RANJIT NAGARA, lit. the drum of victory in battlefield, was the name given the kettledrum installed by Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur in 1684. Nagdrd, Punjabi for the Persian naqqdrah meaning a kettledrum, was a symbol of royalty. As well as fulfilling his spiritual office, Guru Gobind Singh had, like

SIKHS` RELATIONS WITH HILL STATES lying between the Ganga and the Chenab rivers from the time of the Gurus to the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh fluctuated from guarded friendship to open hostility. Guru Nanak (1469-1539) and later his son, Baba Sri Chand, had preached the Sikh tenets in the

VAR SHAH MUHAMMAD, also known as Jangnama Shah Muhammad or Hind Panjab da Jang, is a long poem in Punjabi in the traditional baint metre dealing with the events following the deaul of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, notably the Sikhs` warwiui the English in 1845-46. The author is a Muslim, Shah

ADVENTURES OF AN OFFICER IN THE PUNJAB (2 vols.) by Major H. M. L. Lawrence, under the pseudonym of Bellasis, published in AD 1846 by Henry Colburn, London, and reprinted in 1970 by the Languages Department, Punjab, Patiala. The book which is a rambling account, half fact half fiction, of

ATA MUHAMMAD KHAN BARAKZAI, son of Painda Khan Barakzai, became the governor of Kashmir in 1809. When Shah Shuja`, the king of Afghanistan, was dethroned, he fled towards the Punjab. At Attock he was captured by the governor, Jaharidad Khan. who sent him to Kashmir to be handed over

BIR SINGH, BABA (1768-1844), soldier become religious preacher and saint, was born in July 1768 at the village of Gaggobua, in Amritsar district of the Punjab, the son of Seva Singh and Dharam Kaur. After the death of his father in one of the campaigns against the Afghan rulers

DEVNO DEVl, RANI (d. 1839), daughter of a Chib Khatri of Dev Batala, in Jammu, was married to Maharaja Ranjit Singh. She immolated herself on the burning pyre of her husband on 28 June 1839.

GANGA RAM, DIWAN (1775-1826) was a Kashmiri Brahman whose father, Kishan Das, was a government employee. During the oppressive days of the governors of Kashmir, Kishan Das migrated to Delhi, and later settled in the village of Rampur, near Banaras, where Ganga Ram was born about the year 1775.

HISTORY OF THE PUNJAB (and of the Rise, Progress and Present Condition of the Sect and Nation of the Sikhs) is an anonymous work in two volumes ascribed variously to T.H. Thornlon (Catalogue of the Sikh Reference Library, Amritsar), H.T. Prinsep (Catalogue of the Khalsa College, Amritsar), and William Murray

JAWAHAR SINGH RANDHAVA, son ot`Prem Singh, a soldier in the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, belonged lo the Randhava family of the village of Khunda in Gurdaspur district, who had once been with the Kanhaiya misi, but a major portion of whose territory had been confiscated by the Maharaja.

MULTANA SINGH, KANVAR (1819-1846), son of Ranjit Singh, was born in 1819 to Ratan Kaur whom the Maharaja had married in 1811 after the conquest of Gujrat. He was given a small jagir in Amritsar district. He was married to Chand Kaur from whom he had three sons, Kishan