guru

BACHCHHOANA, village 7 km northeast of Budhlada Mandi (29°55\'N, 75°33\'E), is sacred to Guru Tegh Bahadur, who, according to Sakhi Pothi, came here from Barhe and stayed for seven days under a pipal tree on the bank of a pond. The Guru was accompanied by a large sangat and the Ranghar in habitants of Bachchhoana served them ample quantities of milk and curds. Guru Tegh Bahadur expressed delight at the extensive green pastures around the village and blessed the villagers for their good milch cattle.

BAJAK, village 30 km southwest of Bathinda (30°14`N, 74°59`E), is sacred to Guru Gobind Singh, who visited it in 1706. The villagers turned out with pitchers full of milk to serve him as he arrived. However, Sukkhu and Buddhu, two sadhus of the Divana sect, came intent upon reprisal for the death of one of their group fatally wounded in an encounter with a Sikh. But as soon as their eyes fell on the Guru, anger was gone out of their hearts. They, says the SakhiPothf, made obeisance before him and carried him in a palanquin for some distance as he departed.

BANDAI, name given to the followers of the Sikh hero, Banda Singh Bahadur (1670-1716), who regarded him not only as a military leader but also as Guru next to Guru Gobind Singh in spiritual succession. They were opposed and ultimately expelled in 1721 by the mainstream of the Sikhs, the Tatt Khalsa. A small number of Bandai Sikhs still survive. They reverence the Guru Granfh Sahib as their Scripture and most of them also undergo the Khalsa initiatory rites, but Banda Singh Bahadur is for them their eleventh Guru against the common Sikh belief of the spiritual line having ended with Guru Gobind Singh, the Tenth Master.

BARNA, village in Kurukshetra district of Haryana, about 20 km southwest of Kurukshetra (29° 58`N, 76° 50`E), is sacred to Guru Tegh Bahadur who once stopped here while journeying from Kaithal to Kurukshetra. Local tradition recalls the story of a peasant who waited upon him and to survey whose land a revenue official arrived in the village the same day. The Sikh asked the Guru`s permission to go and have his land measured.

BEGA, BHAI, or Bhai Vega. a Pasi Khatri of the village of Dalla, now in Kapurthala district of the Punjab. His name appears among pious and devoted Sikhs of the time of Guru Amar Das in Bhai Gurdas, Varan, XI. 16. He was among the Sikhs who waited upon the Guru when he visited Dalla and received initiation at his hands. See KHANU, BHAI

BHAGO, MAI, the sole survivor of the battle of Khidrana, i.e. Muktsar (29 December 1705), was a descendant of Pero Shah, the younger brother of Bhai Langah, a Dhillon Jatt who had converted a Sikh during the time of Guru Arjan. Born at her ancestral village of Jhabal in present day Amritsar district of the Punjab, she was married to Nidhan Singh Varaich of Patti. A staunch Sikh by birth and upbringing, she was distressed to hear in 1705 that some of the Sikhs of her neighbourhood who had gone to Anandpur to fight for Guru Gobind Singh had deserted him under adverse conditions. She set off along with them and some other Sikhs to seek out the Guru, then travelling across the Malva region.

BHANA, lit. liking, pleasure, will, wish or approval, is one of the key concepts in Sikh thought. In Sikhism, it refers specifically to God`s will and pleasure. Raza , an Arabic term popular in the context of various schools of Sufi thought, also appears frequently in the Sikh texts to express the concept of UMArSA bhana. According to this concept, the Divine Will is at the base of the entire cosmic existence. It was His bhana, His sweet will which was instrumental in the world`s coming into being: "Whenever He pleases He creates the expanse (of the world of time and space) and whenever He desires He (again) becomes the Formless One (all by Himself)" (GG, 294).

BHARU, BHAI, a devoted Sikh of the time of Guru Ram Das mentioned by Bhai Gurdas in his Varan, XI. 17. See PADARATH, BHAI

BHIRAI, MATA, the maternal grandmother of Guru Nanak, was married to Rama of the village of Chahal, near Lahore. See RAMA. BABA

BILGA, village 14 km west of Phillaur(31°1`N, 75°47`E) in the Punjab, is sacred to Guru Arjan, who passed through it in June 1589 on his way to Mau where he got married. According to local tradition, Bilga was then a small settlement of only a few huts. The Guru changed his apparel here and gave away the discarded articles to the poor hutdwellers who, it is said, preserved them as sacred relics. These are now exhibited in Gurdwara Panjviri Patshahi located inside the village.