DIWAN KHANA GURUDWARA, LAHORE:This Gurdwara is situated near Chuni Mandi chowk, close to the birth place of Guru Ram Das ji. The Guru\'s ancestors belonged to Lahore. At the time of the marriage of one the sons his elder brother, Sahari Mal, the Guru asked his son (Guru) Arjan Dev to attend the cere money, as he himself was unable to attend the same.
FIVE KHANDS or Panj Khands, lit. realms (panj == five, khand == region or realm), signifies in the Sikh tradition the five stages of spiritual progress leading man to the Ultimate Truth. The supporting text is a fragment from Guru Nanak`s Japu, stanzas 34 to 37. The Five Realms enumerated therein are dharam khand, the realm of righteous action (pauri 34), gian khand, the realm of knowledge (pauri 35), saram khand, the realm of spiritual endeavour (pauri 36), karam khand, the realm of grace, and sach khand the realm of Truth (pauri 37).
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 Gurus whom the poet recalls in terms of deep personal devotion and veneration. The opening eleven couplets are an invocation to the Guru who raises men to the level of gods (3), to whom all gods and goddesses are slaves (4), and without whom there is only darkness in the world (5).
GHULAL, an old village in Ludhiana district, 8 km west of Samrala (30°50`N, 76°ll`E), claims a historical shrine dedicated to Guru Gobind Singh. This Gurdwara is not included in older lists of Sikh historical shrines, but local tradition indicates that Guru Gobind Singh, on his way from Machhivara to the interior ofMalva country, stopped in this village for a while before proceeding to Lall. The Gurdwara stands on a mound inside the village said to be the site of an older shrine.
GRANTHI, from the Sanskrit granthika (a relaier or narrator), is a person who reads the granih, Sanskrit grantha (composition, treatise, book, text). The terms are derived from the Sanskrit grath which means "to fasten, tie or string together, to compose (a literary work)." In Sikh usage, granih refers especially to the Guru Granth Sahib, the Scripture, and the term granihl is used for the officiant whose main duty it is to read the Holy Book in public. The granth`i`s, the principal religious official of Sikhism, but should not be thought of as a "priest" in the usual sense.
GURMANTRA, Punjabi Gurmantar, is that esoteric formula or term significant of the Supreme Being or the deity which the master or teacher confides to the neophyte to meditate on when initiating him into his spiritual discipline. The concept of mantra goes back to the pre-Vedic non Aryan tradition and to the primitive cults of magic, animism and to temism. It has since been a continuing element one way or another in the religious traditions of the world and traces of it pervade to this day among the most modern of them. The occultist and the tantrist believe that mantras have power over the deity and can make it confer the desired boon or favour.