The scribe
Bhai Gurdas wrote out the Adi Granth at Guru Arjan's dictation in 1604 at Ramsar, near Amritsar. The manuscript he produced, the Kartarpuri Bir, is the base text of Sikh scripture, and its physical existence — with corrections and insertions visible — has made it central to modern textual scholarship on the Granth.
He was a nephew of Guru Amar Das and served the third through sixth Gurus, travelling as a preacher to Agra, Kabul and Banaras.
The vars
His own compositions, forty vars in Punjabi and a body of kabitts in Braj, are commentary rather than scripture: they explain Sikh doctrine, narrate the lives of the Gurus, describe the community's practice, and argue against rival positions. Guru Arjan is recorded as calling them the key to the Guru Granth Sahib.
They are the earliest sustained account of Sikh belief from within the tradition, and the earliest external description of its institutions — the sangat, the langar, the practice of the early community — which makes them a primary historical source as well as a devotional one.
Status
The vars are the only compositions outside the Guru Granth Sahib and the approved Dasam Granth selections that may be sung in a gurdwara. Bhai Gurdas is not counted a Guru and his work is not scripture, but the exception granted to it marks the standing it holds.
Further reading
- Fenech, Louis E. The Sikh Zafar-namah of Guru Gobind Singh. Oxford University Press, 2013
- Grewal, J. S. The Sikhs of the Punjab. Cambridge University Press, 1998
- Grewal, J. S. Guru Nanak in History. Panjab University, 1969
- McLeod, W. H. Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion. Oxford University Press, 1968
- Singh, Khushwant. A History of the Sikhs. Oxford University Press, 2004
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.