BHATTVAHIS, scrolls or records maintained by Bhatts, hereditary bards and genealogists. According to Nesfield as quoted in W. Crooke, The Tribes and Castes of the North Western India, 1896, Bhatts are an "offshoot from those secularised Brahmans who frequented the courts of princes and the camps of warriors, recited

PREM SUMARAG, lit. the true way to love (/w?w=love; 5M=good or true; warag^path) is an anonymous work in old Punjabi evoking a model of Sikh way of life and of Sikh society. Written probably in the eighteenth century, it is a kind of rahitndmd attempting to prescribe norms of behaviour,

CHATURBHUJ POTHI, which forms the third part of what is known as the Miharban Janam Sakhi, is the work of Sodhi Chaturbhuj, the youngest of the three sons of Sodhi Miharban (1581-1639), son of Guru Arjan\'s elder brother, Prithi Chand (1558-1618). The only known MS. of the pothi (book) preserved

PURATANJANAM SAKHI is considered to be the oldest extant Janam Sakhi. The term `Purdtan,` is used to designate an early Janam Sakhi tradition, rediscovered in 1872 after more than a century of oblivion. By the mid eighteenth century the Bald Janam Sdkht tradition had won general acceptance as the

Panj Sau Sakhi, a collection of five hundred anecdotes (panj=five; sau=hundred; sakhi = anecdote), attributed to Bhai Ram Kuir (1672-1761), a descendant of Bhai Buddha, renamed Bhai Gurbakhsh Singh as he received the rites of the Khalsa at the hands of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708). It is said that

SUKHMAM SAHANSARNAMA (PARAMARAIH), by Sodhi Hariji, is a commentary in prose on Sukhmani Sahansarnama, a poetic composition by his father, Sodhi Miharban, containing 30 astpadis or 8 stanza compositions in the style of Guru Arjan`s Sukhmani. The term `Paramarath` in the title denotes explanation or exposition to distinguish this

HUKAMNAMA, a compound of two Persian words hukm, meaning command or order, and ndmah, meaning letter, refers in the Sikh tradition to letters sent by the Gurus to their Sikhs or sangats in different parts of the country. Currently, the word applies to edicts issued from time to time from

VARAN BHAI GURDAS is the title given to the collection of forty vars or "ballads" written in`Punjabi by Bhai Gurdas (d. 1636) much honoured in Sikh piety and learning. These forty vars comprise 913 pauris or stanzas, with a total of 6,444 lines. There is no internal or external evidence

HAQIQAT RAH MUQAM RAJE SHIVNABH KI Haqiqat Rah Muqam Raje Shivnabh Ki (account or description of way, i.e. journey to the abode of Raja Shivnabh) is an anonymous and undated short piece in Punjabi prose, found appended to some manuscript copies of the Guru Granth Sahib, particularly to copies of

JANAM SAKHI derives its name from the number attached to the manuscript in the catalogue of the India Office Library, London (MS. Panj B40). It consists of a unique collection of sakhis or anecdotes concerning the life of Guru Nanak, and, although it sliares common sources with the Puratan and