BURNES, SIR ALEXANDER (1805-1841), British traveller, explorer and writer, was born on 16 May 1805. He joined Bombay infantry in 1821. Upon his arrival in India, he devoted himself to the study of the local languages and was, while still an ensign, selected for the post of regimental interpreter. In

VASTI RAM, BHAI (1708-1802), was son of Bhai Bulaka Singh, who is said to have accompanied Guru Gobind Singh to the South in 1707 from where he returned with his blessings to settle in Lahore. Vasti Ram lived through the long period of persecution the Sikhs endured and their

GURMANTRA, Punjabi Gurmantar, is that esoteric formula or term significant of the Supreme Being or the deity which the master or teacher confides to the neophyte to meditate on when initiating him into his spiritual discipline. The concept of mantra goes back to the pre-Vedic non Aryan tradition and to

GURMUKH SINGH GIANI, BHAI (d. 1843), a man of letters and an influential courtier in Sikh times, was the son of the celebrated scholar, Bhai Sant Singh, who had been the custodian of Sri Darbar Sahib at Amritsar. Gurmukh Singh was trained in Sikh religious lore at Amritsar under

GURMUKH SINGH LAMMA, a commander in Maharaja Ranjit Singh `s army, born in 1772, was of humble origin, his father, Pardhan Singh, being a money-changer in the small town of Khiva, situated on the right bank of the River Jehlum. Lamma in Punjabi means tall, but the cognomen Lamma

GILL, TEJWANT SINGH THE most promising moderncritic is Tejwant Singh Gill (1928 -). His viewpoint is rather para-Marxist, but he is cautious enough not to lose his dialectic materialist moorings. In his essay, "Lekhak Te Raj Satta" (The Writer and the State) included in his collection titled Punjabi Sabhyachar,

JAI SINGH MAN (d. 1812), son of Sarja Singh (d. 1763) of Mughal Chakk settled in the village of Man, near Gujrariwala. His family was related to the Sukkarchakkia family by matrimony as Ranjit Singh`s father, Mahari Singh, was married to his daughter. Jai Singh was a constant companion

MARATHASIKH RELATIONS spanning a period of half a century from 1758 to 1806 alternated between friendly cooperation and mistrust born out of rivalry of political and military ambition. Although Shivaji (1627-80), the founder of Maratha power, and Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), the creator of the Khalsa, both rose against the

MIRIPIRI, compound of two words, both of Perso Arabic origin, adapted into the Sikh tradition to connote the close relationship within it between the temporal and the spiritual. The term represents for the Sikhs a basic principle which has influenced their religious and political thought and governed their societal structure

PATTIDARI, lit. cosharing or shareholding, was, like mislddri, a system of land tenure during the Sikh period. The basic principle was traceable to the time honoured institution of joint family and inheritance of property in equal shares by descendants (male only) whenever a division took place, the rule of primogeniture

QUDRAT (spelled qudrati in gurbani), a term adopted by Guru Nanak from the Arabic and given a philosophical signification and connotation which, to some extent but with different shades of sense, had till then been conveyed by the milenniaold Indian words prakriti and mdyd. Qudrat, in Arabic, literally means power,

RAKHI SYSTEM, the arrangement whereby the Dal Khalsa during the middecades of the eighteenth century established their sway over territories not under their direct occupation. Rakhi, lit. `protection` or `vigilance,` referred to the cess levied by the Dal Khalsa upon villages which sought their protection against aggression or molestation in