Mahan Kosh

Guru Shabad Ratnakar Mahan Kosh, known by its more popular name of Mahan Kosh, is a Punjabi language encyclopedia which was compiled by Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha over fourteen years. It was the first Punjabi encyclopedia and is considered a groundbreaking work in terms of its impact and its level of scholarship.

Dictionary

Mahan Kosh has 64,263 entries arranged in the alphabetical order of the Gurmukhi script covering religious and historical terms in the Sikh canon. Each entry records the etymology and different meanings of a term "according to its usage at different places in different works" alongside textual quotations.

When words of Perso-Arabic or Sanskrit origin appear they are reproduced in their original scripts to inform readers of their correct pronunciation and connotation.

Publication

While studying two existing titles, Pandit Tara Singh Narotam's Granth Guru Girarth Kos (1895) and Hazara Singh's Sri Guru Granth Kos (1899), Kahn Singh realized there would be great value in a lexicography on words occurring in Sikh historical texts as well as in the Guru Granth Sahib because it would promote literacy and critical studies in Punjabi.