GANGUSHAHIS, a Sikh missionary order which owed its origin to Gangu Shah. Gangu Shah, also known as Ganga Das, was born in a Basi Khatri family of Garh shankar, in Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab, and was a disciple of Guru Amar Das, the third Guru or prophet preceptor of

GIANI SAMPRADAI is one of three major schools of Sikhs theologians and expositors of the Sikh scripture, the other two being the Udasis and the Nirmalas. Giani, the Punjabi form of Sanskrit jndni from the rootjnd (to know), originally meant a scholar of high learning. In Sikh tradition, a gidmis

JAGIASI, also Jagiasu orJijnasu is a religious sect cognate with the UdasT section of the NanakpanthTs of Sindh. The word jagidsd is derived from Sanskrit jijndsd (desire to know), jagidsi denoting one desirous of knowledge, of spiritual insight. T`.ic members of the Jagiasi sect are mostly sahajdhdns i.e. gradualists, believing

MAHANT, originally the superior of a math or any other similar religious establishment. In the Punjab of early Sikhism, its characteristic usage referred to the leaders of Nath deras. The term acquired a distinctive Sikh application during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, period during which many Sikh gurdwaras passed into