Guru.Granth.Sahib.Am.. - Gurmat Veechar

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34 GURu GRANfH SAHIB AMONG THE SCRIPTURES OF THE WORLD
indi,cates that the Goindval Pothis were compiled towards the end of
Guru Amar Das's life. These Pothis were the primary source for the
Kartarpur Pothi in terms ofthe actual corpus ofsacred hymns and their
arrangement in a particular order. Almost all hymns ofGuru Nanak and
Guru Amar Das in Kartarpur Pothi are available in the Goindval Pothis.
However, between the BaQi ofthe Gurus and the compositions ofthe
Bhagats there are over a dozen compositions of'Gulam sadasevak'
who uses the epithet 'Nanak' for himselfY Mann's suggestion that
these could be the compositions ofJeth Chand who later became Guru
Ram Das is not satisfactory. However, this does not mean that Guru
Arjan could not have these Pothis for preparing the Kartarpuri Blr.
According to Gurinder Singh Mann, there were only two main
branchesofscriptural manuscripts in the seventeenth century. He argues
in detail that the 'Lahore version' actually belongs to the Amritsar
tradition which itselfcomes from the Kartarpuri Blr, and Bhai Banno
version is only one example ofsuch copies made from the Kartarpuri
BIr. In other words, the Kartarpuri BIr was the mainspring ofall the
seventeenth-century manuscripts falling into two branches. The first
branch represented copies ofa copy made in 1605, and the second
branch represented copies made after 1606. The latter contained some
additional compositions ofGuru Atjan. The hymns ofGuru Tegh Bahadur
were added to the text before 1675, that is, in his lifetime. On the opening
folio ofMS 1192, which has the complete corpusofGuru Tegh Bahadur's
hymns, there is his attestation and the note that this attestation was
obtained by presenting the manuscript to Guru Tegh Bahadur in the
presence ofthe whole congregation on the full moon day ofJeth in
Samat 1731, This phase ofupdating the text ofthe second branch of
manuscripts was followed bythe final stage in the I680s. The compilation
ofthe final version did not involve a simple addition ofthe hymns of
Guru Tegh Bahadurto the existing corpus but also probably the omission
ofa set ofcompositions available in the earlier manuscripts. This version,
generally referred to as the Damdami, was seen as the canonical text in
the central Sikh community in the closing decades ofthe seventeenth
century.52
According to Mann, only two traditions were current during the
eighteenth and the early nineteenth century: copies ofthe Damdami