Bhai Gurdas Varan: identify a translation and trace its digital source

Keep the translator and edition in your notes

CiNii Books identifies Jodh Singh’s Varan Bhai Gurdas: Text, Transliteration, and Translation as a two-volume publication issued by Vision & Venture in Patiala in 1998. Its language note specifies English and Punjabi, with Punjabi also represented in Roman script, and records indexes. The catalogue lists both volumes at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. These details identify a particular modern resource; the year belongs to that edition, not to the original poetry.[1]

A second translation has a stated explanatory structure

Singh Brothers describes Shamsher Singh Puri’s two-volume edition as an English rendering of forty vars, accompanied by the text in Gurmukhi and Roman scripts. It distinguishes translation of individual lines from summaries at the end of stanzas. Its catalogue gives August 2009 as the first edition, 993 pages and ISBN 8172054351. A reader comparing interpretations should therefore distinguish the verse text, the translator’s wording and the accompanying explanation.[2]

That description is useful for choosing which kind of reference to consult, while remaining the publisher’s account of its own edition. It does not establish that another translator uses the same English terms or the same page arrangement. Preserve the translator, volume and edition whenever copying a reference so that another reader can locate the same passage.[2]

Trace a database back to its printed inputs

Shabad OS’s source documentation names several resources under Bhai Gurdas: an Ashok and Chakar text published by SGPC in 2011, a Vir Singh commentary in a 2012 edition, and a second edition of Jodh Singh’s translation from 2013. These are bibliographical leads, rather than one undifferentiated digital text. The project also describes using source citations when reviewing changes. Checking this provenance helps distinguish a database’s text, commentary and translation layers; following a link still requires inspecting the named edition before quoting its wording or judging a variant.[3]