SHIROMANI GURDWARA PARBANDHAK COMMITTEE, a statutory body comprising elected representatives of the Sikhs concerned primarily with the management of sacred Sikh shrines under its control within the territorial limits of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the Union territory of Chandigarh. It originated with the Gurdwara Reform or Akali movement of

SIKH ARCHITECTURE, style and design of building conspicuously popular among the Sikhs, is owed primarily to their religious monuments. Their secular edifices such as fortresses, palaces, samadhs (mausoleums built over places of cremation), havelis (fortified houses), bungas (residential cum educational houses ), educational institutions, etc, are no different from the

SIKH GURDWARAS ACT, 1925, legislation passed by the Punjab Legislative Council which marked the culmination of the struggle of the Sikh people from 1920-1925 to wrest control of their places of worship from the mab-ants or priests into whose hands they had passed during the eighteenth century when the Khalsa

DELHI SIKH GURDWARAS MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE was a byproduct of the Akali campaign for the reformation of the management of gurdwaras in the Punjab. To wrest control of the holy shrines from the hands of a corrupt and effete priestly order, the Sikhs had set up on 15 November 1920 a

DELHI, also called Dilli (28° 40`N. 77° 13`E), the capital of India, is also connected with Sikh history. The first, sixth, eighth, ninth and tenth Gurus visited it. Mata Sundari and Mata Sahib Devari, consorts of Guru Gobind Singh, stayed here for a long time before and after the

DHANNA SINGH, BHAI (d. 1935), an indefatigable Sikh pilgrim, was born about 1893, the son of Sundar Singh, a ChahalJatt of the village Ghanauri in Sarigrur district of the Punjab. His original name was Lal Singh. His father died when he was barely tan years old, and he and his

DHARAM ARTH BOARD, a body representing different sections of the Sikh community constituted in May 1949 by Maharaja Yadavinder Singh, Rajpramukh of the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU), to manage the major Sikh shrines within the new state which had come into being in consequence of the amalgamation

DIVALI, festival of lights (from Sanskrit dipamala or dipavali meaning row of lamps or nocturnal illumination), is observed all over India on amavasya, the last day of the dark half of the lunar month of Kartika (October-November). Like other seasonal festivals, Divali has been celebrated since time immemorial. In its

GAGGOBUA, village 27 km southwest of Amritsar (31°38\'N, 74°52\'E) along the Amritsar Khemkaran road, is sacred to Guru Hargobind (1595-1644), who came here once following the chase. Gurdwara Manji Sahib Chhevin Patshahi, constructed at the site of the old shrine, marks the spot where Guru Hargobind had halted. The

GURDWARA, lit. the Guru\'s portal or the Guru\'s abode, is the name given to a Sikh place of worship. The common translation of the term as temple is not satisfactory for, their faith possessing no sacrificial symbolism, Sikhs have neither idols nor altars in their holy places. They have

MAHANT, originally the superior of a math or any other similar religious establishment. In the Punjab of early Sikhism, its characteristic usage referred to the leaders of Nath deras. The term acquired a distinctive Sikh application during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, period during which many Sikh gurdwaras passed into

NIDHAN SINGH, SANT (1882-1947), holy man popularly known as Hazur Sahibvale, was born the son of Bhai  Uttam Singh of the village of Nidalori in Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab. He received religious instruction at the hands of Sant Divan Singh, popular in the area for his holiness. He