NAINA SINGH, AKALI, eighteenth century Nihang warrior esteemed as much for his piety as for his valour. His special title to fame rests on the fact that he was the guardian of the celebrated Akali Phula Singh (1761-1823) whom he trained in the martial arts. Little is known about his

Anoop Singh (1910 - 1989) was a lawyer by profession, hailing from the North-West Frontier Province of undivided Punjab. A lover of every good thing in life, he came to writing poetry seriously very late in life but his output compensated his late-coming both quantitatively and qualitatively. The most

GOSHTI, from Sanskrit gostha (go = cow + stha = place, i.e. cowpen) means, secondarily, an assembly of people engaged in a discourse or debate on some metaphysical, theological or ethical point, thereby seeking to expound their respective views or tenets and revealing in the process their dialectical prowess

JIVANMUKTA, in Sikhism the ideal and aim or objective of man`s spiritual life. The term is derived from jivanmukti {j`tvan=`ife; mukli=recasc, liberation, emancipation, freedom from bondage), and means one who has attained liberation from human bondage or one who has attained to the highest spiritual slate of being in tune

NAND SINGH or Anand Singh was still in his teens when he went to Anandpur to see Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708) and stayed on until his parents arrived to complain to the Guru that the boy, who had lately been married, had forsaken his bride and took little interest in

SANGAT SINGH, SANT (1882-1950), a Sikh saint revered for his piety as well as for his learning, was born in 1882, at Kamalia, a small town in Lyallpur district, now in Pakistan. His father, Bhai Sital Das, a Sahajdhari Sikh, was a descendant of Bhai Shamu Sachiar, one of

VAR MAJH KI, by Guru Nanak occurs in the musical measure Majh, in the Guru Granth Sahib. The word majh, in Punjabi, means in the middle or midway, and the raga which goes by this name was a folk tune of Majha, the central country of die Punjab, which

Attar Singh is a famous critic. He has so far published three collections of critical essays—Kavya Adhyayan (Study of Poetry), Drishtikon (Viewpoint), and Samadarshan (Perspectives). In his view, it is the first duty of progressive literature to fight against those tendencies that would tie literature to reaction. This can

GRANTH GURBILAS PATSHAHI 6 (granth volume, book; gurbilas = life story of the Guru; patshahi 6 = the spiritual preceptor, sixth in the order of succession), is a versified account, in Punjabi, of the life of Guru Hargobind, Nanak VI. The manuscript, preserved in the Punjab University Library, Chandigarh, under

KAM (Skt. kdmd), meaning desire, longing, concupiscence, sensuality or lasciviousness, is counted among the five cardinal sins or sinful propensities. In common usage, the term stands for passion for sexual pleasure and it is in this sense that it is considered an evil in Sikhism. In Brahrnanical literature kdm

Nandram, one of the poets who kept Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708) company, was the son of a well-known Sufi poet, Vali Ram. He had been in the service of Dara Shukoh, who, having lost the struggle for succession to his father\'s throne, was executed by his brother, Emperor Aurangzib,

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