BHAVANI DAS, DlWAN (1770-1834), was the son of Diwan Thakur Das, revenue and finance minister of the Afghan king, Ahmad Shah Durrani. Bhavani Das succeeded to the position after the death of his father and served successively Shah Zaman, Shah Mahmud and Shah Shuja` until 1808 when Maharaja Ranjit

COURT AND CAMP OF RUNJEET SING, THE, by W.G. Osborne, military secretary to Lord Auckland, Governor General of India (1836-42), first published in 1840 in London, is a journal recording events in the Punjab of the period from 19 May to 13 July 1838 and the author`s personal impressions. The

FATEHNAMAH GURU KHALSA JI KA, by Ganesh Das, an employee of the Sikh Darbar, and published as edited by Sita Ram Kohli, contains accounts, in Punjabi verse, of three of the major battles of Sikh times. The first of these was fought at Multan in 1818 between Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s

HARLAN, JOSIAH (1799-1871), adventurer and medical practitioner who served the British, the Sikhs and the Afghans, was born in Philadelphia, U.S.A., in 1799. At the age of 24, he arrived at Calcutta and was employed as an assistant surgeon by the East India Company and attached to the British army

JANGNAMA SARDAR HARJ SINGH, by Ram Dial Anad, is a versified account, in Punjabi, of Hari Singh Nalva`s last crusade against the Afghans in which he won the field but lost his life. The poet, about whom not much biographical information is available is a Hindu (Anad) Khatri of

MOTI RAM, DIWAN (1770-1837), was the only son of Diwan Muhkam Chand, one of Maharaja Ranjil Singh`s most trusted army generals. Moll Ram officiated as the governor of the Jalandhar Doab during the absence of bis father on military expeditions. After the death of his father in 1814, he was

PHULA SINGH AKALI (1761-1823), Sikh hero and an eminent religious figure of the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was born in 1761 at the village of Shihari, now in ruins, about 5 km west of Miinak, in present day Sarigrur district of the Punjab. His father, Ishar Singh, an

RAMDAT SINGH (d. 1790), grandfather of Nidhan Singh Parijhattha, a gallant soldier in the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and son of Dulcha Singh, who died in the service of Raja Ranjit Dco of Jammu, joined the Sukkarchakkia misi under Mahari Singh, and received command of two hundred horse.

SHAH ZAMAN, son of Taimur Shah and grandson of Ahmad Shah Durrani, became the ruler of Afghanistan in May 1793 at the age of 23. As soon as Shah Zaman came to the throne, he proclaimed his intention of reestablishing the Afghan sway in India. His first attempt to conquer

TWARIKHIHIND, subtitled Bayan i Ahwal iMulki Hind wa Maluki An az Zamani Qadim ta 1233 A.M., by Ahmad Shah of Batala, a manuscript preserved in Dyal Singh Trust Library, Lahore, is a history of India from earliest times to AD 1818 according to the subtitle, although it also records

ANGLOSIKH TREATY (AMRITSAR, 1809). Napoleon`s victories in Europe had alarmed the British, who, fearing a French attack on the country through Afghanistan, decided to win the Sikhs over to their side and sent a young officer, Charles Theophilus Met caife, to Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s court with an offer of friendship.

BHUPAL SINGH, a son of the Gurkha general, Amar Singh Thapa, came to Lahore and took up service under Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839). He became an officer in a battalion in the Sikh army under General Ventura. In 1838, Bhupal Singh returned to Nepal and was appointed to command