Hand Written Guru Granth Sahib

In ancient times before the printing press Guru Granth Sahib had to be written out by hand. Bhai Jaswant Singh Khosa at the age of 73 has completed his fourth such handwritten volume of Guru Granth Sahib which took 14 months, writing 14 hours a day. Each of the 1430 pages takes about two and a half hours of uninterrupted work to complete. Each copy is an exact replica of the original Guru Granth Sahib and written in the Gurmukhi script. Maylasian born Bhai Jaswant Singh of Fremont California plans to keep writing although Doctors have told him he may become paralyzed. Already he has a limp, but has said he will write even if he has to do so from a wheel chair. Although he hopes to be entered into the Guinness World book of Records, he doesn't do it for money and has even turned down an offer of $200,000, instead donating the results of his efforts to gurdwaras in Amritsar India, England, Canada, and the United States.

Bhai Jaswant Singh gets his inspiration Bhai Mani Singh, a scribe in the court of Guru Gobind Singh, and granthi, or attendant, of the Granth kept in 1721 at Gurdwara Harmandir of Amritsar (Golden Temple). Bhai Mani transcribed many copies of scripture during his lifetime from the age of 14 onward before being martyred in December of 1737 by dismemberment in the Mogul court in Lahore. In an attempt to overcome a restriction barring Sikhs from visiting Amritsar, Bhai Mani arranged to have Sikhs come to worship during the Diwali Festival for a fee of 5,000 rupees expecting to realize the sum from offerings. The treacherous Moguls however marched on Amritsar, scattered the Sikh devotees and arrested Bhai Mani. Orders instructed the executioner to dismember Bhai Mani joint by joint. As the executioner began to make the first cut on his wrist Bhai Mani extended his hand and requested him to do the job properly  begining with his fingers. Bhai Mani Singh and ten of his 12 sons achieved martyrdom in service of the Sikh community. Two died with him in Lahore.