Bards whose savaiye in praise of the Gurus are in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji
The Bhatts
The Bhatts were hereditary bards and genealogists, and some of them came into the Sikh fold in the time of Sri Guru Amar Das Ji and Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji. Their verses of praise for the first five Gurus, known as the Bhatt Bani, stand at angs 1389 to 1409 of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Sources count between eleven and nineteen poets. Their families also kept the scrolls called Bhatt Vahis, which later became a source for Sikh history.
Who they were
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism describes the Bhatts as bards who recited the praises of rulers and warriors, and who recorded their patrons' family lines in scrolls called vahis. Some families lived by the Saraswati in present-day Haryana, and some moved to Sultanpur Lodhi.
Bhai Gurdas names Bhikha and Toda as Bhatts among the Sikhs of Sultanpur, at Var 11, pauri 21. The Encyclopaedia says that Bhatt Bhikha became a Sikh under Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, and that he later brought a group of other bards to Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji. A tradition it reports says that Bhatt Kalh copied verses from the vahis and passed them to Guru Ji when the scripture was being compiled.[EoS][EoS][EoS][Src]
The poets and their verses
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism counts 123 savaiye and lists seventeen poets: Kalh, also called Kalsahar or Kal Thakur (53), Mathura (12), Das (10, one of them written with Sevak), Kirat (8), Balh (5), Gayand (5), Nalh (5), Parmanand (5), Jalap (4), Sevak (4), Salh (3), Bhikha (2), Haribans (2), Jalan (2), Bhalh (1), Jalh (1) and Tal (1).
It divides the verses by subject: ten each for Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji, 22 for Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, 60 for Sri Guru Ram Das Ji and 21 for Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji. Their main theme, it says, is that the Gurus are one light passing from body to body.
It records family ties too. Kalh, Jalap, Kirat and Mathura are given as sons of Bhikha. Salh, Bhalh, Balh and Haribans are given as sons of three brothers of Rayya, Bhikha's father. Bhatt Kirat is said to have passed away in 1634.[EoS]
The Bhatt Vahis
Families descended from these bards kept vahis with entries about the Gurus, their families and leading Sikhs. They are written in a family script called bhattakshari. In the late 1950s the researcher Giani Garja Singh obtained Gurmukhi copies of entries from the time of Sri Guru Hargobind Ji to Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, through Bhatt Man Singh of Karsindhu in Jind district.
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism values them but urges caution. Bards often visited patrons twice a year at harvest, so an entry may have been written after the event or from a second-hand report. It suggests that this applies less to Bhatts who stayed in attendance on the Gurus.[EoS]
What the sources disagree on
- Number of Bhatts
Modern scholars including Sahib Singh, Teja Singh and Taran Singh count eleven. Bhai Santokh Singh and Bhai Vir Singh, among traditional scholars, count seventeen. Pandit Kartar Singh Dakha gives nineteen. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism explains the spread by the Bhatts' habit of singing in chorus: a group's verse might carry the leader's name or the names of its members.[EoS]
- Who wrote which verse
BaniDB tags these angs under twelve name forms, with 49 records for Kal and Kall Sahaar, 17 each for Gayand and Mathura, and 12 for Nal among them. Its total of 122 records is close to the Encyclopaedia's 123, but its figures for individual poets differ from the Encyclopaedia's, and the two lists have not been reconciled.[DB][EoS]
- Reliability of the vahis
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism gives entries in the vahis weight as a record of dates and events, while warning that they are not eyewitness diaries. Its entries depend largely on one researcher's transcripts, and part of that material remains in manuscript at Punjabi University, Patiala.[EoS][EoS]