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Vidya Sagar Granth

lost 17th-century Sikh text

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ139377115 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Vidya Sagar Granth ("book of the ocean of wisdom"), also known as the Samund Sagar Granth, was a voluminous literary work produced by the Kavi Darbar of Guru Gobind Singh in the late 17th century, combining all the compositions by the court-poets into a single volume. According to popular Sikh tradition, the entire work was lost during the crossing of the Sarsa river in 1704 or 1705.

History

It is at the Anandpur Kavi Darbar that the voluminous and massive Vidya Sagar Granth literary corpus and tome was commissioned and prepared. The literary corpus is said to have contained the compositions of the tenth Sikh guru, various poets, and scholars. It was Amrit Rai, Ani Rai, Siam, Sainapati, Alam, Tahikan, Daya Singh, Sukha Singh, and Dharam Singh who had the responsibility of translating ancient Sanskrit treatises into Braj, Sādh Bhākhā, and Punjabi. The tome likely mostly consisted of translations of ancient Sanskrit works into Braj, Punjabi, and Sadh Bhakha. According to popular Sikh tradition, the tome weighed nine maunds (approx. 320 kilograms) when it was finished. However, the tome was lost whilst the Sikhs were crossing the Sirsa Rivulet in 1705 during the evacuation of Anandpur. Surviving portions of the tome may have been recovered or been sourced to copies made by devotees when the tome was extant.

Editorial summary

“Vidya Sagar Granth” enters the record as lost 17th-century Sikh text. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Vidya, Sagar and Granth can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1704, 1705—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Vidya, Sagar and Granth.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Vidya Sagar Granth” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Vidya, Sagar and Granth provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q139377115. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1704 and 1705.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Vidya Sagar Granth primary sources, Vidya Sagar Granth archive and Vidya research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Vidya Sagar Granth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.