GURUMUKHI DIN PATRI, lit. a calendar or daily diary (patn) in Gurmukhi characters, is a manuscript reporting some of the events of Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s reign from AD 1805 onwards. The author is one Ram Singh, perhaps a resident of Amritsar, for he narrates events occurring at Amritsar in greater

HEMA, BHAI, a devout Sikh of Guru Tegh Bahadur, along with his brother (Nagahia) and father (Lakkhi Shah) and another person by the name of Naik, son of Kahna, brought the headless body of Guru Tegh Bahadur, after he was executed at Delhi`s Chandni Chowk under imperial orders, to

LAKKHAN RAI, son of Bik Chand, a Changra Rajput of Una, now a district town of Himachal Pradesh, embraced Sikhism during the time of Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621-75), and was later counted, along with his brother Bhoj Raj, among the poets and scholars patronized by Guru Gobind Singh. The

MANI SINGH JANAM SAKHI, also known as CYAN RATNAVALI and traditionally attributed to Bhai Mani Singh, a famous Sikh of the early eighteenth century martyred by the Mughal governor of Lahore, Zakariya Khan, in 1737, is a collection of 225 anecdotes related to the life of Guru Nanak and some

NANAK SURAJODE JANAM SAKHI, by Ganesha Singh Bedi, is an account in verse of the life of Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith. The metaphor of the rising sun (surajode=surya/suraj meaning sun and udaya/ ude meaning rising) in the title has been used for Guru Nanak whose birth as

VAR HAQIQAT RAI, by Aggra or Aggar Singh, is a versified account of the life and martyrdom of Haqiqat Rai. No biographical details are available about Aggra, except that he was a contemporary of Haqiqat Rai and that he came of a Sethi Khatri family. Haqiqat Rai was the son

ATMA SINGH, also remembered as Atma Ram, was a faqir of Shuja`bad, near Multan, who received the Sikh rites under the influence of Baba Khuda Singh. Before his initiation into the Sikh faith, he lived in a dharamsala at Shuja`bad which received a grant of Rs 100 from the

BANI BIRDH PRATAP is a collection of religious and devotional poetry in a mixture of Braj and Punjabi, written in Gurmukhi script by Baba Ram Das, a Divana sadhu. The volume is preserved with reverence due to a religious scripture in the dera or monastery of the Divana sect established

GAHIR GAMBHIRIE MAT KE SVAMI BISHAN DAS YATI JI KA JIVAN CHARITRA, by Bhagvan Das, is a biographical portrayal (jivan charitra) of Svami Bishan Das, founder of the Gahir Gambhirie sect. The author who was a disciple of Bishan Das compiled this account during 1886-1902 at Phillaur, near Ludhiana.

GULAB SINGH, PANDIT, was a Nirmala scholar, the prefix pandit denoting his preeminence in Sanskrit letters rather than his caste. He was born in a peasant family in 1789 Bk/AD 1732 in the village of Sekham, in Lahore district, now in Pakistan. He was initialed into Sanskrit studies by