TALVARA, locally known as RampurTalvara because of its close proximity to a village called Rampur, lies near Sri Hargobindpur (31041`N, 75029`E) in Gurdaspur district of the Punjab. It claims a historical shrine, Gurdwara Damdama Sahib, dedicated to Guru Hargobind, who is said to have preached here after the batttle

TANKHAH, from Persian tankhwah, generally meaning pay or salary, has an additional, ironical connotation in Sikh vocabulary. The word in this sense means expiatory penalty levied upon a Sikh from breach of rahit, i.e. the prescribed code of conduct or of a vow religiously made. This use of the

TANKHAHNAMA, by Bhai Nand Lal, is a Sikh penal code laying down punishments and fines for those guilty of religious misconduct. Tankhah, a Persian word, actually means salary, reward or profit, and nama, also Persian denoting an epistle, a code or a catalogue. In Sikh usage, however, tankhah stands for

TANSUKH LAHAURl, a devoted Sikh of Lahore who later lived at Ranthambore in Rajasthan. Tansukh had two of his sons living at Anandpur under the patronage of Guru Gobind Singh. They sent a copy of a translation of Hitopadesa, made by one of the Guru`s poets, Lakkhan Rai, to

TAPA (lit. a practidoner of physical austerities) is the name given by Sikh chroniclers to an ascetic who once came to Guru Ram Das and, proud of the penances he had undergone, said, "Thy Sikhs are very proud ; they acknowledge not the Vedas and the Puranas ; they

TAPA, a small market town 19 km southwest of Barnala (30022`N, 75032`E) in Sangrur district of the Punjab, claims a historical shrine, Gurdwara Tibba Sahib Patshahi IX, dedicated to Guru Tegh Bahadur. The old building constructed by Maharaja Karam Singh (1798-1845) of Patiala has since been replaced by a more

TAPIYA SINGH, MAHANT (1892-1980), was a master of the Sikh scholarly texts besides being learned in Ayurveda and Sanskrit grammar. He was born into a Saraojatt family of Lehal Kalan in Sangrur district. He was a descendant of ^ Baba Ark who had been blessed by Guru Tegh Bahadur himself.

TARA CHAND, BHAJ, was a masand or a batch leader of the Sikhs in Kabul. He once led a sarigat of those parts to the presence of Guru Hargobind. Travelling through Lahore, Amritsar and Khadur, they reached Kangar, now in Bathinda district of the Punjab, where the Guru then

TARA CHAND, DIWAN (d. 1858), son of Diwan Karam Chand, entered the Sikh service in 1822. His first employment was in Peshawar under Diwan Kirpa Ram. He was sent in the following year to Kangra, with civil and military authority, to collect the revenues, and in 1832 was tranferred

TARA SINGH GHAIBA (1717-1807), chief of the Dallevalia clan, named after the village of Dalleval to which its founder, Gulab Singh, belonged. Tara Singh was a shepherd turned out law who joined Gulab Singh Dallevalia in his plundering raids. His dexterity in lifting cattle and flocks of sheep and

TARA SINGH NAROTAM, PANDIT (1822-1891), a renowned scholar of the Nirmala school, was born in the village of Kalma, near Qadian, in Gurdaspur district of the Punjab. Very little is known about his early life except that, under the influence of his father, who was a devout Sikh, he

TARA SINGH, BHAI, the eighteenth century Sikh martyr, was a Buttar Jatt of the village Van, popularly known as Dallvan because of its proximity to another village called Dall, in present day Amritsar district of the Punjab. His father, Gurdas Singh, had received the rites of the Khalsa in the