KALGIDHAR DlWAN MALAYA, a socioreligious body of the Sikhs in Malaya (Malaysia), and an offshoot of Khalsa Diwan Malaya, was first formed in January 1918 as Khalsa Diwan, Sclangor (3"20`N, 101°15`E), by those elements of the Khalsa Diwan Malaya who were dissatisfied with the parent body`s affiliation witli the Chief Khalsa Diwan, Amritsar, and its indifferent attitude to the Komagala Maw`s sufferers. During the annual Sikh conference at Penang (5t`24`N, 100°19`E) in 1919, differences between the two groups became more pronounced on the question of disposal of surplus funds of the Khalsa Diwan Malaya.
KHALSA NAMAH, by Bakht Mall, a Persian manuscript prepared during 1810-14, is a history of the Sikhs from the time of Guru Nanak (1469-1539) to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Copies of the script, unpublished so far, are preserved in British Library; Royal Asiatic Society, London; Panjab University, Lahore; Khalsa College, Amritsar; and in Dr Ganda Singh`s personal collection at Punjabi University, Paliala. The author came of a Kashmiri Brahman family some of whose members had served at the Mughal court during the reign of Emperor Shah Jahah (1628-58).
MIRIPIRI, compound of two words, both of Perso Arabic origin, adapted into the Sikh tradition to connote the close relationship within it between the temporal and the spiritual. The term represents for the Sikhs a basic principle which has influenced their religious and political thought and governed their societal structure and behaviour. The word mm, derived from Persian mir, itself a contraction of the Arabic amir (lit. commander, governor, lord, prince), signifies temporal power, and pm, from Persian pir (lit. old man, saint, spiritual guide, head of a religious order) stands for spiritual authority.
PREM SINGH HOTI, BABA (1882-1954), historian and biographer, was born on 2 November 1882 at Hoti, near Mardan, in North-West Frontier Province, now part of Pakistan. His father Ganda Singh, a man of means, traced his ancestry back to Bhalla family of Goindval, in Amritsar district, to which noted Sikh savant Bhai Gurdas belonged. One of his ancestors, Baba Kahn Singh, had moved to the western frontier during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who had granted jdgirs to his soldiers in that turbulent Pathan territory. When this northwestern region was finally annexed by the British in 1849, the jdgir which Baba Prem Singh`s father had inherited from his forefathers was confiscated.
SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB (Guru = spiritual teacher ; Granth = book or volume ; Sahib, an honorific signifying master or lord) is the name by which the holy book of the Sikhs is commonly known. It is a voluminous anthology of the sacred verse by six of the ten Gurus whose compositions it carries and of some of the contemporary saints and men of devotion. The book is treated by the followers as Word incarnate, the embodiment and presence manifest or the spirit of the ten historical Gurus (Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh).