ANI RAI, BABA (b.1618), son of Guru Hargobind, was, according to Gurbilas Chhevin Patshahi, born to Mata Nanaki at Amritsar on 16 Maghar 1675 Bk/14 November 1618. The first to arrive to see the child`s face was grandmother, Mata Ganga, and she was the most rejoiced of all the

ANJULIA (N), by Guru Arjan, is a short composition comprising two hymns entered in the Guru Granth Sahib under Maru musical measure (GG, 1019). This word anjulia (n) is the plural form of Sanskrit anjuli which means the joining together of palms in supplication, reverence or salutation. The word

ANI RAI, author of Jangnama Guru Gobind Singh Ji, was one of the numerous poets and scholars who enjoyed the patronage of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708). The Jangnama is an account in verse of a battle on the banks of the River Sutlej in which an attack from the imperial

ANJUMANIPANJAB, founded in Lahore on 21 January 1865 by the distinguished linguist, Dr Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, who became successively the first principal of the Government College at Lahore and the first registrar of the University of the Panjab, was a voluntary society which aimed at the development of "vernacular literature"

ANNEXATION OF THE PUNJAB to British dominions in India in 1849 by Lord Dalhousie, the British governor general, which finally put an end to the sovereignty of the Sikhs over northwestern India, was the sequel to a chain of events that had followed the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh ten

ANOKHI, BIBI, born, according to Kesar Singh Chhibbar, Bansavalinama Dasan Patshahian Ka, in the Bikrami year 1592/AD 1535. She was the third child and the younger of the two daughters of Guru Arigad and(Mata) Khivi. M.G.S. ANUPDEI, MATA, mother of the fourth Guru, Guru Ram Das (1534-81). See HARDAS.

ARDAS, supplication and recollection, is the ritual prayer which Sikhs, individually or in congregation, recite morning and evening and in fact whenever they perform a religious service and at the beginning and conclusion of family, public or religious functions. The word ardas seems to have been derived from Persian

APOCRYPHAL COMPOSITIONS, known in Sikh vocabulary as kachchi bani (unripe, rejected texts) or vadhu bani (superfluous texts) are those writings, mostly in verse but prose not excluded,which have been attributed to the Gurus, but which were not incorporated in the Guru Granth Sahib at the time of its compilation in

ARDAMAN SINGH, BHAYEE (1899-1976), of pious lineage was born on 20 September 1899 (father: Bhayee Arjan Singh; mother: Devinder Kaur) at Bagarian, in present day Sarigrur district of the Punjab. The family traces its descent from Bhai Rup Chand, a devout Sikh of the time of Guru Hargobind (1595-1644)

ARGOUD, BENOIT, a Frenchman, who joined Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s infantry in November 1836 as an instructor. He was of a quarrelsome nature and readily picked rows with his colleagues and subordinates. Dismissed from service in April 1837, he proceeded to Afghanistan, but failed to get any employment there. Returning

ARJAN DEV, GURU (1563-1606), fifth in the line of ten Gurus or prophet teachers of the Sikh faith, was born on Baisakh vadi 7, 1620 Bk/15 April 1563 at Goindval, in present day Amritsar district, to Bhai Jetha who later occupied the seat of Guruship as Guru Ram Das, fourth

ARJAN SINGH (d. 1859), a military commander in Sikh times, was born the son of Jamiat Singh of Rarighar Nangal, in Gurdaspur district. In 1845, on the eve of the first AngloSikh war, he was given the command of four infantry regiments, one regiment of cavalry, and a troop