🚀 go-pugleaf

Here is the story of a true patriot.


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				Bhagat Puran Singh



        On Aug 4, 1992, Bhagat Puran Singh Ji, a panthic saewak who
	devoted his entire live in service of humankind, passed away

        Bhagat PURAN SINGH, the legendary Saint of Amritsar. Bhagat
        Puran Singh died in Chandigarh on 4th August 1992. aged 88.
        Born Ramji Das at Rajewal, district Ludhiana, the sensitive
        Child, sickened by ritualism and priestly arrogance, readily
        embraced Sikhism with encouragement from his pious mother,
        Mehtab Kaur. Soon Gurbani saturated his whole being with
        love and compassion for all humanity, in the spirit of Guru
        Nanak's exhortation "Jete jiv tete sabh tere, vinn seva phal kisei
        nahi." [SGGS: 3541 "All living things, 0 Lord, reflect your
        glory; there is no fruit nobler than taking care of them." Thus
        began a remarkably humane mission when in 1924, he picked
        up a four-year old polio-stricken child abandoned near
        Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore. On Partition in 1947 he set up
        "Pingalwara" at Amritsar with scores of sick and disabled,
        eventually moving to the present sprawling home for hundreds
        of destitutes, orphans and mentally ill, where he ministered
        personally to their physical, mental and spiritual health, to the
        end, with financial help from far and wide. Credited with little
        formal education, Bhagat Puran Singh nevertheless started a
        crusade for ecology and environment long before the 1992
        Earth Summit. A relentless pamphleteer for every good social
        cause, he used only recycled paper for printing in his press.
        Shy of publicity and utterly free of ambition, he returned the
        1977 "Padma-Shri" award in the wake of army assault on his
        beloved Harmandir Sahib. His nomination for Nobel Peace
        Prize in India and abroad, earlier this year, found him serenely
        unconcerned. We mourn his passing away, even as we rejoice
        that so great a man of God sanctified our land and illumined our
        lives.
        -from Sikh Review, Sept. 1992