PAL SINGH ARIF, SANT (1873-1958), mystic and poet, was born on Maghar sudi 15, 1930 Bk/4 December 1873, the son of Gurdit Singh Sandhu and Sahib Kaur of the village of Paddhari, now in Amritsar district of the Punjab. He learnt to read and write Punjabi from the village granthi

AVTAR SINGH AZAD Avtar Singh \'Azad\', (1906 - 1972) the minor Punjabi poet, is not deserving of notice. Before independence, he had published four collections of poems, Swant Bundan (Drops of Bliss), Savan Pinghan (The Swings of Savan), Vishva Vedna (Plight of the World) and Kansoan (Intimations), and published

NANAK SURAJODE JANAM SAKHI, by Ganesha Singh Bedi, is an account in verse of the life of Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith. The metaphor of the rising sun (surajode=surya/suraj meaning sun and udaya/ ude meaning rising) in the title has been used for Guru Nanak whose birth as

VIR SINGH. BHAI (1872-1957), poet, scholar and exegete, was a major figure in the Sikh renaissance and in the movement for the revival and renewal of Punjabi literary tradition. His identification with all the important concerns of modern Sikhism was so complete that he came to be canonized as Bhai,

Darshan Singh \'Awara\', (1906-1982)started writing verse under the impulse of the struggle for freedom in the early twenties. The tone and diction of these poems were nationalist revolutionary and they were first published in a volume named Bijii di Tarak (The Lap of Lightning). It was confiscated by the British

WELLESLEY PAPERS. Private correspondence and letters of Lord Wellesley, Governor General of India (1798-1805), at the British Library and Museum, London, important for the light it throws on British policy towards the cis Sutlej region and towards the Sikh Darbar. Part of this correspondence relating to the Afghan threat to

GANDA SINGH MASHARIQI (1857-1909), Urdu poet, scholar and religious guide in the line of family preceptors to the chiefs of Ropar in the Punjab. His grandfather, Bhai Bagh Singh (1757-1822), and his father, Bhai Bishan Singh (1809-90), had served the Ropar family as priests and counsellors. When the British

PARYAI, Sanskrit parydya, meaning a synonym or convertible term, is used in Sikh literature spelt variously as priydi, pridy and praydya. It was a popular title for glossaries explaining terms and difficult words used in Guru Granth Sahib which were the forerunners of full scale translations or exegeses of the

GURMAT MARTAND, by Bhai Kahn Singh, is a glossary in two volumes of terms bearing on different aspects of Sikh religion, theology and belief. The author undertook this work, arranged topically as well as alphabetically, with a view to rectifying some of the misconceptions about certain Sikh theological and conceptual

PUNJAB CHIEFS, THE, by Sir Lepel H. Griffin, contains historical and biographical notices of the principal chiefs and families of note in the Punjab, with detailed pedigree tables, first published at Lahore in 1865, revised edition (2 vols.) by Charles Francis Massy published at Lahore in 1890, and revised pedigree

HIRA SINGH DARD, GIANI (1889-1965), journalist and author, who in his early youth began writing religious and patriotic poetry in Punjabi under the pseudonym of "Dard", later absorbed into his name, was born on 30 September 1889 in the village of Ghaghrot, in Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan. His

SARDUL SINGH GIANI, BHAI (d. 1913), the eldest son of Giani Gian Singh of Amritsar and a grandson ofGiani Bishan Singh, was a noted Sikh scholar of his time. The family lived near Chowk Baba Atal in a street still known as Gall Gianian, the street of the Giants.