ANCESTORS,In ancient Hindu scriptures, the honouring of human ancestors is commanded. Pitri or mass\'s to one\'s ancestors arc regarded as sacred funeral rights and Sradh (offerings of food) are considered obligatory for placating the spirits of the departed ancestors up to thee seventh generation. It is believed that the

DEATH, the primordial mystery and one of the cardinal conditions of existence. Scientifically, death is defined as "the permanent cessation of the vital function in the bodies of animals and plants" or, simply, as the end of life caused by senescence or by stoppage of the means of sustenance to

MELA SINGH, SANT (1784-1854), holy saint and preacher of the Sikh faith, was born in 1784 at Kotchari, a village in Bagh tahsil of the present Punchh district of Jammu and Kashmir. He was only eleven years of age when his father, BhaT Makkhan Singh, a pious Sikh convert from

ANT KAL,means the few moments before a person\'s death. A person feeling the approach (if death thinks of many things, his wife, children, wealth and home which he will leave shortly and then begins to worry about them and after a while he is no more. Bhagat Trilochan realised

NIRANJAN SINGH, SANT (1922-1994). Fair complexioned, and blue eyed, Giani Sant Niranjan Singh was nurtured on several branches of learning, old and new. He was especially interested in vedanta and nydya. He was also well read in Panini. All his life he remained immersed in Sikh letters.

SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB (Guru = spiritual teacher ; Granth = book or volume ; Sahib, an honorific signifying master or lord) is the name by which the holy book of the Sikhs is commonly known. It is a voluminous anthology of the sacred verse by six of the ten

BAHIR JACHCHH or Bahir Jakkh, a village in Samana tahsil of Patiala district, situated on the left bank of the Sarasvati, a small stream sacred to the Hindus, commemorates the visit of Guru Tegh Bahadur, who is believed to have stayed here with a devotee, Malla, a carpenter by

DHUNI, from Skt. dhvani meaning sound, echo, noise, voice, tone, tune, thunder, stands in Punjabi generally for sound and tune. In the Guru Granth Sahib, the term appears in the sense of tune at the head of 9 of the 22 vars (odes) under different ragas or musical measures. Directions

PAPA (Sanskrit and Pali papa, Prakrit pdva). The word stands for one of the basic concepts of the Indian religious tradition. This concept relates to what is considered religiously and morally evil, an act of body, mind, or speech opposed to what is considered religiously and morally good. In

TILOKA, SETH, a rich merchant of Fatehpur, was a pious Sikh of the time of Guru Arjan. He, accompanied by some other Sikhs, once visited the Guru at Amritsar. Guru Arjan was then engaged in compiling the hymns of the Gurus and bhagats into a single volume. Seth Tiloka

BANNO, BHAI (1558-1645), a prominent Sikh contemporary of Guru Arjan and Guru Hargobind, was the son of Bhai Bishan Dev of village Mangat, also called KharaMangat, Khara being its older name, in Phalia tahsil of Gujrat district (now in Pakistan). He was born on Saturday, Baisakh sudi 13,1615 Bk/