UMRAO SINGH MAJITHIA (1870-1954), born at Majitha, a village in Amritsar district, was the eldest son of Raja Surat Singh Majithia. Umrao Singh went to school at Amritsar and later joined the Aitchison College, Lahore. He was married to Narindar Kumari, daughter of Gulab Singh of Atari. Together they

UNA, a district town in Himachal Pradesh on NangalAmb road, is sacred to Guru Hargobind in whose memory a small domed room stands in a walled compound southeast of the town on the main road. It is under the control of the descendants of Baba Sahib Singh Bedi(1765-1834), who

UNITY CONFERENCE, convened on 3 November 1932 at Allahabad by a small group of Hindu and Muslim leaders led by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya and Maulana Shaukat `All, to which were invited delegates representing a broad spectrum of Indian religious communities, interest groups, and political organizations, aimed at drafting agreements

UNTOUCHABILITY, a feature of the caste system prevalent in Hindu society since time immemorial, reduces certain classes and castes to a very low level in the social scale. The caste system, the origins of which can be traced to the Purusa Sukta, hymn 90, of the tenth book of

URI, an old town 54 km southwest of Baramula (S^ia`N, 74<)23`E) at the western end of the Kashmir valley, was visited by Guru Hargobind (1595-1644) on his way from Baramula to Naluchhi (now in Pakistan occupied territory). Gurdwara Patshahi Chhevin Param Pillan commemorating the visit is situated 6 km east

UDHAM SINGH (1882-1926), revolutionary and Ghadr leader, was born on 15 March 1882 at the village of Kasel in Amritsar district. His father`s name was Meva Singh and mother`s Hukam Kaur. He passed his early years in his village grazing cattle and working on the family`s small farm. He

UMA (UMAPATI) (Ahalya) the wife of sage Gautama, and the husband of Uma i.e. Shiva—the latter got stuck the fifth head of Brahma in his hand and the former was the cause of one thousand marks of disgrace on the body of Indra. (jaitsri, Ravidas, p. 710) Uma is

UDHAU (UDHO) (also written as Uddhava or Oodho) Oodho, Akrura (of the Dwapara Age) and Trilochan, Namdev and Kabir (of Iron Age) got their sins effaced by remembering the Name of the Lord and the same Undeceivable Name, which ferries the saints across the world-ocean, came into the mind

VACHAN GOBIND LOKA KE ( Sayings of the Saintly People) is a didactic work in Punjabi prose by Bhai Addan Shah, a Sevapanthi saint. Completed in 1904 Bk/AD 1847 and written in the hand of one Khivan Singh, the work comprises 147 folios with 9+9 lines on each folio and

VADAHANS KI VAR, in the Guru Granth Sahib, is by Guru Ram Das. He has composed the largest number of Vars, eight out of the twenty-two included in the Guru Granth Sahib. The poetic stanza used is the usual paun. There are 21 pauns in all, interspersed with slokas

VADALI GURU, village 7 km west of Amritsar (3P38N, 74°53`E), is sacred to Guru Arjan and Guru Hargobind. The former, according to Gurbilas Chhevm Patshahl, stayed here for about three years during 1594-97, and the latter was born here on 19 June 1595. There are three historical gurdwaras in

VADBHAG SINGH, SODHl (1716-61), a lineal descendant of Guru Hargobind (1595-1644) through the latter`s son, Baba Gurditta, and grandson, Dhir Mall, was born the son of Sodhi Ram Singh on 13 August 1716 at Kartarpur, in present day Jalandhar district of the Punjab. Vadbhag Singh became chief of Kartarpur