GOINDVAL (31°22`N, 75"9`E), the first ever place of Sikh pilgrimage so designated by its founder, Guru Amar Das. This in fact was the spot where the ancient eastwest highway crossed the River Beas. With the renovation of the highway by Sher Shall Sur, the Afghan ruler of north India

KUSAL DAS, BHAI (early 19th century), was a minor poet in attendance upon Didar Das, a lineal descendant of Baba Prithi Chand, the eldest son of Guru Ram Das. Kusal Das composed 653 verses in Kabitt and savaiyyd forms, panegyrizing the preceptors of the Mina sect founded by Baba

RAMRAIAS, originally a splinter sect of the Sikhs, now comprise an independent group more akin to the Udasis. The sect owes its origin to Baba Ram Rai, whose name it bears. Ram Rai, who was the elder son of Guru Har Rai (1630-61), the seventh Guru, and who had

VASAKHA SINGH (1877-1957), one of the Ghadr leaders, was born on 13 April 1877 at Dadehar, a village in Amritsar district of the Punjab. His father. Dial Singh, and mother, Ind Kaur, were a God fearing couple. One of his ancestors, Mohar Singh, is said to have received the

ANAND, BABA, was the second son of Baba Mohri and a grandson of Guru Amar Das. He received his name from the Guru himself who also uttered a long hymn in Ramkali measure calling it Anandu. The hymn has since formed an important part of Sikh liturgy. Baba Anand

BEDI, a subcaste of the Khatris, Prakritized form of the Sanskrit kstriya which is one of the four caste groups into which the Hindu society is divided. The Khatris are mainly Hindus though there is among them a Sikh element which is small in number but important historically.There are no

CHAPPAR CHIRI (30° 45`N, 76° 40`E), Ban and Chhoti (senior and junior), are twin villages in Ropar district, along KhararBanur road, now officially named Banda Singh Bahadur road. This area was the scene of a historic battle. Gurdwara Baba Banda Bahadur is situated between the two villages by the

GOSTI BABA NANAK, lit. the discourses of Baba [Guru] Nanak dictated by Hariji, son of Sodhi Miharban, is an unpublished and incomplete work (MS. No. 2306) preserved in the Sikh History Research Department at the Khalsa College at Amritsar, comprising 235 folios and 23 complete and two, one in the

LAHINA SINGH, SARDAR (d.1893) a military commander during Sikh rule in the Punjab, came of a Sohi Khatri family of Gharjakh, a village adjacent to the town of Gujranwala (now in Pakistan). His grandfather, Panjab Singh, was a trooper in the regiment of Sardar Fateh Singh Kalianvala, a general

SADHAURA, an old town 43 km east of Ambala (30"23`N, 76"47`E) in Haryana, has a place in Sikh piety, being the seat of Sayyid Shah Badr udDin, commonly known as Pir Buddhu Shah, a Muslim saint who became a devotee of Guru Gobind Singh. Pir Buddhu Shah took the

ASMAN KHAN or ASMAN KHAN (d. 1635), a Pathan who sacrilegiously appropriated the robe of honour, a sword and a horse bestowed by Guru Hargobind on his father in law, Painda Khan, and poached a hawk belonging to the Guru`s eldest son, Baba Gurditta. When questioned, Painda Khan defended

BHAG SINGH, SANT (1766-1839), of Kuri. a holy man widely respected in his time, was born the son of Bhai Hans Rai in 1766 at Qadirabad, a village in Gujrat district (now in Pakistan), where his grandfather, Gurbakhsh Singh, said to have been in the retinue of Guru Gobind