Bhai Vir Singh (5 December 1872 – 10 June 1957) was an Indian poet, scholar, and theologian of the Sikh revival movement, playing an important part in the renewal of Punjabi literary tradition. Singh's contributions were so important and influential that he became canonized as Bhai, an honorific often given to those who could be considered a saint of the Sikh faith. Family and personal life Born in 1872, in Amritsar, Bhai 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 Sanskrit 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 10 June 1957. Education Bhai Vir Singh Ji had the benefit of both the traditional indigenous learning as well as of modern English education. He learnt Sikh scripture as well as Persian, Urdu and Sanskrit. He then joined the Church Mission School, Amritsar and took his matriculation examination in 1891 and stood first all over in the district. 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. Literary career Beginnings Singh chose 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.