SOBHA SINGH (1901-1986), painter, famous especially for his portraits of the Gurus, was born on 29 November 1901 in a Ramgarhia family of Sri Hargobindpur, in Gurdaspur district of the Punjab. His father, Deva Singh, had been in the Indian cavalry. At the age of 15, Sobha

TOSHAKHANA, from Persian toshakhanah (toshah = food or provisions for journey or food articles in general+ khana = house, store) or tosha khana (toshak = bedding, clothing + khana) means in Punjabi a treasury or secured storehouse for valuables. It is now generally used for the

AI PANTH, one of the twelve sects of yogis, whose adherents worship Ai Bhavani, a tribal female deity, believed to be an extension of Sakti. Siva in the form of ardhanarisvara is said to have two forms represented by his own halves. His right side is the male whose followers

BAIRAGIS, or Vairagis, are a sect of Hindu ascetics, eschewing colour or passion and detached from all worldly allurements. Founded by Sri Anand, the 12th spiritual descendant of Ramanand, the sect comprises a class of nomadic penitents, living a secluded life of extreme poverty, wearing minimum of clothing and

BAZIGARS or acrobats, a counterpart of nats outside the Punjab, are a nomadic people travelling from one place to the other, using camels and donkeys as pack animals. Earlier they had been an occupational group performing bazi, i.e. acrobatic feats, in the form of various types of jumps and other

BEDI, a subcaste of the Khatris, Prakritized form of the Sanskrit kstriya which is one of the four caste groups into which the Hindu society is divided. The Khatris are mainly Hindus though there is among them a Sikh element which is small in number but important historically.There are no

BHALLA, a subdivision of Khatri (Prakrit form kstriya) caste, one of the four castes into which the Hindu society is divided. Khatris are further divided into four subgroups. i.e. Bahri, Khukhrain, Bunjahi and Sarin; the Bhallas belong to the Sarin subgroup. According to a legend, once `Ala udDin Khiiji, the

GIAN SINGH, BHAI (1883-1953), naqqash or fresco painter, was born in the city of Amritsar in 1883. His father, Taba Singh, a comb maker by profession, supplemented his meagre income by dispensing ayurvedic medicines in his spare time. At the age of five, Gian Singh was sent

KIRPAL SINGH, ARTIST (1923-1990), the creator of Sikh history in colour, was born the son of Bhagat Singh and Har Kaur in a small village Vara Chain Singhvala in Firozpur district of the Punjab on 10 December 1923. He inherited interest in art from his father who

KOHINUR ("Mountain of Light"), the peerless diamond which today lakes the pride of place among the British crown jewels, once belonged to Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last Sikh sovereign of the Punjab. Duleep Singh was made to surrender it to the British after the annexation of

RAM SINGH, a skilled artisan from Chunar Fort near Kashi (Varanasi) in Uttar Pradesh, who was with Guru Gobind Singh at Paonta. According to Sukha Singh, Gurbilds Dasvrn Patshahi, he improvised a gun carved out of a tree trunk. The Guru is said to have used it

SIKH COINS or NUMISMATICS. Sikh coins like coins anywhere else were both a commercial necessity and a symbol of sovereignty. Coin, derived from the Latin cuneus, a wedge, through Old French coing and cuigne, "is properly the term for a wedge  shaped die used for stamping money,