AKALI DAL KHARA SAUDA BAR, an organization of Akali reformers working for the liberation of Sikh shrines from the control of conservative Udasi priests or mahants. The organization was originally called Khalsa Diwan Khara Sauda Bar set up in 1912 and comprised volunteers mostly from a cluster of villages

AKALI DAL, SHIROMANI (shiromani= exalted, foremost in rank; dal = corps, of akali volunteers who had shed fear of death), the premier political party of the modern period of Sikhism seeking to protect the political rights of the Sikhs, to represent them in the public bodies and legislative councils being

AKBAR KHAN MUHAMMAD (d. 1848), son of Dost Muhammad Khan, the ruler of Afghanistan. He was a Hery young man of great dash and daring. Like his father, he was keen to regain the Afghan possessions in India Multan, Kashmir, Attock and Peshawar. In 1837, Dost Muhammad Khan declared

AKBAR, JALAL UD-DIN MUHAMMAD (1542-1605), third in the line of Mughal emperors of India, was born on 23 November 1542 at Amarkot, in Sindh, while his father, Humayun, was escaping to Persia after he had been ousted by Sher Khan Sur. Akbar was crowned king at Kalanaur, in the Punjab,

AKAL TAKHT is the primary seat of Sikh religious authority and central altar for Sikh political assembly. Through hukamnamas, edicts or writes, it may issue decretals providing guidance or clarification on any point of Sikh doctrine or practice referred to it, may lay under penance personages charged with violation of

AKAR, a village in the interior of Patiala district, possesses a historical shrine called Gurdwara Nim Sahib. The Gurdwara commemorates the visit of Guru Tegh Bahadur who, during one of his journeys through the Malva territory, put up here near a mm (margosa) tree, which still exists. The leaves

AKAL USTATI (In Praise of the Timeless Being) is a poetical composition by Guru Gobind Singh in the Dasam Granth. This is the only major composition in the Tenth Master\'s Book which is without a title. The title by which it is known is made up of its first

AKALI MOVEMENT, variously known as Gurdwara Reform Movement or Gurdwara Agitation is how Sikh\'s long drawn campaign in the early twenties of the twentieth century for the liberation of their gurdwaras or holy shrines is described. The campaign which elicited enthusiastic support, especially, from the rural masses, took the

AKALPURAKH stands in Sikh religious literature for the Divine Being, i.e. God. Like Akal, Murati, it is composed of two units, viz. akal (non temporal) and purakh (person). The latter figures in Mul Mantra, the preamble to Guru Nanak`s Japu, in conjunction with Xarta (Creator), the whole expression implying

AKAL MURATI, a composite term comprising akal (non temporal) and murati (image or form), occurring in the Mul Mantra, the root formula or fundamental creed of the Sikh faith as recorded at the beginning of the Japu, composition with which the Guru Granth Sahib opens, literally means `timeless image`. Elsewhere,

AKALI SAHAYAK BUREAU, lit. a bureau to help (sahayak, from Skt. sahaya, one who lends one company or support) the Akalis, then engaged in a bitter struggle for the reformation of the management of their places of worship, was a small office set up at Amritsar in 1923 by the