Artifact
Bhai Banno manuscript
also Bhai Banno Vali Bir, Khari Bir, Khare Vali Bir, Banno recension
A copy of the Adi Granth associated with Bhai Banno, holding extra compositions not found in the Kartarpur manuscript.[EoS][EoS][Singh][Web][Web]
- Date
- Disputed: 1604 by tradition, 1642 or 1699 in modern readings
- Held by
- Gurdwara Bhai Banno, Jawahar Nagar
- Location
- Kanpur, India
- Provenance
- Attributed
- Status: Held
- A team from Guru Nanak Dev University saw it at this gurdwara in 1977, according to a note printed in Daljeet Singh (1987). They could not photograph it. The News on Sunday (April 2023) says Bhai Banno's heirs took it to Kanpur after Partition. No newer first-hand report was found. A modern reference guide says descendants hold it privately, while these sources name the gurdwara.
The traditional account is that Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji sent Bhai Banno to Lahore to have the new volume bound, and that he had a second copy written on the journey. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism reports this from Gurbilas and Mahima Prakash literature.
According to that account, Guru Ji kept the volume in Bhai Gurdas's hand and returned the second to Bhai Banno, who installed it at his home in Khara Mangat, now in Pakistan.
The News on Sunday says a gurdwara was built at Mangat in 1802, that mahants later removed the volume, and that Sikhs reinstalled it after the Gurdwara Reform Movement. It stayed there until 1947.
What is disputed
- Date
Tradition says 1604. Wikipedia reports a view that it was made in 1642. Daljeet Singh (1987) reports the 1977 university team and Pritam Singh dating the Kanpur volume to 1699, and notes a claim that the year in its index was altered.[EoS][Web][Singh]
- Status of the text
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism calls the extra material apocryphal. Other writers, reported in Daljeet Singh and Wikipedia, have argued that this recension may be close to an early form of the text. Daljeet Singh rejects that.[EoS][Singh][Web]
A folio labelled on Commons as from the Bhai Banno manuscript, via Flickr. Commons dates it to the early 1600s, but the date of the volume is disputed and this image could not be checked against it.
Unknown, Disputed: 1604, 1642 or 1699. Public domain. Source
