SOHAN LAL SURI, vakil or attorney at the Lahore court, is famous for his monumental work in Persian, `Umdat iitTwankh, a chronicle of Sikh times comprising five daftars or volumes. Little is known about Sohan Lal`s early life except that he was the son of Lala Ganpat Rai, a

SUKHANFAKIRANKE, an eighteenth century work in Punjabi prose attributed to Bhai Addan Shah, a Sevapanthi saint. Two manuscript copies of it are known to existone (MS.No. 2196) in the Central Public Library, Patiala, and the other (MS. No. 11560) in the Pahjab University, Chandigarh. The latter has since been included

Singh, Mohan was born in Mardan (Pakistan). He, however, belonged to the village Dhamial, near Rawalpindi (Pakistan). His father was a doctor in the Civil Hospital. Mohan Singh passed his matriculation examination in 1923. In the same year, he was married to a beautiful girl, Basant. But after four

TANKHAHNAMA, by Bhai Nand Lal, is a Sikh penal code laying down punishments and fines for those guilty of religious misconduct. Tankhah, a Persian word, actually means salary, reward or profit, and nama, also Persian denoting an epistle, a code or a catalogue. In Sikh usage, however, tankhah stands for

TARIKH IIRADAT KHANI, an undated old Persian manuscript in the Oriental Public Library, Patna, comprising the memoirs of Mirza Mubarakullah Wazih. The tide inscribed on the flyleaf is Tankhi Mubaraki. The work which is also known as Maqtal us Salatin is a history of the successors of Emperor Aurangzib

AKHBAR DARBAR LAHORE, an unpublished collection of 92 letters, reports, notes and summaries of events connected with the second Anglo Sikh war, 1848-49. The manuscript, in Persian, is preserved in Dr Ganda Singh Collection at Punjabi University, Patiala. The entire manuscript comprises 382 pages. These documents are communications written by

TARJKHIPANJAB, TUHFAT ULALBAB, a brief chronicle in Persian, by Maulawi Munshi `Abd ul Karim `Alawi, printed in Lucknow in 1849, gives a somewhat diffused account of Ranjit Singh and his successors, mainly bearing upon the two Anglo Sikh wars, the first of 1845-46, with actions fought at Mudki, Feroze

BABA, a Persian word meaning \'father\' or \'grandfather\', is used among Sikhs as a title of affection and reverence. In its original Persian context, Baba is a title used for superiors of the Qalandar order of the Sufis, but as transferred to India its meaning extends to cover the old

TWARIKHIAHMADI, or Tarikhi Ahmad, is a book written by Abdul Karim Alavi and published by Mustafai Press, Lucknow, in 1850. Alavi was a prolific writer and his works include besides many translations from Arabic into Persian, the Tarikhi Ahmad which became the most popular of his works and was

BRAHAM GIAN (Knowledge of the Divine), by a Sevapanthi saint Gopal Das, is a treatise in Punjabi on theology. The work is unpublished and the only extant copy of the manuscript is preserved in the private collection of Dr Tarlochan Singh Bedi at Patiala. It contains 219 folios and was

WAQI`AIJANGISIKKHAN, by Diwan Ajudhia Parshad, is a chronicle in Persian prose of the events of the first Anglo Sikh war (1845-46). The narratives of the battles of Pherushahr and Sabhraon have in fact been taken from two separate manuscripts. The work was translated into English by V.S. Suri and published

DERA, a word of Persian extraction, has several connotations. The original Persian word derah or dirah means a tent, camp, abode, house or habitation. In current usage in rural Punjab, a farmhouse or a group of farmhouses built away from the village proper is called dera. Even after such an