COSMIC EGG (HIRANYAGARBHA) The True Lord created the world with his own hands. He broke the Cosmic Egg into two parts. He united the ends of both the parts, and separated them from each other from the middle. (The middle portion became the space). In this way he made

DAULAT KHAN LODHI, NAWAB, an Afghan noble, was, during the last quarter of the fifteenth century, governor of Jalandhar Doab with Sultanpur, a town in present day Kapurthala district, as his capital. One of his officials, Jai Ram, was married to Guru Nanak`s sister, Nanaki.Jai Ram secured young Nanak employment

GURPURB, a compound of two words, i.e. guru, the spiritual preceptor, and purb, parva in Sanskrit, meaning a festival or celebration, signifies in the Sikh tradition the holy day commemorating one or another of the anniversaries related to the lives of the Gurus. Observance of such anniversaries is a

JAI RAM (d. 1518), brother in law of Guru Nanak, was a trusted official at the court of Nawab Daulat Khan Lodhl at Sultanpur, in presentday Kapurthala district of the Punjab. He was married to Nanaki, daughter of Kalian Chand and sister of Guru Nanak, in 1475 at Talvandi

MAHIMA PRAKASH, known as Mahima Prakash Vartak (prose) to distinguish it from another work, in verse, bearing the same title, Sarup Das Bhalla\'s Mahima Prakash, is an unpublished manuscript containing anecdotes from the lives of the Gurus. The manuscript, copies of which are now available in the Khalsa College at

Meharban, Sodhi, original name Manohardas, son of Prithichand, the elder brother of Guru Arjan Dev (the fifth Guru of the Sikhs), wrote poetry as well as prose, but his prominent work is Janam sakhi Guru Nanak Dev (Story of the nativity of Guru Nanak, the first Guru of the

PAINTIS AKKHARI, lit., a poem based on paintis or thirty-Five letters, is a composition in the form of an acrostic utilizing for successive verses the thirty-five characters of the Gurmukhi alphabet. The poem is sometimes attributed to Guru Nanak but mistakenly, for it is not included in the Guru

RAHIT MARYADA, traditions and rules which govern the distinctive Sikh way of life and determine Sikh belief and practice. Rahit, from the Punjabi verb rahind (to live, to remain), means mode of living while maryada is a Sanskrit word composed of marya (limit, boundary, mark) and add (to give

SHIV RAM (b. 1418), grandfather of Guru Nanak, was the son of Ram Narain, a Bedi Khatri. He and his wife, Banarasi, lived in a village called Patthevind, now the site of Gurdwara Dera Sahib, 10 km east of Naushahra Pannuan in present day Amritsar district of the Punjab. Two

AGRA (27°10\'N, 78°\'E), became the seat of a Sikh sangat following a visit by Guru Nanak during the first of his four long preaching journeys. Later, Guru Ram Das, in his early career as Bhai Jetha, was in Agra when he attended Akbar\'s court on behalf of Guru Amar Das,