HAR KRISHAN, GURU (1656-1664), the eighth Guru or prophet teacher of the Sikh faith, was the younger son of Guru Har Rai (1630-61) and Mata Sulakkham. He was born on 7 July 1656 at Kiratpur, in the Sivalik hills, in present day Ropar district of the Punjab. As his time

SHARDHA or Sardha (Skt. sraddha), a conscious positive mental attitude towards a person owing to some special development of a virtue or power in him, is closely connected with faith or bhakti, i.e. loving devotion to God. Etymologically speaking, it is a compound word formed by a combination of

JAVAND SINGH, one of the five Siklis who administered pdhulov the vows of Khalsa to Maharaja Dulcep Singh at Aden, belonged to the village of Barki, in Lahore district. After serving for a while as a police constable, he had retired to his village to take to farming. When

SUBEG SINGH (d. 1745), an eighteenth century martyr of the Sikh faith, was born to Rai Bhaga of the village of Jambar in Lahore district. He learnt Arabic and Persian as a young man and later gained access to the Mughal officials as a government, contractor. When in 1733, the

KAHN SINGH, a Kuka leader, was born in 1840 at the village of Hazro in Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan. His father`s name was Bhai Manna Singh. He was a nephew of Baba Balak Singh, founder of the Kuka faith, after whose death he came to be acknowledged as

Singh \'Sehrai\', Piara is a contemporary of \'Safeer\' and several other better known poets of today. His verse has an altogether different flavour from the rest of Punjabi poetry that is being written today. It does not have the lyricism of Mohan Singh or the subtlety of \'Safeer\' or

KALIAN CHAND, BABA (1440-1522), variously mentioned by chroniclers as Mahita Kalu, Kalu Rai, Kalu Chand, Kalian Rai and Kalian Chand, was the father of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikh faith. He was the elder of the two sons of Baba Shiv Ram, a Bedi Khatn, and Mata Banarasi of

VAHIGURU JI KA KHALSA VAHIGURU JI KI FATEH, form of Sikh salutation, was made current among the Sikhs by command of Guru Gobind Singh at the time of the manifestation of the Khalsa in 1699. The salutation used in the days of Guru Nanak was Sati Kartar (Hail the

MAHESHA, BHAI, or Bhai Mahesa, a rich and influential Dhir Khatri of Sultanpur Lodhi, in present day Kapurthala district of the Punjab, once waited upon Guru Amar Das and begged to be initiated a Sikh, The Guru, says Sarup Das Bhalla, Mahima Prakash, pointed out to him that to

VAIRAG, usually bairagor sometimes virag`in Punjabi, is derived from Sanskrit vairagya meaning "change or loss of colour, growing pale ; disgust, aversion, distaste for or loathing of ; freedom from all worldly desire, indifference to worldly objects or to life ; asceticism," or analysed as vi (prefix denoting disunion, separation,