikh texts and stressing its importance for the Panth. The last in the series, Gurmat Virodh Bījnāsh, published in June 1908, was in reply to a tract, Anand Vivāh par Vichār, brought out earlier by Durgā Press, Nābhā, attacking the Anand marriage.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Dukhī, Munshā Siṅgh, Jīvan Bhāī Sāhib Bhāī Mohan Siṅgh jī Vaid. Lahore, 1931
  2. Abnāsh Kaur, Bhāī Mohan Siṅgh Vaid ate Pañjābī Sabhiāchār. Patiala, 1982

Jagjīt Siṅgh