"The Sun-like Illumination of the Guru's Glory"),[1] is a popular and monumental hagiographic text about Sikh Gurus written by Kavi Santokh Singh (1787–1843) and published in 1843 CE.
[2] While Macauliffe used it extensively in his Sikh Gurus and history sections, he added that the Suraj Prakash is of doubtful trustworthiness, because the education and heritage of its author Santokh Singh was "largely tinctured with Hinduism".
[2] Vir Singh in his introduction to his printed publication of Suraj Prakash writes: Scholars such as W. H. McLeod and Max Arthur Macauliffe found fault in the text due to mythological components.
[22][23] Bhai Vir Singh writes that in the context of texts related to spiritual personalities, like the Gurus, stories including miracles (karāmāt) are used to "open the locks of the heart" of the listener/reader, in a way that purely scientific historical literature could not do.
[26] The confusion pertains to 18th century texts like Gurbilas as well, Murphy notes the problem related to context: Suraj Parkash was first edited by Vir Singh 1926-1935 in 14 volumes, with Punjabi footnotes.