KHALSA DIWAN AMRITSAR, established at Amritsar on 11 April 1883 to oversee and provide direction to the work of the Singh Sabha. This reform movement had originated in Amritsar with the formation of the first Singh Sabha on 1 October 1873. Singh Sabhas began springing up in other places,

MAN SINGH, JUSTICE (1887-1949), known as Bhai Man Singh up to his thirties, was born in 1887 at Ambala, now in Haryana, the youngest of the three sons of Nand Singh who had fought against the British in the second AngloSikh war (1849) and had then worked under them

SAHAJDHARl, a gradualist among Sikhs. Like other Sikhs, the Sahajdharis believe in the Ten Gurus and in the Guru Granth Sahib, though they exempt themselves from the obligation of keeping their hair unshorn. Receiving the rites of Khalsa baptism one day and maintaining long uncut hair and beard remain,

SIKH ARMY PANCHAYATS, or regimental committees, were a singularly characteristic phenomenon of the post Ranjit Singh period of Sikh rule in the Punjab. Based on the Sikh principle of equality as well as of the supremacy of sangat or the sarbatt khalsa, they wielded great power during 1841-45. Like the

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

VAHIGURU JI KA KHALSA VAHIGURU JI KI FATEH, form of Sikh salutation, was made current among the Sikhs by command of Guru Gobind Singh at the time of the manifestation of the Khalsa in 1699. The salutation used in the days of Guru Nanak was Sati Kartar (Hail the

AKIL DAS, an eighteenth century head of the Handali sect of Jandiala in Amritsar district of the Punjab, also known as Haribhagat Niranjania, was an inveterate enemy of the Sikhs. Giani Gian Singh, Shamsher Khalsa, describes him as "Akul Das who basked in the name of Haribhagat." He was

BHAGAT MAL, subtitled SakhiBhai Gurdas Ji ki Var Varvfri Sikhan di Bhagatmala, is an anonymous manuscript (Kirpal Singh, A Catalogue of Punjabi and Urdu Manuscripts, attributes it to one Kirpa Ram, though in the work itself no reference to this name exists) held in the Khalsa College, Amritsar, under MS.

DAL KHALSA is the term used to describe the militia which came into being during the turbulent period of the second half of the eighteenth century and which became a formidable fighting force of the Sikhs in the northwestern part of India. The first Khalsa army formed and led

GIANI SAMPRADAI is one of three major schools of Sikhs theologians and expositors of the Sikh scripture, the other two being the Udasis and the Nirmalas. Giani, the Punjabi form of Sanskrit jndni from the rootjnd (to know), originally meant a scholar of high learning. In Sikh tradition, a gidmis

JASSA SINGH AHLUVALTA (1718-1783), founder of the misi or chicf ship of the Ahluvalias, remnants of which lasted until recent years in the form of the princely state of Kapurthala, and commander of the Dal Khalsa, who proclaimed in 1761 the sovereignty of the Sikhs, was born the son

KHALSA DIWAN LAHORE, formed on 11 April 1886 by a group of Sikhs who following a schism had severed their connections with the Khalsa Diwan Amritsar. Bhai Attar Singh, chief of Bhadaur, was named president and Bhai Gurmukh Singh chief secretary. The Diwan was formally registered with the government