NIRANKARIS, a sect of the Sikhs born of a reform movement which arose in northwest Punjab in the middle of the nineteenth century aiming to restore the purity of Sikh belief and custom. Its founder, Baba Dayal (1783-1855), was a contemporary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. A man of humble

BABA BAKALA (31°34`N, 75°16`E), a small town in Amritsar district of the Punjab, is sacred to Guru Hargobind and Guru Tegh Bahadur. The original name of the place was Bakala. As Guru Har Krishan lay on his deathbed in Delhi, he was asked by the sangat to name his

PARDUMAN SINGH GIANI, BHAI (d. 1877), principal granthi or priest and manager of Sri Darbar Sahib at Amritsar, was the eldest of the four sons of Bhai Gurmukh Singh Giani (d. 1843), a man of learning and an influential courtier in Sikh times. He was the grandson of the

BUNGA: A place of residence for the Sikhs or the place for rest for the pilgrims. There were at least 69 Bungas at Amritsar in the nineteenth century, some of them are still in existence. Another term for the resting hostel for the Sikh pilgrims is Saran. At Darbar Sahib,

RAM DIAL, RAI (d. 1863), news writer and vakil of the Sikh kingdom at FIrozpur, was the son of Rai Anand Singh, after whose death he was sent to Ludhiana as vakil in 1827. Shortly thereafter he was recalled to Lahore and, in 1832, was sent to Anandpur Sahib to