Sakhee Book : or the Description of Gooroo Gobind Singh's Religion and doctrines thanks to the Almighty, to whose unbounded kindness, we own the regeneration of this country which the British nation has effected so successfully. The nation in question has created a desire among the people to cultivate learning and has directed their mind towards their own religion. In publishing this work, I pray fervently and sincerely to God, for Her Gracious Majesty the Queen for her disinterested kindness in governing this kingdom and protecting its inhabitants from oppression and misrule. I sincerely believe and wish that this act may be considered as an act of sincere loyalty expressed towards Her Majesty and that this act of sincere loyalty is the chief desire of the Government. In this book there are generally three kinds of words, viz. 1st, the author's use of significant words of Sakhee; 2nd, the author's use of such words which others could not comprehend, and hence the difference of opinions among them; 3rd, the author's use of ambiguous wordswhich excite doubt and curiosity. But as far as I can, I have used words that convey true and precise meaning. He will be the true judge of this book who will read theoriginal Hindi work written in prose and poetry. Thistranslation will not explain the ambiguity which is in theoriginal. In order to explain such ambiguity I have given foot notes.
About The Translator : Sirdar Attar Singh (1833-1896), scholar nobleman, was a collateral of the rulers of Patiala, and belonged to the village of Bhadaur, in present-day Sangrur district of the Punjab. He was born in 1833, the son of Kharak Singh. From the very beginning, he had a bent for learning and gained proficiency in Urdu, Persian, Punjabi and English. For study of Sanskrit, he went to Varanasi. For his mastery in Sanskrit learning he was honoured by the British with the title of Mahamahopadhyaya. He was equally at ease in the world of Arabic-Persian learning for which he earned the title of Shamas ul'Ulema. Succeeding to the family estates in 1858, Attar Singh set up a library for himself and a school for the children at Bhadaur. In 1878, he moved to Ludhiana, shifting his library from Bhadaur to that city as well. In pursuance of his will, this library was after his death transferred to the Panjab Public Library at Lahore. For his scholarly tastes and for his work in the cause of education, he was appointed a member of the senate of the Panjab University College, Lahore, in 1870. Already in 1869 he had been elected a member of AnjumaniPunjab, an educational and literary society started under the presidentship of Dr G.W. Leitner. Of the Anjuman, he was vicepresident in 1880. He was elected a member of Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1869.The British authorities often consulted him on matters relating to Sikh affairs, faith and literature. A strong loyalist in sympathy. Attar Singh helped the British especially at the time of the uprising of the Kukas or Namdharis and maintained voluntary surveillance in keeping the government informed about their activities. For the benefit of the British government, he also translated into English in 1873 Sau Sakhi (lit. A Hundred Stories), an apocryphal text ascribed by some to Guru Gobind Singh, which was popularized towards the end of the nineteenth century by Kukas who read some of its verses as predictory of their own triumph and prosperity and of Maharaja Duleep Singh, the deposed king of the Punjab. When in 1873 Trumpp expressed his inability to translate the Dasam Granth, Attar Singh at the request of the government prepared abstracts of certain texts from it, such as Jaap Sahib, Akal Ustat, Bachitar Natak, Zafarnamah and the Hikayat section in Persian and Punjabi which he supplied to the Government of India and to Dr Trumpp in March 1874. He also translated into English Rahitnamas of Prahlad Singh and Bhai Nand Lal for the benefit of the government. In January 1876, he published his English translation of Malva Des Ratan di Sakhi Pothi, popularly known as Sakhi Pothi, under the title The Travels of Guru Teg Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh.
