LAKHNAUR, 10 km south of Ambala City (30"23`N, 76"47`E), was the ancestral village of Mata Gujari, mother of Guru Gobind Singh. Returning in 1670 to Patna after his long eastern journey, Guru Tegh Bahadur asked his family to travel straight to Lakhnaur, while he himself made a detour and went

GUJARI, MATA (1624-1705), was the daughter of Bhai Lal Chand Subhikkht and Bishan Kaur, a pious couple of Kartarpur, in present day Jalandhar district of the Punjab. Lal Chand had migrated from his ancestral village, Lakhnaur, in Ambala district, to settle at Kartarpur where his daughter Gujari was married

RAGMAIA, lit. a rosary of ragas or musical measures, is the title of a composition of twelve verses, running into sixty lines, appended to the Guru Granth Sahib after the Munddvam, i.e. the epilogue, as a table or index of ragas. In the course of the evolution of Indian music,

AJIT SINGH PALIT (d. 1725), adopted son of Mata Sundari, the mother of Sahibzada Ajit Singh . Little is known about the family he came of except that Mata Sundari took him over from a goldsmith of Delhi and adopted him because of his striking resemblance with her son, Ajit

GURBAKHSH SINGH, one of the Chhibbar Brahman family of Kariala in Jehlum district, now in Pakistan, which had been managing the household affairs of the Gurus since the time of Guru Hargobind (1595-1644), was the son of Dharam Chand, treasurer to Guru Gobind Singh. Subsequent to the evacuation of

SAHERI, originally called Kheri, is a village about 2 km west of Morinda ( 30"47`N, 76"29`E) in Ropar district of the Punjab. The village was destroyed by Banda Singh Bahadur in 1710, and the habitation that reappeared upon its ruins dropped the old name because of its dismal associations

ALMAST, BHAI (1553-1643), Sikh preacher and head of a dhuari or branch of the Udasi sect, was born in a Gaur Brahman family of Srinagar (Kashmir) on 26 August 1553. He was the son of Bhai Hardatt and Mai Prabha, and was the elder brother of Balu Hasna, another

HATHI SINGH (d. 1783) was the son of Ajit Singh, adopted son of Guru Gobind Singh`s widow Mata Sundari. When Mata Sundari disowned Ajit Singh for his profligacy and moved from Delhi to Mathura, she took with her Hathi Singh and his mother, Tara BaT. As he grew up,

SAHIB DEVAN, by tradition mother of the Khalsa, was the daughter of Bhai Har Bhagvan alias Ramu, a Bassi Khatri, and his wife, Jas Devi, a devout Sikh couple of Rohtas, in Jehlum district (now in Pakistan). Her parents had from the beginning dedicated her to the service of

ANANTI, MATA, wife of Baba Gurditta and mother of Guru Har Rai, Nanak VII. She was popularly known as Mata Natti. Some chroniclers have also used for her the names of Nihal Kaur and Bassi. See NATTi, MATA

HUKAMNAMA, a compound of two Persian words hukm, meaning command or order, and ndmah, meaning letter, refers in the Sikh tradition to letters sent by the Gurus to their Sikhs or sangats in different parts of the country. Currently, the word applies to edicts issued from time to time from

SUNDARI, MATA (d. 1747), the second wife of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), was the daughter of Bhai Ram Saran, a Kumarav Khatri of Bijvara. in present day Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab. She was married to Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur on 4 April 1684. On 26 January 1687,