Saturday, June 28, 2008

Guru Granth Sahib Ji to be translated into 13 languages

The Guru Granth Sahib Seva Mission has taken it upon itself to translate Guru Granth Sahib into 13 prominent Indian languages so that people across the country can follow the path shown by the Gurus. The translation and publication of the granth is being undertaken so that the translated versions are ready for publication and distribution on the eve of the of 300 years of installation of the holy book as the Guru of the Sikhs in 2008.

Mr Gurinderpal Singh Dhanaula, chief sevadar of the mission, said many people from other parts of the country had urged them to undertake this exercise as the reach of the granth was universal and they were facing problems in reading the holy book. He said they were encouraged when the granth was successfully translated into Urdu by Baba Ravinderpal Singh of Talwandi Sabo. They then decided that they would approach prominent regional scholars to get the granth translated into 13 prominent languages.

Mr Dhanaula said the granth would be initially translated into Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Sindhi, Malayalam and Sanskrit. The next phase would be to get it translated into major foreign languages, he added. Work on the Oriya and Tamil versions was underway and was being done by Dr N.C. Panda of the Sambhalpur University and Kannan R. of the Madurai University, respectively.

Mr Dhanaula said initially they would get 5000 copies each of the granth printed in Urdu and Hindi while 1,000 copies each would be available in rest of the regional languages. Besides, they would also get 5 lakh copies of Japji Sahib published in Urdu and Hindi while 1 lakh each would be available for the people in other regional languages.

Commenting on the financial implications of such a massive project, he said offers were pouring in from various religious and social organisations across the country and abroad.

sikh Toursim News

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