ਪੰਜਾਬੀਆپنجابیاPunjabia

ਹੀਰ · ہیر · Heer

Waris Shah, 1766-67. Punjab’s greatest qissa, a chapter at a time, in an edition where every word answers when you tap it.

Competing interpretation Original verse · public domain Translation & notes: Punjabia 629 stanzas

Heer tells of Heer, a daughter of the Sials, and of Dhido of the Ranjha clan of Takht Hazara, whom the poem mostly calls by his clan’s name, Ranjha. Waris Shah finished it in 1766-67, and near its close he names Malka Hans as the town where he wrote it and Jandiala as his home.

We are bringing the whole poem into the Parallel Reader, all 629 stanzas, a chapter at a time. Each chapter gives every line in Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi, with a romanisation and an English line beside it, and every word answers when you tap it. The first two chapters are ready, and the rest will follow as we finish them.

The chapters

Chapter 1 · Takht Hazara From the opening praises to the quarrel that sends Ranjha from home. Stanzas 1 to 25 · about 13 min
  1. Praise 1 to 5
  2. The friends’ request 6 to 7
  3. The village of the Ranjhas 8 to 9
  4. The brothers’ spite 10 to 11
  5. The land divided 12 to 16
  6. Ranjha and his sister-in-law 17 to 25
Chapter 2 · The Mosque and the River From his brothers’ plea on the road to a night of quarrels at a mosque and the boatman’s ferry. Stanzas 26 to 49 · about 20 min
  1. The plea on the road 26 to 31
  2. The mosque and its school 32 to 35
  3. Ranjha and the mullah 36 to 42
  4. To the river 43
  5. Ranjha and the boatman 44 to 49
Being prepared The rest of the poem, a chapter at a time, in the same edition. 31 chapters
  1. Chapter 3 stanzas 50 to 70
  2. Chapter 4 stanzas 71 to 93
  3. Chapter 5 stanzas 94 to 118
  4. Chapter 6 stanzas 119 to 141
  5. Chapter 7 stanzas 142 to 161
  6. Chapter 8 stanzas 162 to 179
  7. Chapter 9 stanzas 180 to 202
  8. Chapter 10 stanzas 203 to 222
  9. Chapter 11 stanzas 223 to 244
  10. Chapter 12 stanzas 245 to 267
  11. Chapter 13 stanzas 268 to 290
  12. Chapter 14 stanzas 291 to 303
  13. Chapter 15 stanzas 304 to 311
  14. Chapter 16 stanzas 312 to 335
  15. Chapter 17 stanzas 336 to 353
  16. Chapter 18 stanzas 354 to 371
  17. Chapter 19 stanzas 372 to 387
  18. Chapter 20 stanzas 388 to 410
  19. Chapter 21 stanzas 411 to 435
  20. Chapter 22 stanzas 436 to 459
  21. Chapter 23 stanzas 460 to 479
  22. Chapter 24 stanzas 480 to 492
  23. Chapter 25 stanzas 493 to 514
  24. Chapter 26 stanzas 515 to 527
  25. Chapter 27 stanzas 528 to 548
  26. Chapter 28 stanzas 549 to 556
  27. Chapter 29 stanzas 557 to 572
  28. Chapter 30 stanzas 573 to 596
  29. Chapter 31 stanzas 597 to 610
  30. Chapter 32 stanzas 611 to 621
  31. Chapter 33 stanzas 622 to 629

How we made this edition

The text. We print the Gurmukhi transcription published by punjabi-kavita.com, in its own numbering of 629 stanzas. It does not say which edition it follows. When we compared 284 of its lines with Sheikh Abdul Aziz’s critical edition (Lahore, 1960), the two differed in reading on 147 of them, about half. So we call the text what it is, punjabi-kavita’s transcription, and never Aziz’s. A revision against Aziz’s edition is planned, and lines will change where the two part.

The Shahmukhi carries the same reading as the Gurmukhi. Where Aziz prints the same word, we spell it as he does; where he has another word, we write ours from the Gurmukhi. Each line was read twice against his page images, the second time without sight of the first. The honorific signs over holy names are printed as he prints them, and they are an editor’s, not the poet’s.

The romanisation is a guide to reading aloud, not a scientific transliteration. A word that has an entry in our word archive is spelt as it is there, so it looks the same across the site, and nasal vowels take a dotted n.

The English is ours, drafted line by line from the Punjabi, in plain English that stays close to the original. Every word has a gloss, and every note says what kind of knowledge it is: established consensus, competing interpretation, folklore or religious tradition.

Other readings. Under a stanza we give the words that Muhammad Sharif Sabir’s edition, Jeet Singh Seetal’s, or an undated Amritsar print of the longer bazaar text read differently. Aziz’s readings are not listed in this version.

Nothing is cut. We print every line punjabi-kavita prints, including passages some editions leave out: Seetal’s edition, for one, removed lines its editor judged obscene. Lines found only in the longer bazaar prints are not part of our text.

Stanzas. Waris Shah writes in stanzas of four long lines or more, each line in two halves. We print each line whole, with the break between its halves, and number the stanzas as punjabi-kavita does.

Every line is marked for review. All four lanes are first drafts until we have read them again, and we will correct them as we go. If you see something wrong, please tell us through our contact page.

Sources & further reading
  1. Waris Shah, Hīr (1766-67), public domain.
  2. punjabi-kavita.com, Heer Waris Shah, Gurmukhi page, read on 7 October 2026: the text we print, in its own numbering of 629 stanzas. The site does not name the edition it follows.
  3. Sheikh Abdul Aziz (ed.), Heer Sayyid Waris Shah, Punjabi Adabi Academy, Lahore, 1960: how our Shahmukhi spells each word his text shares with ours. In the lines we compared his text differs from punjabi-kavita’s in reading about half the time, and this version does not list his readings.
  4. Muhammad Sharif Sabir (ed.), Heer Waris Shah, second revision, Progressive Books, Lahore, year not printed (foreword dated 1985): readings cited under Other readings.
  5. Jeet Singh Seetal (ed.), Heer Waris, Pepsu Book Depot, Patiala, 1973: readings cited under Other readings, from his page images where we hold them and otherwise from the OCR of a scan. His editor removed lines he judged obscene, so a line missing from Seetal is no sign that it is late.
  6. Vadda Qissa Heer Ranjha, printed by Kashmira Singh, Kashmir Printing Press, Amritsar, undated, read in its pa.wikisource transcription (the 1900 there is the wiki’s date, not the book’s): the longer bazaar text, cited under Other readings.
  7. Sant Singh Sekhon, The Love of Hir and Ranjha, 1978: his English translation and its notes, consulted to check a sense or a story, never copied.
  8. The English translation, the romanisation, the glosses and the notes are Punjabia’s own, made for learners: plain prose, not verse.
  9. Christopher Shackle, “Transition and Transformation in Vāris Shāh’s Hīr”, in The Indian Narrative (Harrassowitz, 1992, Khoj 4), pp. 241-63. We cite it from other works and have not yet read it.
  10. Sant Singh Sekhon & Kartar Singh Duggal, A History of Punjabi Literature (1992; some listings give 1993).

Confidence and caveats. The text is punjabi-kavita’s transcription, and the printed editions differ from it and from each other; each chapter’s Other readings give the readings we know of. Every line in the Reader is a first draft marked for review until we have read it again. Corrections are always welcome through our contact page.

How this archive sources, labels and corrects its work: editorial standards.

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