JAMES (d. 1825), in Sikh records known as James Sahib Feringhee, was an Englishman from Yorkshire. A deserter from the British army, he had taken up service under Raja Sansar Chand of Karigra. In 1820, he left Sansar Chand and joined Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s army as a gunner. In

SOBHA SINGH, a grandson of Divan Singh who had built the village of Qila Divan Singh in Gurdaspur district during the early days of Sikh power. Divan Singh was a follower of Chatthas of Rasulnagar. Sobha Singh`s father, Hukam Singh had served under Mahan Singh Sukkarchakkia and afterwards under

JASWANT SINGH (1896-1964), the youngest of the trinity of Jhabal brothers who were all active in the Gurdwara Reform movement, was born on 17 June 1896 at the village of Jhabal, in Amritsar district of the Punjab. After matriculating from Khalsa High School, Lahore, in 1916, Jaswant Singh joined

TARN TARAN (31°27`N, 74°56`E), important centre of Sikh pilgrimage 24 km south of Amritsar, was founded by Guru Arjan in 1596. Six years earlier, on 13 April 1590, he had inaugurated the conversion of a natural pond lying along the DelhiLahore highway into a quadrangular tank. Digging operations on

KHALSA BARADARI, a social organization of Sikhs belonging to backward classes, founded in 1914. The moving spirit behind it was BhaT Mahitab Sirigli Bir, whose father, Maulawi Karim Bakhsh had, along with his children, embraced Sikhism in June 1903 and become famous as Sant Lakhmir Singh. BhaT Mahitab Singh convened

TOSHAKHANA, from Persian toshakhanah (toshah = food or provisions for journey or food articles in general+ khana = house, store) or tosha khana (toshak = bedding, clothing + khana) means in Punjabi a treasury or secured storehouse for valuables. It is now generally used for the

KHALSA CENTRAL COUNCIL, a society formed in Lahore in 1933 to safeguard the interests of the Sikhs, had a very short career. The occasion for the formation of the Council arose when Giani Sher Singh and Master Tara Singh, two prominent Sikh leaders of pre-partition Punjab, openly confronted each other

VIJAI VINOD, also called Bijay Binod, is an account of the events at Lahore Darbar after the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. This work was composed in 1844 by Gval, the court poet at Lahore Darbar, at the orders of Pandit Jalla, the mentor and most influential adviser of

KHALSA DARBAR, an organization representing different Sikh parties established on 27 September 1932 at Lahore to resist the operation of what had come to be known as the Communal Award announced by the British Government on 16 August 1932. Earlier, anticipating these proposals, an all party Sikh conference convened on

Giani Kartar Singh famous for having selected Sikh history as his subject matter for presenting in narrative poetry, was born in the village Kalaswalia, district Sialkot (now in Pakistan). He was popularly known as Kalaswalia, after the name of his native place. His father, Jagat Singh, who was a

AKHBARAT-I-SINGHAN, also known as Twarikhi Sikkhan, is a diary of the day today events of the period from 1895 Bk/AD 1839 to 1903 Bk/AD 1847 based on official reports which General Avitabile (q.v.), military governor of Peshawar during Sikh times, received from various districts under his jurisdiction. It is written

LAHORE DARBAR, i.e. the Sikh Court at Lahore, denoted the government of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his successors (1799-1849). However, the Persian chroniclers refer to this government as Sarkar Khalsaji, and the term "Lahore Darbar" is not used even in British records until about the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.