National seminar held on Day 2 of Baba Farid festival

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, September 20

On the occasion of Baba Farid Annual Festival, a national seminar was conducted at Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) on Thursday, in which Sikh scholars, intellectuals and thinkers gave a message that love for the divine could best be expressed through loving actions for mankind.

Apart from the cultivation of moral qualities which help man on his way to God realisation, man should also develop deep and selfless love focusing on the rich heritage of Punjabis and their failure to display and share this heritage with the world and the next generation, Dr Jaspal Singh, a noted Sikh scholar and former vice-chancellor of Punjabi University, said those who forgot their heritage have no history. “If heritage is to remain sustainable, it should uphold its relevance in contemporary society,” he said.

In his key address on Baba Sheikh Farid (1173-1264), the famous Sufi saint born in the Punjab, Dr Jaspal Singh said Baba Farid was a poet whose Punjabi verses were the first recorded poetry in the Punjabi language.

Guru Nanak Devji himself had brought to light these verses after his meeting with Sheikh Ibrahim, the twelfth Caliph of the order after Sheikh Farid in Pak Pattan. Highly impressed with the deep spiritual insights in these verses which were written about three centuries before Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism and the first of the 10 Sikh gurus, recorded these verses and transferred these to the next Guru, said Dr Jaspal Singh.

Dr Jaspal Singh subscribed to the view that 112 shlokas were by Sheikh Farid, and the other 18 shlokas were by the Sikh Gurus on the ideas of Farid. Eighteen shlokas were added to them by the Sikh Gurus to harmonize the import and clarify or supplement the idea contained in the original shloka.

In his address, MF Farooqui, a senior IPS officer and a poet at heart, said the Baba Farid’s advices were more relevant in modern times.