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

ARJAN SINGH THAPA was the son of the Gurkha general, Amar Singh Thapa, who had advanced his conquests up to Kangra in the early years of the nineteenth century. Maharaja Ranjit Singh expelled him from the Kangra hills, but the Gurkhas had fought so bravely that he decided to

BHUP SINGH, SARDAR, remembered as Raja Bhup Singh in local lore, was the chief of the Sikh principality of Ropar, during the earlier half of the nineteenth century. Little is known about his life except that in 1808-09 he, along with Deva Singh, was in possession of Ropar and

DESAN, MAI (d. 1778), daughter of Amir Singh of Gujrariwala, was married to Charhat Singh Sukkarchakkia in 1756. When her husband died in 1770, their eldest son, Mahan Singh, was barely ten years old. Mai Desan took the control of the Sukkarchakkia misi or chiefship into her own hands,

FATEH SINGH KALIANVALA (d. 1807), military commander and jagirdar under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was the son of Jassa Singh and grandson of Jaimal Singh. Jaimal Singh was a Sandhu Jatt and the first in the line to embrace the Sikh faith. He was a resident of Kala village in

HIMMAT SINGH JALLEVALIA (d. 1829), son of Chaudhan Gulab Rai, a Bairis Jatt of Mahalpur, in present day Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab, joined the Sikh forces which conquered Sirhind province in 1764, and secured for himself the village of Jalla, whence the family derived its cognomen of Jallevalia.

JAN MUHAMMAD CHATTHA (d. 1798), son of Ghulam Muhammad Chattha, fled to Kabul on the eve of the conquest of the tort of Manchar in 1790 by Mahari Singh Sukkarchakkia. He accompanied Shah Zaman to India in 1797 and recovered his possessions on the River Chenab in Gujranwala district

LAKKHI MALL, DIWAN (d. 1844), an official of the Lahore Government in the Indus territories, which included Dera Ismail Khan, annexed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1836. Lakkhi Mall`s charge also included Bannu which the Sikhs had occupied in 1825. In January 1844 Diwan Lakkhi Mall led an expedition

MUHKAM CHAND, DIWAN (1750-1814), a renowned Sikh army general of the early years of Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s reign, was born around AD 1750. Son of a small shopkeeper, Baisakhi Mall Khatri, of Kunjah, a village in Gujrat district, now in Pakistan, he trained as an accountant and served as a

PIR MUHAMMAD KHAN, one of the Barakzai brothers who came into control of Peshawar which became a tributary to Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1823. Dost Muhammad Khan who had established himself in power at Kabul bitterly felt the loss of Peshawar. Pir Muhammad along with his brother, Sultan Muhammad,

RANI RAJINDRAMATI CHARITRA by Sahib Singh Mrigind is a versified account (charitra = character; portrayal) in Braj (Gurmukhi characters) of Queen (rdm== queen) Jindan, the wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, here referred to as Rajindramati. Sahib Singh Mrigind (c. 1800-1876) who later became the court poet in the princely state