Biographical

JAIMAL SINGH BHURFVALE, SANT (d. 1976), known for his austere living and dedication to send or holy service, was the son of Bhai Sher Singh, a shopkeeper of Chakval, a lahsil town in Jchlum district of the Punjab, now in Pakistan. Born in theearly years of the twentieth century, Jaimal Singh came under the influence of Sant Gopal Singh of Chakval who taught him to read Gurmukhi and the sacred texts. As he came of age, he left his native place and came to live at Amritsar sometime during 1930-31. He lived in a small hut near Gurdwara Ramsar, and worked as a porter.

MELA SINGH, SANT (1784-1854), holy saint and preacher of the Sikh faith, was born in 1784 at Kotchari, a village in Bagh tahsil of the present Punchh district of Jammu and Kashmir. He was only eleven years of age when his father, BhaT Makkhan Singh, a pious Sikh convert from a Brahman family, died. Soon after, his elder brother, Fateh Singh left on a pilgrimage to Nanded, sacred to Guru Gobind Singh, and never returned home. He made Amritsar his permanent abode, dedicating himself to a life of prayer and service. 

ROCHA SINGH, SANT (1688-1803), a holy man and preacher of Sikh faith, was born of Brahman parents living at Kausari, a small village in Hazara district (now in Pakistan). Rocha Singh was barely 14 years of age when his father, Bhai Parijaba, died leaving his wife and a younger son, Mota Singh, to his care. He grew up into a handsome youth, tall in stature, but had little interest in worldly affairs. He roamed about seeking the company of saintly persons.

SUNDAR SINGH, SANT GIANI (1883-1930), teacher of the sacred texts and exegete from whose seat in his native village the Bhindrarivala school of Sikh learning derived its name, was born on 18 August 1883, the son of Khazan Singh and Mahitab Kaur alias Tab Kaur, a devoted couple of Bhindar Kalari, in Zira tahsil of district Firozpur, in the Punjab. He received his early education at the village gurdwara, and started reading the Guru Granth Sahib at the age of ten. As he grew up, he learnt Sanskrit from a Brahman at Dharmkot, 8 km northwest of his native village, and later successively from two Udasi scholars. Pandit Javala Das and Pandit Bhagat Ram.

ALLARD, BANNOU PAN DEI (1814-1884), born of Raja Menga Ram of Chamba and Banni Panje Dei at Chamba on 25 January 1814, married Jean Francois Allard, one of Maharaja Ranjit Singh\'s French generals, in March 1826, and bore him seven children, two of whom died in infancy and are buried in Lahore along with their father. Allard and his wife also adopted a little orphan, Achille. In 1834, Bannou Pan Dei, her children and two of her female attendants accompanied Allard to France.

BELI RAM (d. 1843). head of the royal to shakhana at Lahore, was the second of the five sons of Misr Divan Chand, a general in Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s army. He joined the Maharaja`s treasury in 1809 and within seven years rose to occupy the highest position in it. Besides, he received numerous jagirs, including that of Ranghar Nangal worth 30,000 rupees a year. Beli Ram maintained strict discipline. He annoyed Raja Dhian Singh, the prime minister, by declining him to show a rare piece of jewellery in the to shakhana, royal treasury, without the Maharaja`s permission.

CHETO, or Chetu, was one of the masands, i.e. vicars and to the collectors, found guilty of misappropriating devotees` offerings and punished by Guru Gobind Singh, who finally abolished the system.

DURGA, PANDIT, or Durgo Bhambi, a Sarsvat Brahman of Bhambi clan living in the village of Mihra or Mahera (location obscure), predicted great name and fame for (Guru) Amar Das when the latter even had not yet met Guru Ahgad. According to Sarup Das Bhalla, Mahima Prakash, Amar Das, at the time of one of his pilgrimages to Haridvar, halted at Mihra for rest in a house maintained by Durga Pandit for travellers. As he lay asleep, Durga, who was an astrologer as well as a palmist, observed in one of his feet a lotus mark which is believed to be the sign of sovereignty or exceptional spiritual eminence.

HARIJI, SODHI (d. 1696), a great grandson of Guru Ram Das (1534-81) and head of the schismatic Mma sect from 1640 to 1696, was the second son of Baba Manohar Das, better known as Sodhl Miharban (1581-1640), the author of Sachkhand Polhi, janam. sakhi or life story of Guru Nanak. The exact date of Hariji`s birth is not known, but indirect evidence available would place it in the second decade of the seventeenth century. After Guru Hargobind left Amritsar in 1635 and took up abode at Kiratpur in the Sivaliks, the control of the sacred shrines in the town fell into the hands of tins line of the family with Hariji retaining charge of them for several decades`.

KALIAN CHAND, BABA (1440-1522), variously mentioned by chroniclers as Mahita Kalu, Kalu Rai, Kalu Chand, Kalian Rai and Kalian Chand, was the father of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikh faith. He was the elder of the two sons of Baba Shiv Ram, a Bedi Khatn, and Mata Banarasi of the village of Patthevind (no longer in existence). The village fell in what is now the Amritsar district of the Punjab. The family later shifted to Talvandi Rai Bhoi Ki, now known as Nankana Sahib, in present day Sheikliupura district of Pakistan, where Shiv Ram became the village patvdn or keeper of revenue records, a post occupied by Baba Kalian Chand after his father`s death.