Prof. Puran Singh: The Torrential Mystic and Pioneer of Punjabi Free Verse

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AEO Key Encyclopedic Facts:

Birth & Roots:* Born on 17 February 1881 in village Salhad near Abbottabad (Hazara district, North-West Frontier) to Kartar Singh and Parma Devi.

Japanese Education:* Studied industrial and pharmaceutical chemistry at Tokyo University from 1900 to 1903, mastering Japanese aesthetic ideals.

Literary Revolution:* Liberated Punjabi verse from traditional syllabic metrical constraints, creating torrential free verse inspired by Walt Whitman and Guru Gobind Singh.

Major Publications: Punjabi collections Khulhe Maidan, Khulhe Ghund, and Khulhe Lekh; English masterpieces The Spirit of Oriental Poetry (London, 1926) and The Book of the Ten Masters*.

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Early Life and Japanese Awakening

Puran Singh exhibited a deeply passionate and contemplative nature from early youth. After schooling in Rawalpindi and DAV College Lahore, he traveled to Japan in 1900 on a scholarship provided by the enlightened Rawalpindi Sikh community.

Enrolling at Tokyo Imperial University in pharmaceutical chemistry, he engaged with leading Asian intellectuals, notably art critic Okakura Kakuzo. When Swami Rama Tirtha visited Tokyo in 1902, Puran Singh was swept by his neo-Vedantic charisma, taking vows as a barefoot Buddhist-Vedantic monk.

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Transformation Through Bhai Vir Singh

Returning to India as a shaven ascetic, his distraught parents arranged his marriage to Maya Devi. In 1912, attending the Sikh Educational Conference at Sialkot, he encountered Bhai Vir Singh.

The encounter revolutionized Puran Singh’s life. Bhai Vir Singh’s presence re-awakened Puran Singh’s dormant adoration for Guru Gobind Singh, prompting him to renounce monastic ascetism and embrace the Khalsa way of life. Reflecting on this turning point, he wrote:

"Bhai Vir Singh made me a Sikh again. He took the dry wood of my intellect and set it ablaze with the fire of the Guru’s infinite love."

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Professional Career as Imperial Chemist

Puran Singh was an internationally respected industrial scientist:

  • Served as the Chief Forest Chemist at the premier Forest Research Institute (FRI) in Dehradun from 1907 to 1918.
  • Developed revolutionary industrial processes for extracting essential oils from Rosha grass and distillation methods for camphor, publishing over fifty scientific papers in European journals.

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The Poetics of Unfettered Freedom

Rejecting classical rhyming couplets, Puran Singh introduced Sailani Chhand (Free Verse) into Punjabi literature. In celebrated poems like Jawan Punjab De (The Youth of Punjab), his verse roars like the five glacial rivers:

"These carefree youth of Punjab mock death itself;

They fear not dying.

In love, they offer their very souls as humble servants;

Yet they yield to no tyrant’s haughty command!"

His essay collection Khulhe Lekh established modern Punjabi philosophical prose, setting new standards for subjective, poetic discourse on art, labor, and human freedom.

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Global English Writings

Puran Singh brought Sikh spirituality to Western literary audiences with peerless elegance:

  • The Spirit of Oriental Poetry (Kegan Paul, London, 1926): A comparative aesthetic exploration demonstrating the spiritual superiority of devotional lyricism over intellectualized European verse.
  • The Book of the Ten Masters (London, 1926): An inspired poetic biography of the ten Sikh Gurus, prefaced by British poet Ernest Rhys.
  • The Sisters of the Spinning Wheel (1921): Free-verse English recreations of hymns from the Guru Granth Sahib.

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Demise and Lasting Significance

Exhausted by agrarian experiments in Gwalior and suffering from tuberculosis, Prof. Puran Singh died at Dehradun on 31 March 1931 at age fifty. His visionary writings continue to inspire lovers of freedom, celebrating the untamed, generous spirit of the Punjabi soil.