GURMUKHI is the name of the script used in writing primarily Punjabi and, secondarily, Sindhi language. The word gurmukhi seems to have gained currency from the use of these letters to record the sayings coming from the mukh (lit. mouth or lips) of the (Sikh) Gurus. The letters no doubt

DHUNI, from Skt. dhvani meaning sound, echo, noise, voice, tone, tune, thunder, stands in Punjabi generally for sound and tune. In the Guru Granth Sahib, the term appears in the sense of tune at the head of 9 of the 22 vars (odes) under different ragas or musical measures. Directions

SADDU and his brother Maddu were rebeck players in attendance on Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708) at Anandpur. They performed kirtan for the Guru.

GUTKA, a small sized missal or breviary containing chosen hymns or barns from Sikh Scriptures. The etymology of the term gutka may be traced back to Sanskrit gud (to guard, preserve) or gunth (to enclose, envelop, surround, cover) through Pali gutii (keeping, guarding). A late eighteenth century scholar of UdasI

SIKH ARCHITECTURE, style and design of building conspicuously popular among the Sikhs, is owed primarily to their religious monuments. Their secular edifices such as fortresses, palaces, samadhs (mausoleums built over places of cremation), havelis (fortified houses), bungas (residential cum educational houses ), educational institutions, etc, are no different from the

GAJJA SINGH, MAHANT (c. 1850-1914), maestro of Sikh classical devotional music, was born in a Jatt Sikh family of Vandar, a village in Faridkot district of the Punjab. He had a sensitive ear for music from his early childhood. His father, a pious Sikh himself, apprenticed him for religious

SAMUND SINGH, BHAI (1901-1972), a leading Sikh musicologist of the twentieth century, trained in music under leading maestros of the art, Sikhs as well as Muslims, was born on 3 March 1901, at the village of Mulla Hamza, in Montgomery district, now in Pakistan. He started his training so young

PARTAP SINGH. GIANI (1855-1920), Sikh school-man and calligraphist, was born in 1855, the son of Bhai Bhag Singh Giani of Lahore. As a young boy, Partap Singh learnt Punjabi, Urdu and Sanskrit and studied Sikh Scriptures. In 1884, he accompanied Thakur Singh Sandhanvalia to England to read the Guru Granth

WALI QANDHARl (lit. Saint of Qandahar) was, according to a tradition popularized by Bhai Bala Janam Sakhi and Bhai Santokh Singh, Sri Gur Nanak Prakash, a Muslim recluse putting up on top of a hill near Hasan Abdal, now in Campbellpore (Attock) district of Pakistan Punjab. Accompanied by Bhai Mardana,

GHARU, pronounced ghar, is a term used in the titles of many of the hymns in the Guru Granth Sahib. The final "u" is only of grammatical significance indicating masculine gender and singular number. Gharu appears after the name of the rdga (musical measure) and the indication with regard

SATTA, also called Satta Dum because he was a du/n or miraslby birth, a rababior rebeckplayer to Guru Arjan, and co-composer, with Rai Balvand, of Ramkall ki Var, included in the Guru Granth Sahib in the Ramkali musical measure.

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