Puran Singh was born at Salhad near Abbottabad in 1881, studied chemistry in Tokyo, became a Buddhist monk there, returned, was drawn back to Sikhi by Bhai Vir Singh, and worked as a chemist in the forest research service.
He wrote in Punjabi and in English. His English essays, The Book of the Ten Masters and The Spirit Born People, introduced Sikh thought to readers outside it in a voice entirely unlike the missionary literature.
His Punjabi poetry broke the metres altogether. He wrote long free verse under the influence of Walt Whitman and made it Punjabi, and modern Punjabi poetry starts there.
He also worked on essential oils and on the industrial chemistry of Indian plants, published technical papers, and tried repeatedly to start manufacturing ventures that failed.
He died at fifty in 1931. He is the most unusual figure in Punjabi letters, a chemist and a monk and a poet, and his Punjabi work was not properly collected until long after his death.
He trained as a chemist in Japan, ran a laboratory at Dehradun, and worked on essential oils and on the chemistry of forest products.
He wrote poetry and prose in Punjabi and in English, and his essays on Sikh thought and on Punjabi identity are among the strongest writing of that period in either language.
He came back to Sikh practice after a period away from it, met Bhai Vir Singh, and the later writing dates from that. He died in 1931.