By: Gurinder Singh Mann
A new, first edition hardcover book published 1996 by Harvard University Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies (Vol.51).
This volume explores the earliest available version of the Sikh canon. The book contains the first critical description and partial edition of the Goindval Pothis, a set of proto-scriptural manuscripts prepared in the 1570s. The manuscripts also contain a number of hymns by non-Sikh saints, some of them not found elsewhere.
Through a meticulous analysis of the contents of these rare manuscripts, Gurinder Singh Mann establishes their place and importance in the history of Sikh canon formation.
The book has been of great interest and controversy to scholars of Siri Guru Granth Sahib studies. Academics of both schools of thought, the ones in favor of these Pothis as the original source of the compositions of the first three Gurus and some Bhagats and those against this view, have put forth arguments and counter-arguments.
