guru

RUKN UDDIN. QAZI or QADI (Rukan Din of the Janam Sakhis), supposed to be a shrine caretaker, chanced to meet Guru Nanak during his visit to Mecca. The Purdtan Janam Sdkht narrates the story: "It had been inscribed in books beforehand that Nanak, a dervish, would come. Then water would rise in the wells of Mecca. The Guru entered the holy precincts. He lay down in the colonnade to rest.

SADHAR, village in Ludhiana district, 20 km north of Raikot (30°39`N, 75°37`E), claims a historical shrine, Gurdwara Sri Guru Hargobind Sahib Patshahi Chhevin Guru Sar, popularly designated Guru Sar Sadhar. Guru Hargobind made a brief halt here during one of his tours of Malva country. According to local tradition, it was here that RaiJodh of Kangar village met Guru Hargobind, though there are some historical accounts which place this meeting in Bhai Rupa.

SAHIB SINGH, BHAI (1665-1705), one of the Pahj Piare or the Five Beloved of revered memory in the Sikh tradition, was born the son of Bhai Guru Narayana, a barber of Bidar in Karnataka, and his wife Ankamma. Bidar had been visited by Guru Nanak early in the sixteenth century and a Sikh shrine had been established there in his honour. Sahib Chand, as Sahib Singh was called before he underwent the rites of the Khalsa, travelled to Anandpur at the young age of 16, and attached himself permanently to Guru Gobind Singh. He won a name for himself as marksman and in one of the battles at Anandpur he shot dead the Glyjar chief Jamatulla.

SALHO, BHAI (d. 1628), a prominent Sikh of the time of Guru Arjan, rendered devoted service during the excavation of the sacred tank and the construction of the Harimandar at Amritsar. He was especially assigned to keeping record of all receipts and expenditure, in cash as well as in kind. Later, Guru Arjan entrusted to him the general administration of Amritsar, and he induced many people to come and settle in the town. Bhai Salho was among those chosen to accompany the marriage party of (Guru) Hargobind in January 1605.

SANGAT SINGH (d. 1705), one of the forty Sikhs who were besieged with Guru Gobind Singh in an improvised fortress at Chamkaur, bore a close resemblance to the Guru in physical appearance. Both Kuir Singh and Sukkha Singh in their poetical biographies of Guru Gobind Singh refer to him as Sangat Singh Bangesar from which it appears that Sangat Singh was either a native of Bang (Bengal) or came from Bangash region (Kurram valley) on the northwest frontier of India.

SARDUL SINGH GIANI, BHAI (d. 1913), the eldest son of Giani Gian Singh of Amritsar and a grandson ofGiani Bishan Singh, was a noted Sikh scholar of his time. The family lived near Chowk Baba Atal in a street still known as Gall Gianian, the street of the Giants. Bishan Singh`s samadh used to be behind Gurdwara Baba Atal of which shrine he is believed to have been officially a priest. The adjunct Giani, meaning a priest as well as an expounder of sacred texts, thus passed on to the names of the male members of the family.

SEKHA, a village 11 km east of Barnala (30"23`N, 75()32 E) in Sangrur district of the Punjab, has a historical shrine, Gurdwara Sahib Guru Sar Patshahi Nauvin, situated on a low mound. According to local tradition. Guru Tegh Bahadur arrived here from Muloval on 22 December 1665 and stayed for two days. In those days there were 22 villages around here inhabited by peasants of the Javanda clan. They were followers of a bairagi ascetic, Durga Das, and their chief Tiloka, took no notice of the Guru and his Sikhs.

SHIHAN, recorded in a Sikh chronicle as the birthplace of Akali Phula Singh, celebrated warrior of Sikh times, was village 10 km from Lahira (29forming a big shallow lake. The mound lies in the revenue limits of Dehia village, whose sangat has now established a gurdwara near the mound, one kilometre west of the village. It is called Gurdwara Baba Phula Singh Akali. A Nihang Singh looks after the. shrine on behalf of the village sangat.

SIKHS` RELATIONS WITH MUGHAL EMPERORS. The Janam sakhis, traditional, accounts of the life of Guru Nanak (1469-1539), describe a meeting between him and Babar (1483-1530), founder of the Mughal dynasty, who was impressed by the former`s spiritual manner. Four of the Guru`s sabdas included in the Guru Granth Sahib allude to the havoc and misery Babar`s invasion brought in its train. According to Sikh tradition, Emperor Humayun (d. 1556), while fleeing to Iran in 1540, waited upon Guru Angad (1506-52) at Khadur to seek his blessing. Akbar (1542-1605), liberal in his religious policy, treated.

SRI GURU PANTH PRAKASH, popularly Panth Prakash, by Giani Gian Singh (1822-1921), is a history of the Sikhs in verse. As the title suggests, it is an account of the rise and development of the Guru Panth, i.e. the Klialsa or the Sikh community. The author, a theologian and preacher of Sikh religion belonging to the Nirmala sect, made his debut in the field of historiography in 1880 with the publication of this book which he wrote at the suggestion of his teacher, Pandit Tara Singh Narotam (1822-91). Its first (1880) edition was lithographed at Delhi with only 65 bisrams (chapters or sections), and 715 pages.