ALIF KHAN, who is mentioned in Guru Gobind Singh\'s Bachitra Natak, was an officer in the Mughal army of Aurangzib. In 1691, he was despatched by Mian Khan, the viceroy of Jammu, to Kangra for collecting arrears of tribute from the hill chiefs. Raja Kirpal Chand Katoch of Kangra

ARJAN SINGH THAPA was the son of the Gurkha general, Amar Singh Thapa, who had advanced his conquests up to Kangra in the early years of the nineteenth century. Maharaja Ranjit Singh expelled him from the Kangra hills, but the Gurkhas had fought so bravely that he decided to

BHAVANI DAS, DlWAN (1770-1834), was the son of Diwan Thakur Das, revenue and finance minister of the Afghan king, Ahmad Shah Durrani. Bhavani Das succeeded to the position after the death of his father and served successively Shah Zaman, Shah Mahmud and Shah Shuja` until 1808 when Maharaja Ranjit

SANGAT RAI (d. 1696), also referred to in Sikh chronicles as Sangatia Singh, was, according to Guru Gobind Singh`s autobiographical Bachitra Natak, sent on an embassy of peace to the court of Raja Gopal of Guler. At that time a Mughal commander, Husain Khan marching upon Anandpur was extorting along

SANKARNATH, PANDIT (1789-1858), astrologer and diplomat, belonging to the village of Karivallur, in north Kerala, was a celebrated scholar of ancient lore. His reputation especially as an astrologer spread far beyond the confines of his native Kerala and he was in 1816 invited by Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra

SANSAR CHAND (1765-1823), Katoch Rajput Raja of Kangra who ascended the throne in 1775. He was an ambitious ruler and began extending his influence over the neighbouring hill states as well as over the plains lying at the foot of the Sivalik ranges. He came as far as Hoshiarpur

SIKHS` RELATIONS WITH HILL STATES lying between the Ganga and the Chenab rivers from the time of the Gurus to the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh fluctuated from guarded friendship to open hostility. Guru Nanak (1469-1539) and later his son, Baba Sri Chand, had preached the Sikh tenets in the