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

JUJHAR SINGH HADA (d. 1696), who comes in for a prominent mention in Guru Gobind Singh`s Bachitra Ndtak, was a Rajput general sent by the Mughal authority to the Sivalik hills in the last decade of the seventeenth century to retrieve its hold on the hill rajas. When the

KHALSA MAHIMA, literally praise of the Khalsa, is a short poem by Guru Gobind Singh inserted at the end of the thirty-three Savaiyyc in the Dasam Granth. The language is Braj Bhasa, i.e. medieval Hindi of the Mathura Agra region. The setting is provided by an incident which occurred

MACHHIVARA (30°-55\'N, 76°-12\'E), now a small town in Ludhiana district, figures prominently in the last phase of Guru Gobind Singh\'s life. As the Guru arrived here after leaving Chamkaur on the night of 7 December 1705, he stopped first in a garden outside the village. Here Bhai Man Singh,

NAHAN (30° 33`N, 77° 17`E), situated on top of a ridge in the upper reaches of Markanda River, in Sirmur district of Himachal Pradesh, and formerly the capital of the princely state of Sirmur, has a historical gurdwara dedicated to Guru Gobind Singh.Guru Gobind Singh visited Nahan in 1685 on

PAKKA KALAN, village 24 km south of Bathinda (30° 14`N, 74° 59`E), is sacred to Guru Gobind Singh, who broke journey here on his way from Jassi to Talvandi Sabo in 1706. The original shrine to the southeast of the village together with its landed properly passed into private possession

RAIKOT (300 N, 75°37`E), a municipal town in Ludhiana district, is sacred to Guru Gobind Singh. He came here on the invitation of Rai Kalha, the local Muslim chief, and encamped under a shisham or tahli tree at the site of Gurdwara Tahliana Sahib, 1.5 km to the west