for
SAMADH BHAI, commonly called Bhai ki Samadh, a village 36 km south of Moga (30°48`.N, 75"10`.E) in Faridkot district, has a historical shrine dedicated to Guru Hargobind, who visited the place in the course of ajoumey across the Malva region. The Gurdwara is a large rectangular hall with the Guru Granth Sahib seated in a square sanctum inside it. Two storeys of square pavilions with a lotus dome on top rise above the sanctum.
for
SANT, commonly translated as saint though not very exactly, for the English term, used in the adjectival sense `saintly` for a person of great holiness, virtue or benevolence, has a formal connotation in the Western culture, is a modified form of sat meaning lasting, real, wise and venerable. Sat or Satya has been used since the Vedic times for the Ever existent, Unchanging Reality or the Self existent, Universal Spirit, Brahman or God. The term sant came into vogue much later. The word occurs frequently in the ancient Pali literature of Buddhism in the sense of tranquil, true or wise.
SASTRA NAM MALA PURAN is a versified composition, included in the Dasam Granth. It is acknowledged to be the work of Guru Gobind Singh. The poem lists weapons of war, which are praised as protectors and deliverers. It runs to 1318 verses and covers 98 pages in the Dasam Granth (24point 1934 edition). Patshahi 10 is mentioned, although the usual inscription Sri Mukhvak, i.e. from the Guru`s own lips, is absent.
SHAH DAULA (158 IP1676), a renowned Muslim divine of his time, was the son of `Abd urRahim Khan Lodhi, a descendant of Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi and Niamat Khatun, a scion of the chiefs of Gakkhar tribe of western Punjab, though the Gu^jars of Gujrat, now in Pakistan, claim him as belonging to their clan. Daula was brought up in utter penury by his widowed mother in her native Pothohar. Upon his mother`s death in 1590 after several years of hard toil, he left home and in the course of his wanderings came to Sahgrohi, a village near Sialkot, where he became a disciple of Shah Saidan Sarmast, a faqJr of the Suhrawardi sect. Twelve years later, Shah Sarmast, at his deathbed, blessed him and nominated him as his successor.
for
SIANA SAYYIDAN, a village in Kurukshetra district of Haryana 5 km from Pehowa (29"59`N, 76"35`E), is the birthplace of Sayyid Shah Bhikh or Bhikhan Shah, a Muslim saint, who guided by intuition and divine inspiration, had gone to pay obeisance to the child Gobind at Lakhnaur in 1670. There are two historical gurdwa.ras in this village. GURDWARA DAMDAMA SAHIB. Guru Gobind Singh had not forgotten this elderly devotee, and, when he visited Kurukshetra and Pehowa in 1702, he detoured into this village and halted there for a night.
SINGH, from Sanskrit sinha for lion, is an essential component of the name for a Sikh male. Every Sikh male name must end with `Singh`. Historically, this was so ordained by Guru Gobind Singh on the Baisakhi day, 30 March 1699, when he inaugurated the Khalsa. introducing a new form of initiatory rites, khande di pahul.
SOMA, BHAI, a native of Jhang, now in Pakistan, was a devout Sikh of the time of Guru Arjan. He laboured with devotion during the digging.of the sacred pool at Amritsar. One day, as Guru Arjan was supervising the work, a mendicant came to him for alms. The Guru did not have at that moment a coin to offer and asked if any of the Sikhs would give him one. Bhai Soma possessed only two piece which he offered to the Guru, who gave them to the mendicant.
SUDDHU, BHAI, was a devoted Sikh of the time of Guru Arjan. He lived in Lahore. Guru Aijan, along with five of his Sikhs, stayed in his house for a few days before he was summoned under imperial warrant and martyred. Bhai Suddhu was the father of Bhai Buddhu, the brick kiln owner, another noted Sikh of Guru Aijan`s time.
SUNDAR SINGH, SANT GIANI (1883-1930), teacher of the sacred texts and exegete from whose seat in his native village the Bhindrarivala school of Sikh learning derived its name, was born on 18 August 1883, the son of Khazan Singh and Mahitab Kaur alias Tab Kaur, a devoted couple of Bhindar Kalari, in Zira tahsil of district Firozpur, in the Punjab. He received his early education at the village gurdwara, and started reading the Guru Granth Sahib at the age of ten. As he grew up, he learnt Sanskrit from a Brahman at Dharmkot, 8 km northwest of his native village, and later successively from two Udasi scholars. Pandit Javala Das and Pandit Bhagat Ram.
Sikhan De Raj Di Vithia, by Shardha Ram Philauri, written in Punjabi in 1922 Bk/A.D. 1866 and publihed in A.D. 1868 contains an account of the Punjab from Guru Nanak (1469-1539), founder of the Sikh faith, to the advent of the British in 1849. It was primarily meant for the new English administrators who had come into the Punjab in the wake of annexation. An English translation of the book made by Henry Court was first published in 1888. Bhai Jawahir Singh brought out another English translation of the book in 1901, with a lengthy introduction pointing out the numerous factual errors in the work.
