PARCHI (plural parchtdn), Punjabized form of the Sanskrit noun parichaya which means introduction, evidence or an anecdote bearing witness to the miraculous powers of a prophet or seer. The term was applied to the form of Punjabi writing developed in the seventeenth century to present the life stories of the

PARCHI MANSUR JI KI is a versified account, in an episode mould, of the life of Mansur, the famous Sufi saint. The authorship of the work is not known for certain, though it is generally attributed to Bhai Sahaj Ram, a Sevapanthi saint. A manuscript copy of this still

PRACHIN PANTH PRAKASH, by Ratan Singh Bharigu, a chronicle in homely Punjabi verse relating to the history of the Sikhs from the time of the founder, Guru Nanak (AD 1469-1539), to the establishment in the eighteenth century of principalities in the Punjab under Misi sarddrs. The work, which was completed

PUNJAB, A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, THE, translated and edited by H.L.O. Garrett, and first published in 1935 by the Punjab Government Record Office, Lahore, is a compendium of two travelogues. The first part comprises the portion of Victor Jacquemont`s Journal which deals with his travels through the Punjab and Kashmir.

AHWAL-I-FIRQAH-I-SIKKHAN, variously titled as Twarikh-i-Sikkhan, Kitab-i-Tankhi-Sikkhan and Guzarish-i-Ahwal-i-Si\'kkhan, by Munshi Khushwaqt Rai, is a history in Persian of the Sikhs from their origin to AD 1811. Khushwaqt Rai was an official news writer of the East India Company accredited to the Sikh city of Amritsar. It was written at the

SADDA SINGH was the son of Hazuri Singh, an Uppal Khatri owing allegiance to the Karorsinghia misi, who lived at Panjgarh in Amritsar district. Sadda Singh, whose father was the first in the family to receive the rites of the Khalsa, took up military service under Raja Amar Singh

ASRARISAMADI, a Persian chronicle by an anonymous writer who is now identified as Munshi Jot Prakash attached to the court of Nawab Abd us Samad Khan, the governor of Lahore from 1713 to 1726. Written around 1728, the work. which the author claims to be an eyewitness account of

SOLDIER AND TRAVELLER: MEMOIRS OF ALEXANDER GARDNER, edited by Major Hugh Pearse, with an introduction by Sir Richard Temple, was first published in 1898 by William Black wood and Sons of Edinburgh and London, and was reprinted by the Languages Department, Punjab, in 1970. Alexander Gardner (1785-1877), a European

ACROSTIC :At the age of seven Guru Nanak went to school and the schoolmaster wrote the alphabet on a wooden tablet for Nanak. After just one day Nanak copied the alphabet from memory and made an acrostic on the alphabet. The acrostic called the Patti or tablet in the

TAZKIRAH (lit. memoir) by Anand Ram Mukhlis, a manuscript of much historical value containing an account of events that took place in North-West India during the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The manuscript deals mainly with the Punjab, Nadir Shah`s invasion (1739), Zakariya Khan`s governorship of Punjab (1726-45),

CHAR BAGHIPANJAB by Ganesh Das Badhera, a history in Persian of the Punjab which, according to the author, then extended from the River Indus to the Sutlej. The work, completed in 1855, was published by Khalsa College, Amritsar, in 1965. The author served under the Lahore Darbar as a

TRAVELS IN CASHMERE AND THE PUNJAB, "containing a particular account of the government and character of die Sikhs," is an English translation by T.B.Jervis of Baron Charles Hugel`s travelogue written originally in German. The German edition was published at Stuttgart, in four parts, at distant intervals, and the English