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Vir Singh was a poet, scholar, and theologian of the Sikh revival movement, playing an important part in the renewal of Punjabi literary tradition. Vir Singh’s contributions were so important and influential that he became canonized as Bhai, an honorific often given to those whom could be considered a saint of the Sikh faith.

Born in 1872, in Amritsar, Vir Singh was the eldest of Dr. Charan Singh's three sons. Vir Singh’s family could trace its ancestry as far back as to Diwan Kaura Mal, a vice-governor (Maharaja Bahadur) of the city Multan. His grandfather, Kahn Singh (1788-1878), spent a great deal of his youth training and learning traditional Sikh lessons in monasteries. Fluent in Sanskirt and Braj, as well as in the oriental systems of medicine (such as Ayurveda, Siddha and Yunani), Kahn Singh influenced his only son, Dr. Charan Singh, who later fathered Vir Singh, to become an active member of the Sikh community, often producing poetry, music, and writings in hopes of restoring the Sikh community. At seventeen, Bhai Vir Singh himself married Chatar Kaur and had two daughters with her. He died in Amritsar on June 10, 1957.

Bhai Vir Singh received his secondary education at Church Mission High School, and it was while attending school that the conversion of some of his classmates from Sikhism to Christianity that Singh's own religious convictions toward Sikhism were fortified. Influenced by the Christian missionaries' use of and reference to literary sources, Singh got the idea to teach others the main dogmas of Sikhism through his own written resources. Using the skills and techniques in modern literary forms that he learned through his English courses, Singh produced stories, poems, and epics and recorded the history and philosophical ideas of Sikhism.

Rather than become a government official, which was the popular career path for educated young men during his time, Bhai Vir Singh chose instead to become a writer. After passing his matriculation examination, he worked with a friend of his father’s, Wazir Singh, and set up a lithography press. His first commission to write and print were geography textbooks for some schools.

At the time, Sikhs were often persecuted by the British and Hindus, often being pressured or threatened into assimilating into mainstream culture. Acts such as publicly shaving off the heads and beards of religious Sikh officials were performed to humiliate and demean the Sikh religion. Amidst all this political discontent, Bhai Vir Singh sought to revitilize the Sikh culture and religion through peaceful means, by writing a myriad of novels, epics, and poems. With the fall of the Sikh Empire and the modernization of Christian, Muslim, and Hindu movements of proselytization, the Sikh faith began to wane until scholars and theologians of the religions, Bhai Vir Singh being a leading one, began revitalizing life into Sikhism through their works of literature.

Bhai Vir Singh championed the Sikh identity in a way that did not devalue other religions. He even reprimanded the violation and destruction the Hindu idols in Kashmir in his book, Avantipur de Khandar. Bhai Vir Singh also criticized and discouraged religious fanaticism, citing those as victims of their own fears brought on by a fervent and obsessive belief.

Unlike most of the popular religions, Sikhism stresses the equality between men and women and that it is even sinful to consider either sex above the other. Bhai Vir Singh reflected this belief in his novels, and featured them in a number of strong female characters. In fact, his very first novel was Sudari, which featured Sunder Kaur, a woman who converted from Hinduism to Sikhism and then proceeded to lead a life of adventure in the jungles with a band of Sikh warriors. It was the first novel penned in the Punjabi language. Through Sunder, Bhai Vir Singh hoped to embody all the ideals of Guru Nanak’s lessons. The book was well received by the Sikh community and gained popularity almost immediately. Other important female characters he wrote were Rani Raj Kaur, Satvant Kaur, Subhagji and Sushil Kaur. Even by today's modern standards, these female characters are still considered to be well rounded and an inspiration to both male and female Sikhs alike. Bhai Vir Singh went even as far as often portraying the women in his novels as more prone to spiritual enlightenment than her male counterpart.