GAHAL (locally pronounced Gailh), village on the right bank of the Bathinda branch of Sirhind Canal, 30 km north of Barnala (30°22`N, 75°32`E) in Sangrur district of the Punjab, is sacred to Guru Har Rai (1630-61), who once made a brief halt here during his travels in the Malva

RAHIRA and Kup, two villages, 4 km apart from each other and jointly known in Sikh history as KupR.ihIra, in Sangrur district of the Punjab, were the scene of a fierce battle between the Sikhs and the combined forces of Ahmad Shah Durrani and his vassals in Sirhind and

BHUMA SINGH (d. 1746), a Dhillon Jatt of the village of Hung near Badhni, in present day Faridkot district of the Punjab, gathered power in men and money during Nadir Shah`s invasion of India in 1739. At the time of the death of Nawab Zakariya Khan, the Mughal governor

CHHOTA GHALLUGHARA, lit. minor holocaust or carnage, as distinguished from Vadda Ghallughara (q.v.) or major massacre, is how Sikh chronicles refer to a bloody action during the severe campaign of persecution launched by the Mughal government at Lahore against the Sikhs in 1746. Early in that year, Jaspat Rai, the