Chapter 10

Variations between the original copy of Guru Granth and Bhai Banno’s recension

The First Holy Book was installed in Sri Harimandir Sahib on Bhadon sudi 1, 1661 Bikrami, corresponding to August 16, 1604 A.D. It was not possible to make copies from the First Holy Book. The other copy of the Holy Book, called Bhai Banno’s recension, was only available for copying purposes.

We have already proved in Chapter 8 that the Copy of original Holy Book was not taken by Bhai Banno to his native village Mangat.He made no copy from the original Holy Book at any time. The other copy of the Holy Book, which had been made partly from the original Holy Book and partly from the manuscripts from which the original copy had been made, was made under the supervision of Sri Guru Arjan Dev Ji and Bhai Gurdas, at Ramsar in Amritsar itself. Twelve scribes were engaged by the Guru to make this Copy. It was this Copy in which spurious compositions were added by the
end of the seventeenth centUry, and became known as Banno’s recension. The stories in the three history books written 1-3 centuries after Compilation of the Holy Book, and after insertion of the spurious inaterial in the hand-written Copies of the Holy Book, are not true. The accounts given by these historians were only their own speculations to account for inclusion of the spurious matter.

Fictitious reasons given in History Books about Variations

Kavi Santokh Singh wrote in ‘Sooraj Parkash’ (written in 1766

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