ABOUT
SURAJ PRAKASH
The Suraj Prakash is a comprehensive historical text, rendered in Braj poetry, covering the lives of the ten Sikh Gurus. It was written by the Great Poet [Mahakavi] Santokh Singh, a learned scholar and exquisite poet who learned from the most important learning institution [Sampradya] at the time, the Giania Bunga in Amritsar.
Santokh Singh's work remains an unparalleled text to this day, and since its creation it had been mandated to be read across all the Takhts, and this tradition continues till this day at Takht Patna Sahib and Takht Hazur Sahib.
Prior to the Suraj Prakash there was no extensive endeavor to collect the history of all the Sikh Gurus in a single text. The majority of Sikh history in one way or another can be found to have some relation to the Suraj Prakash, making it integral to engage with in an unfiltered manner.
The Suraj Podcast presents uncensored chapter by chapter summaries of the text in a way that has never been done before.
Composition of the Suraj Prakash
The full title of the text, the Gurpratap Suraj Prakash Granth is meant to analogize the sun’s illuminating rays with the glory of the Guru. This idea manifests into the organization of the text. The Suraj Prakash is organized in four sections, as follows:
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Section 1
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Sun Rise and Sun Set: Life stories of Guru Nanak
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Section 2
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Raas 1: Life stories of Guru Angad and Guru Amar DasRaas 2: Life story of Guru Ram DasRaas 3 & 4: Life story of Guru Arjan
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Raas 5-8: Life story of Guru Hargobind Raas 9-10: Life stories of Guru Har Rai and Guru Har Krishan
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Raas 11-12: Life story of Guru Tegh Bahadur
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Section 3
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6 Seasons (Rut): Life stories Guru Gobind Singh
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Section 4
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2 Ayan (Two Solstices): Life stories Guru Gobind Singh
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The first section relates to Guru Nanak – symbolized as sun rise and sun set. The second section deals with the lives of the Second Guru to the Ninth Guru. These are organized in what is called in Sanskrit Raashi, in Punjabi Raas, or in English zodiac. The idea is that the individual observing the illumination of the sun is first going to experience the micro, the sunrise sunset, then from there, if we watch the sky just before sunrise we will see a set of constellations that appear to have a pattern for about a month before they change, each month then is represented by that set of constellations, and that’s what we call a zodiac, so this is cideral method of measuring one year.
As one experiences the twelve months of the year, we pass through seasons. In India seasons (i.e., Rut) there are 6 seasons (two months per season). The stories of Guru Gobind Singh Ji are related through the 6 seasons. The stories of Guru Gobind Singh are so extensive that they extend to an additional section called Solstices (i.e., Ayan). The first Solstice is the Winter Solstice which refers to the period of angular decline of the sun in the sky for a duration of 6 months, from June to December. The second Solstice is the Summer Solstice which refers to the period of ever increasing daylight day by day from December to June.
As one can see, the organization of the Suraj Prakash is essentially a sophisticated map of the micro macro illumination of the sun as an observer from Earth.