BHANGlAN Dl TOP or the gun belonging to the Bhangi misl, known as Zamzama, is a massive, heavyweight gun, 80 pounder, 14 ft. 41/2 inches in length, with bore aperture 91/2 inches, cast in Lahore in copper and brass by Shah Nazir at the orders of Shah Wall Khan, the

CHARHAT SINGH (d. 1770), grandfather of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was the eldest of the four sons of Sardar Naudh Singh. He took to arms while still very young and started taking part in the raids and expeditions led by his father. He also fought in the Sikhs` skirmishes with

JANGNAMA, by Qazi Nur Muhammad, is an eyewitness account in Persian verse of Ahmad Shah Durrani`s seventh invasion of India, 1764-65, for which it is the only major source of information. A copy of the manuscript in the hand of one Khair Muhammad of Gunjaba was preserved at the District

LAHINA SINGH (d. 1797), one of the triumvirate who ruled over Lahore for more than 30 years before its occupation by Ranjit Singh, was the son of Dargaha and was adopted by Gurbakhsh Singh Roranvala, a Sikh chief of note belonging to the Bhangi misl, after whose death in

MUIN ULMULK (d. 1753), shortened to Mir Mannu, was the Mughal governor of the Punjab from April 1748 until his death in November 1753. He took over charge of the province after he had defeated the Afghan invader, Ahmad Shah Durrani, in the battle fought at Manupur, near Sirhind on

RAHIRA and Kup, two villages, 4 km apart from each other and jointly known in Sikh history as KupR.ihIra, in Sangrur district of the Punjab, were the scene of a fierce battle between the Sikhs and the combined forces of Ahmad Shah Durrani and his vassals in Sirhind and

SIKH COINS or NUMISMATICS. Sikh coins like coins anywhere else were both a commercial necessity and a symbol of sovereignty. Coin, derived from the Latin cuneus, a wedge, through Old French coing and cuigne, "is properly the term for a wedge  shaped die used for stamping money,

SIRHIND (30°37`N, 7623E), pronounced Sarhind, an ancient town lying along the Grand Trunk Road (now renamed Sher Shah Suri Marg) midway between Ludhiana and Ambala, derives its name probably from Sairindhas, a tribe that according to Varahamihira (AD 50587), Brihat Samhita, once inhabited this part of the country. According

TAIMUR SHAH (1746-1793), son and successor of Ahmad Shah Durrani, was born in December 1746 at Mashhad, in Iran, where his father was in the service of Nadir Shah. Taimur was educated at home and received practical training in the art of warfare by accompanying his father on many of

AHMADlYAH MOVEMENT, started in the late nineteenth century as a reforming and rejuvenating current in Islam, originated in Qadian in Gurdaspur district of the Punjab. In the 1880`s, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, son of the chief landowning family of Qadian, after he had received revelations and preached a renewal of Islamic

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),

AFGHAN SIKH RELATIONS spanning the years 1748 to 1849 go back to the first invasion of India by Ahmad Shah Durrani, although he must have heard of the Sikhs when in 1739 he accompanied Nadir Shah, the Iranian invader, as a young staff officer. Having occupied Lahore after a minor