AMRIT RAI, son of Chhail Rai, a Bhatt of Lahore, and pupil of Chatar Das, a noted poet, had completed his Ras Ratnakar and Chitra Bilas ( the latter in 1679) before he came under the patronage of Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur. What is left of his compositions

BHOG (which by literal etymology, from Sanskrit, signifies "pleasure," "delight") is the name used in the Sikh tradition for the group of observances which accompany, the reading of the concluding parts of Scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib. This conclusion may be reached as part of the normal and routine reading

DES RAJ. BHAI, a Khatri Sikh of Amritsar, was entrusted with the supervision of the reconstruction of the Harimandar during the sixties and seventies of the eighteenth century. Nothing is known about his early life or family except that he originally came from Sursingh village, 30 km southwest of

GIRDHAR LAL or Girdhari Lal, a poet in Guru Gobind Singh`s retinue at Paonta, was the author of Pingal Sdr, a treatise in verse on Hindi prosody. According to its autobiographical stanzas 716, Girdhar Lal was the son of Gaj Mall, a Khatri of Gadiyal clan. The family came

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

GURBILAS PATSHAHIDASVIN, a poeticized account of the life of Guru Gobind Singh by Bhai Sukkha Singh. The poet, a convert to Sikhism from the barber caste, was born at Anandpur in 1768 and completed the work in 1797 when he was barely twenty-nine. The poetry is more Braj than Punjabi,

GUR KIRAT PRAKASH, by Vir Singh Bal, is a versified account of the lives of the first nine of the ten Gurus or spiritual teachers of the Sikh panth. Written in Braj, Gurmukhi characters, the work was completed in 1891 Bk/ AD 1834. The manuscript, two copies of which are

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

LAL SINGH NAROTAM (1840-1926), also known as Sant Lal Singh Hare Ram, a Nirmala scholar, was born the son of Bhai Kirpal Singh and Raj Karni Devi on 14 September 1840 at Bhera,Jehlum district, now in Pakistan. The family claimed descent from Bhai Manna Singh, one of Guru Gobind

RAJINDER SINGH. MAHARAJA (1872-1900), son of Maharaja Mohinder Singh, was born at Patiala on 25 May 1872. After the death of his father, he ascended the throne of Patiala on 6 January 1877. During his regency the Sirhind canal was completed, and a broadguage railway line from Rajpura to