ATMA SINGH, BHAI (1881-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was the son of Bhai Hira Singh, a Mazhabi Sikh of village Mustrabad in Gurdaspur district. The family later shifted to village Dharovali in Sheikhupura district where Atma Singh came in contact with Bhai Lachhman Singh, an active Akali

ATTAR SINGH, SARDAR SIR (1833-1896), scholar nobleman, was a collateral of the rulers of Patiala, and belonged to the village of Bhadaur, in present day Sangrur district of the Punjab. He was born in 1833, the son of Kharak Singh. From the very beginning, he had a bent for

ATMA SINGH, also remembered as Atma Ram, was a faqir of Shuja`bad, near Multan, who received the Sikh rites under the influence of Baba Khuda Singh. Before his initiation into the Sikh faith, he lived in a dharamsala at Shuja`bad which received a grant of Rs 100 from the

AUCKLAND, GEORGE EDEN, EARL OF (1784-1849), Governor General of India, son of William Eden, First Baron of Auckland, was born at Eden Farm, near Beckenham, in Kent, in August 1784. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and was called to the bar at Lincoln`s Inn in 1809. From 1810-13,

AUCKLAND PAPERS, comprising private correspondence and letters of Lord Auckland, governor general of India (1836-42), now available in the British Library and Museum, London, provide interesting sidelights on political affairs in the Punjab (1836-1841), Sindh and Afghanistan, and also furnish useful information on the military power of the Sikhs,

AURANGABAD, (19° 54`N, 75° 20`E) is a district town in Maharashtra. It is a railway station on the ManmadKachiguda section of the South Central Railway, 114 km from Manmad towards Nanded. The site was once the capital of the Yadavas ofDevgiri or Deogir in the 12th and 13th centuries; Aurangzib

AURANGZIB, MUHI UDDIN MUHAMMAD ALAMGIR (1618-1707), the last of the great Mughal emperors of India, ascended the throne of Delhi on 21 July 1658 after he had gained a decisive victory in the war of succession at Samugarh, near Agra, on 29 May 1658. Aurangzib`s appointment in 1636 as

AVITABILE, PAOLO CRESCENZO MARTINO (1791-1850), a Neapolitan soldier of fortune who, starting life as a private gunner, succeeded in obtaining high ranks in two widely separated Asiatic armies of Persia and Punjab, was born at Agerola, Naples, Italy, on 25 October 1791. From 1807 onwards he successively served in the

AVTAR SINGH VAHIRIA, polemicist and scholar of Sikh texts, was born on 12 June 1848 at Thoha Khalsa, a village in Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan. As a small boy, he learnt to recite the Sikh psalms from his mother and maternal uncle, Prem Singh. After he had learnt

AYODHYA (26° 45`N, 82° 10`E), on the right bank of the River Saryu, also known as Ghaghara, is sacred to the Hindus as the birthplace of Lord Rama. This ancient town has Sikh shrines in memory of the First, the Ninth and the Tenth Gurus. All three are located

AZAD HIND FAUJ, or Indian National Army (I.N.A.for short) as it was known to the English speaking world, was a force raised from Indian prisoners of war during World War II (1939-45) to fight against the British. The hostilities had started with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September

AZAD PUNJAB scheme, signifying a major shift in the kinds of political strategies to be pursued by Sikh political leadership in their efforts to enhance the political influence of their community, was a crucial turning point in the development of modern Sikh politics. With the introduction of the Montagu Chelmsford