DAL SINGAR, lit. ornament or embellishment (singar) of the army (dal), was the name of one of Guru Gobind Singh`s warhorses.According to Bhai Santokh Singh, Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth, one Kapura Jatt, "master of several villages in the jungle," (the reference probably is to Chaudhari Kapura Bairar of Kot

ROSHAN SINGH, Sikh warrior in attendance upon Guru Gobind Singh, who once killed a lion single handed. During their journey to the Deccan in 1708, records Kuir Singh, Gurbilas Patshahi 10, Guru Gobind Singh and Emperor Bahadur Shah were out together on an hunting excursion when they suddenly found themselves

HOLA MAHALLA or simply Hola, a Sikh festival, takes place on the first of the lunar month of Chef which usually falls in March. This follows the Hindu festival of Holi. The name Hola is the masculine form of the feminine sounding Holi. Mahalla, derived from the

LAKHNAUR, 10 km south of Ambala City (30"23`N, 76"47`E), was the ancestral village of Mata Gujari, mother of Guru Gobind Singh. Returning in 1670 to Patna after his long eastern journey, Guru Tegh Bahadur asked his family to travel straight to Lakhnaur, while he himself made a detour and went

AMRIK SINGH, a Jambar Jatt of Maghiana in Lahore district, was a devoted Sikh of the time of Guru Gobind Singh. Bhai Santokh Singh, 5n GurPratap Suraj Granth, lists him among those who received baptismal rites on the day the Khalsawas initiated (30 March 1699). Amrik Singh, according to

BANSAVALINAMA DASAN PATSHAHIAN KA is a poeticized account of the lives of the Gurus by Kesar Singh Chhibbar. The term bansavalinama means a genealogy. Another term used in the text is "kursinama" which is Persian for "genealogy." But, strictly speaking, this work is not a genealogical table. It is

BHIKHAN SHAH OR SHAH BHIKH, PIR, a seventeenth century Sufi saint, was born the son of Sayyid Muhammad Yusaf of Siana Sayyidari, a village 5 km from Pehova, now in Kurukshetra district of Haryana. For a time, he lived at Ghuram in present day Patiala district of the Punjab and

CHANDI CHARITRA, title of two compositions by Guru Gobind Singh in his Dasam Granth, the Book of the Tenth Master, describing in Braj verse the exploits of goddess Chandi or Durga. One of these compositions is known as Chandi Charitra Ukti Bilas whereas the second has no qualifying extension

DHIAN SINGH (d. 1705), a devoted Sikh of the time of Guru Gobind Singh. He was one of the warriors who took part in the battle against Said Khan. He fell a martyr in the battle of Chamkaur (7 December 1705). M.G.S. DHIAN SINGH, resident of the village of

GANJ NAMAH (Treasure Book), by Bhai Nand Lal Goya, is a panegyric in Persian, partly verse and partly prose, in honour of the Ten Gurus. Bhai Nand Lal was a revered Sikh of the time of Guru Gobind Singh and a distinguished poet. The Ganj Namah renders homage to the

GURPRANALI, a distinct genre in Punjabi historical writing, providing in prose or in verse chronological information about the lives of the Gurus and of the members of their families. The genre records in the main dates of their birth, marriage and death. Occasionally, the dates of some major events are

HUSAIN KHAN (d. 1696), called Husaim in Guru Gobind Singh`s Bachitra Ndtak, was a slave general of Dilawar Khan, an important officer in the Mughal hierarchy. When Dilawar Khan learnt of the disaster suffered by the imperial expedition led by his son against Guru Gobind Singh, he sent his