ARMY OF MAHARAJA RANJIT SINGH, a formidable military machine that helped the Maharaja carve out an extensive kingdom and maintain it amid hostile and ambitious neighbours, was itself the creation of his own genius. His inheritance was but a scanty force which, in the manner of the Sikh misldari days,

CHARYARI SOWARS was the name given to an irregular cavalry regiment in Sikh times. It owed its origin to four friends, or Char (four) Your (friends), who were seen together all the time. Their names were: Bhup Singh Siddhu.Jit Singh, Ram Singh Saddozai and Hardas Singh Bania. They were all

HOLKAR, JASVANT RAO (d. 1811), Maratha chief of Indore, who, defeated at Dig and Fatehgarh in 1804 by the British, moved northwards to obtain succour from the cissutlej Sikh rulers and from Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Accompanied by his Ruhila ally, Amir Khan, he arrived in 1805 at Patiala, where he

LAHORE POLITICAL DIARIES is how volumes III to VI of the Records of the Punjab Government arc collectively referred to. Comprising a part of the British Government records published in nine volumes during the early years of the twentieth century, these four volumes deal with the regency period, 1846-49. They

MARATHASIKH RELATIONS spanning a period of half a century from 1758 to 1806 alternated between friendly cooperation and mistrust born out of rivalry of political and military ambition. Although Shivaji (1627-80), the founder of Maratha power, and Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), the creator of the Khalsa, both rose against the

PANOPLY. To have established precise standards of regal usage and hospitality was remarkable for one born to a small worldly inheritance. Ranjit Singh`s patrimony did not amount to more than a few villages precariously held in those turbulent days, and his authority scarcely coincided with any recognizable or settled geographical

PREMA PLOT, a conspiracy allegedly engineered by Maharani Jind Kaur with the help of some Sikh sardars to assassinate Sir Henry Lawrence, the first British Resident at Lahore, and the Sikh commander in chief, Tej Singh, and to topple the British control of the Punjab. One of the factors

SARDAR, in Persian amalgam of sar (head) and dar (a suffix derived from the verb dash tan, i.e. to hold) meaning holder of headship, is an honorific signifying an officer of rank, a general or chief of a tribe or organization. Sikhs among whom, during the time of the Guru

SIKHS` RELATIONS WITH HILL STATES lying between the Ganga and the Chenab rivers from the time of the Gurus to the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh fluctuated from guarded friendship to open hostility. Guru Nanak (1469-1539) and later his son, Baba Sri Chand, had preached the Sikh tenets in the

SIKHS` RELATIONS WITH JATS OF BHARATPUR. Hindu Jats, who have ethnic affinity with the Sikh Jatts of the Punjab, had emerged, like the Sikhs, as a new political power in the region south of Delhi. Their first revolt in 1669 under their leader Gokul was ruthlessly suppressed by the Mughal

TITLES AND ORDERS OF MERIT, instituted at his court by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, broadly followed the Mughal pattern, though there did not exist among the Sikh nobility a specific classification or hierarchy which marked the mansabdan system of the Mughals. Tides and awards were granted to princes of the royal