Page:The Sikh Religion, its gurus, sacred writings and authors Vol 1.djvu/81

Rh When the tenth Guru found it necessary to go to the south of India, he took Mani Singh, among others, with him. At Nander, or Abchalanagar, as it is now called by the Sikhs, the Guru expounded to his followers, among whom Mani Singh was an enthusiastic listener, the recondite language of the Granth Sahib or the book par excellence.

After the Guru's death Bhai Mani Singh remained as Granthi, or reader of the Granth in the Har Mandar in Amritsar. The Sikhs commissioned him, while so employed, to write them a life of Guru Nanak. They represented that the Minas, or descendants of Prithi Chand, had interpolated much incorrect matter in the biography of the Guru, whereby doubts were produced in the minds of orthodox Sikhs; and they commissioned Mani Singh to discriminate the true from the false, and compile a trustworthy life of the founder of their religion. He accordingly expanded the first of Bhai Gur Das's Wars into a life of Guru Nanak. It is called the Gyan Ratanawali. Mani Singh wrote another work, the Bhagat Ratanawali, an expansion of Gur Das's eleventh War, which contains a list of famous Sikhs up to the time of Guru Har Gobind. After the demise of Bhai Mani Singh the copyists interlarded several Hindu ideas in his works.

The hymns of the Adi Granth are arranged under the musical measures to which they were intended to be sung. Mani Singh thought it would be better and more convenient to compile the hymns of each Guru separately. He therefore altered the arrangement of the Granth Sahib, on which he was censured by the Sikhs. He apologized, and was subsequently pardoned by the members of his faith.

In 1738 Mani Singh asked permission of Zakaria Khan, the Viceroy of Lahore, to allow the Diwali fair to