TOTA, BHAI, received initiation at the hands of Guru Arjan. He was trained in the martial art in the time of Guru Hargobind and became a skilled swordsman. He laid down his life in the battle of Amritsar in 1629. His name is included in Bhai Gurdas, Varan, XI. 18.
DAKKHANI RAI (d. 1815), a sixth generation descendant of Baba Prithi Chand, the elder brother of Guru Arjan, who had founded an Udasi dera or preaching centre of the Udasi sect at Gharachon, a village in present day Sarigrur district of the Punjab. The rulers of Patiala granted him two villages, Kapial and Batariana, in freehold. Dakkhani Rai was a noncelibate Udasi sadhu, and his descendants are still living at Gharachon. In Bava Brahmanand, Guru L7dasm Matt Darpan, Baba Bishan Sarup and Baba Sarup Das are mentioned as the most respected and most active heads of this branch of Udasis. Baba Sarup Das lived and preached for some time at Shikarpur in Sindh province, and at Amritsar from 1898 till his death there on 22 Assu 1979 Bk / 7 October 1922.
KAUR SINGH NIHANG, AKALI (1886-1953), scholar and religious preacher, was the eldest son of Bhai Mahari Singh and Mal Karam Kaur of Paddhar, a small village near Chakar in that part of Jammu and Kashmir which is now under Pakistan`s occupation. Tlic family traced its descent from one TrilokT Nath, who was among the group of Kashmir! Brahmans who had travelled to Chakk Nanaki (Anandpur) in 1675 to tell Guru Tegh Bahadur how they suffered pcrsccuiion at the hands of the Mughal satrap. Trilokt Nath`s son, Amolak Nath, wlio was Akali Kaur Singh`s great grandfather, received the riles o fKhalsa baptism and became Amolak Singli. Kaur Sirigli, whose original name was Puran Singh, was born on 28 June 1886.
NIHAL SINGH DAMDAMIAN, 19th century Nirmala saint, a native of Mimsa village of the former princely state of Patiala, received initiation and religious education at the hands of Mahant Dunna Singh, of Uchcha Buriga, a Nirmala sanctuary at Damdama Sahib, Talvandi Sabo, in present day Bathinda district, and became head of the Buriga after the latter`s death. He was respected for his humility and unassuming nature and for the zeal with which he served in the Guru ka Larigar and the loving care with which he looked after the cattle in the shed. In 1860, he with a band of youthful devotees, went to Dera Baba Ram Rai in Dehra Dun and, felling one of the tallest trees in the pine forest of its extensive estate, brought it to Talvandi Sabo carrying it on their heads all the way to Patiala and thence on bullock carts arranged by Maharaja Narinder Singh of Patiala to Damdama Sahib where it was put up as the religious flagmast. Reaching Damdama Sahib, Nihal Singh humbly stood at the entrance where the sangat had deposited their shoes and would not enter the Takht Sahib until he had obtained pardon by paying penalty for having violated the Sikh code of conduct forbidding any dealings with the followers of Baba Ram Rai.
SANT SINGH GIANI, BHAI (1768-1832), renowned man of letters and custodian of Sri Darbar Sahib at Amritsar in Sikh times, came of a devout family of Chiniot, in present day Jhang district of Pakistan. His grandfather, Bhai Ram Singh had spent his life preaching Sikhism in those parts. His father, Bhai Surat Singh, made home in Amritsar to which place he had migrated in 1750. Surat Singh was a scholar of Persian and Punjabi and enjoyed high reputation as an exponent of the Gurus` teaching.
VARYAM SINGH, PANDIT (1864-1953), religious scholar and preacher, was born the son of Dhanna Singh, a peasant of moderate means living in the village of Jabboval, now in the Kapurthala district of the Punjab. Losing his father at the age of 14, he took up his ancestral profession of farming, and as a hobby started practising wrestling. But he soon left both and proceeded to the holy city of Amritsar to devote himself to learning. Besides the Guru Granth Sahib, he read there classics such as Vichar Prabhakar, Vichar Sugar, Moksa Panth Prakas with Bhai Amrik Singh.
BADRI NATH (d. 1871), son of Pandit Gobind Ram who migrated from Kashmir to the Punjab at the beginning of the nineteenth century, entered Maharaja Ranjit Singh\'s army as a soldier in 1821, rising to the rank of colonel in 1835. He saw plenty of fighting during his service career and took part in the campaign\'s of Swat, Peshawar, Hazara and Bannu. For long he served on the frontier and was for six years in charge of the forts of Dera Ismail Khan and Tonk.
BRAHM DAS, PANDIT, described in the Puratan Janam Sakhi as a learned man of Kashmir, is said to have been a resident of Bij Bihara, near Matan. Once Guru Nanak journeying through the valley halted close to where he lived. As Brahm Das, proud of his learning, heard of the arrival of afagfr, holy man, he came in his accustomed manner with his packs of Puranas and other old texts amounting to "two camel loads" and with a stone idol suspended from his neck. No sooner had he uttered his greeting than he began questioning the Guru on how he clad himself, what ritual he observed and what food he ate.
DEVI DAS, DIWAN (1767-1830), eldest son of Diwan Thakur Das Khatri of Peshawar, was, like his father, in the service of the Afghan rulers prior to joining the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. At the time of Shah Zaman`s last invasion of northern India (1798-99), the Maharaja, who had heard about the reputation of Devi Das, offered him the post of Diwan at Lahore. Devi Das entered the service of the Maharaja in 1803 as the keeper of the royal seal, accountant general and head of the secretariat (mfr munshT). Devi Das found that the financial administration needed his immediate attention.
GIRDHAR LAL or Girdhari Lal, a poet in Guru Gobind Singh`s retinue at Paonta, was the author of Pingal Sdr, a treatise in verse on Hindi prosody. According to its autobiographical stanzas 716, Girdhar Lal was the son of Gaj Mall, a Khatri of Gadiyal clan. The family came originally from Multan but after a stay at Sadhaura, now in Yamunanagar district of Haryana, had settled at Lahore. From there Dvarka Das, great great grandfather of Girdhar Lal, had shifted to Agra at the in stance of Muzaffar Khan, an Afghan noble.
