DIVALI, festival of lights (from Sanskrit dipamala or dipavali meaning row of lamps or nocturnal illumination), is observed all over India on amavasya, the last day of the dark half of the lunar month of Kartika (October-November). Like other seasonal festivals, Divali has been celebrated since time immemorial. In its

PRASADI HATHI, an elephant trained to perform several unusual feats, was among the presents brought to Guru Gobind Singh by an Assamese chief, Ratan Rai. According to Sikh chronicles, Ratan Rai`s father. Ram Rai had served Guru Tegh Bahadur during his travels across Assam in the mid1660s and received his

RAJPUTSIKH RELATIONS. During his preaching tours. Guru Nanak (1469-1539), founder of the Sikh faith, is believed to have visited Pushkar and Kulayat, two important Hindu pilgrimage centres in Rajputana (now Rajasthan), the land of the Rajputs. While under detention in Gwalior Fort, Guru Hargobind came in contact with some Rajput

CHAR SAHIBZADE, (char = four + sahibzade = scions, young men of genteel birth) is a term endearingly used for the four sons of Guru Gobind Singh, Nanak X, all of whom died as martyrs while still very young. Their names are reverently preserved in Sikh memory and are recalled

DAKKHANI SIKHS or Sikhs of the Deccan, a distinctive ethnic community scattered in parts of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka, are the descendants of Punjabi Sikhs who went to the South during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries and permanently settled in what was then the princely state of Hyderabad.