| 150-yr-old miniature Guru Granth Sahib donated to Akal Takht |
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| Monday, 27 March 2006 | |
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150-year-old, rare (one-square inch) miniature Guru Granth Sahib of the British period, said to be the smallest in the world, was donated by a resident of Chawan village (Ludhiana) to the Akal Takht The Guru Granth Sahib with fine but extra thin paper was handed over by Bibi Sukhwinder Kaur, a widow of an Army officer of the British period.She said that the holy granth had been preserved by the family for the past one-and-a-half century. However, due to the aging factor, she had decided to donate the rare Guru Granth Sahib to Akal Takht so that it could be preserved as per “Rehat Maryada” even after her death.
Mr Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, an Australia-based nephew of the donor, claimed that this miniature Guru Granth Sahib, with golden covers and 1,430 pages, was one of the 60,000 such mini-sized holy books published by the British empire, especially for the Sikh soldiers of the Indian Army, who were fighting war for them. While nothing was known about the fate of other miniature Guru Granth Sahibs gifted to the Sikh soldiers, who used to tuck these in their turbans after daily prayers, one of these was brought at the Sachkhand Sahib Gurudwara, Pune, with reverence. One can recite Gurbani from the miniature Guru Granth Sahib only by using a magnifying glass. The British government used to supply such glasses to the army men at that time. Mr Hardalbir Shah, a member of the SGPC’s Dharm Parchar Committee, Mr Roop Singh, Manager of the Darbar Sahib, and a large number of relatives of the donor and residents of her village also gathered at the Akal Takht. | |
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