DHUAN, Punjabi for smoke, is a term which is particularly used for seats of certain monkish orders where a fire is perennially kept alive. In the Sikh context it is employed for the four branches of Udasi Sikhs established by Baba Gurditta (1613-38), on whom the headship of the sect

GURU NANAK BANS PRAKASH, by Sukhbasi Ram Bedi (c. 1758C.1848), an Udasi saint and a descendant of Guru Nanak, is a versified biography of Guru Nanak with considerable detail about his descendants as well. Two manuscript copies of the work are extant one at the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar,

MASANDS were, in early Sikhism, local community leaders who looked after the ^an^a^in their diocese and linked them to their spiritual mentor, the Guru. They led Sikhs, preached the word of the Guru and transmitted to him their offerings, escorting occasionally batches of them to his presence. The first such

NAND SINGH, SANT (1872-1943), a saintly personage who attracted a considerable following during his lifetime, was born the son of Jai Singh, an artisan by profession, and Sada Kaur in 1872 in the village of Sherpur Kalan in Ludhiana district of the Punjab. As a young boy, he was