Warris Shah Heer - Punjabi Literature

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Warris Shah-s Heer also amply demonstrates that though the people of Punjab were divided into various religious sects, they were nevertheless secular in outlook and respected each other-s religion.
Warris Shah describes Punjab as a fertile country with fields of mustard and corn yielding a rich crop. The rulers of Punjab were said to be corrupt and commited atrocities, extorted revenues mercilessly from innocent people. That brought the Hindus and Muslims closer to each other. The foreign invasions further cemented their ties and they developed remarkable cordiality and amity. There are also stray references to the shawls of Lahore and Kashmir, the Phulkaris of Multan, the silken Lehngas and the Tahmads of Takht Hazara, the home town of Ranjha in district Sargodha, now in Pakistan. There was enough milk and honey in Punjab as described in Heer, and the rivers of Punjab have been referred to very evocatively.
More than the official or the formal historical account, Warris Shah-s epic can be easily regarded as an authentic source of the history of Punjab. But more than that, Warris Shah is the historian of the heart of his people.
As poetry, the story of Heer Ranjha is the food of every Punjabi. If wheat is his staple food to eat, Heer is his spiritual food. It touches his soul. Every Punjabi youth remembers it by heart and sings it with an abandon unknown to other regions.
Highest poetry, they say, must conform to the tenets of music. judged from that standpoint, Heer occupies a very high position in the development of Punjabi poetry. After the hymns of. Baba Farid, it is the poetry of Warris Shah and Bulle Shah which inspired the Punjabis to revolt against the twin curse of absentee landlordism and foreign invasions.


Heer-Ranjha is a qissa, a tale, a romance based on Persian Masnavi. Through the voice of Heer Ranjha, Warris Shah has become the spokesman of the Punjabi mind. It must, however, be remembered that the first Heer in Punjabi was written by a poet called Damodar who had not given it a tragic ending. Even Maqbul, the early 18th century Punjabi poet, followed Damodar who sent the united lovers Heer and Ranjha to a Haj pilgrimmage to Mecca. It is only Warris Shah who gave the epic a tragic ending. Since tragedy appeals more to the human mind, the epic became not merely popular but immortal.
Warris Shah died in 1790, at the age of 60. It was his dream to see Punjab free from foreign invasions. Had he lived another ten years, he would have seen his dream come true when Ranjit Singh chased out Zaman Shah of Kabul beyond Jhelum river, never to return. However, he did come back to India but only as a helpless seeker of asylum which the generous Maharaja granted him in Lahore