DESU, Jatt of Chahal clan, was a minor chief at Bhikhi, in present day Bathinda district, when Guru Tegh Bahadur visited that village travelling through the Malva region in 1672-73. As he came to see him, the Guru asked him why he carried a walking stick in his quiver.

RATAN SINGH MAN (d. 1857), a general in the Sikh army, was the son of Nahar Singh of Mughal Chakk, now in Pakistan. He joined military service as a trooper under the Sikhs and rose to be an adjutant. He served under Hari Singh Nalva in Kashmir and Hazara

DHIAN SINGH (d. 1705), a devoted Sikh of the time of Guru Gobind Singh. He was one of the warriors who took part in the battle against Said Khan. He fell a martyr in the battle of Chamkaur (7 December 1705). M.G.S. DHIAN SINGH, resident of the village of

RATAN SINGH, BHAI (d. 1943), alias Santa Singh, alias Ishar Singh, son of Nihal Singh, of Raipur Doaba, in Jalandhar district, served in the Indian army before migrating to Fiji Islands in 1914 from where he moved to Vancouver. While in Vancouver, he was drawn into the Ghadr movement.

DIAL DAS, son of Gaura and grandson of the celebrated Bhai Bhagatu, lived at Bhuchcho, now in Bathinda district of the Punjab, at the time of Guru Gobind Singh`s journey through those parts in 1706. At the village of Bhagu, Dial Das took the rites of amrit at the

SIKH TRADITION (HISTORIOGRAPHY) begins with Janam Sakhis, the life stories of Guru Nanak (1469-1539). There is hardly any evidence of the tradition of history writing in ancient India, though in modern times attempts have been made at different levels to show the existence of somewhat vague historio graphic elements particularly

JAND SAHIB, GURDWARA, dedicated to Guru Gobind Singh, is situated within the revenue limits of Virevala Kalari village, 25 km west of Faridkot (30°40`N, 74°45`E) in the Punjab. This is believed to be the place where, according to Mdlvd Desk Ratan di Sdkhi Potht, Guru Gobind Singh, during his travels

TAHIKAN, a seventeenth century poet, was the son of Rangil Das, a Chopra Khatri of Jalalpur, in present day Gujrat district of Pakistan. A soldier by profession, he rendered into Hindi verse AmarKosa and "Asvamedha Parva" of the Mahabharata. He tided the former work Ratan Dam. Several Sikh scholars

KUNVARESH, one of the many poets and scholars kept by Guru Gobind Singh, came from a Kashyap Brahman family of the village of Bari, near the ancient town of Kara (26°7`N, 80°22`E), in the present Fatehpur district ofUttar Pradesh. He translated into Bhakha, written in GurmukhT script, "Drona Parva"

TARA SINGH, BHAI, the eighteenth century Sikh martyr, was a Buttar Jatt of the village Van, popularly known as Dallvan because of its proximity to another village called Dall, in present day Amritsar district of the Punjab. His father, Gurdas Singh, had received the rites of the Khalsa in the

LAKKHA SINGH was, according to Gur Ratan Mal (Sau Sakht), one of the attendants of Guru Gobind Singh at Nanded in the south. He killed one of the two Pathans who had conspired to assassinate the Guru. The other assassin, Jamshaid Khan, who actually stabbed the Guru, had already

THAKUR SINGH, a kahar or waterman of village Jagatpur, in Amritsar district, was the son of Ratan Singh, one of Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s personal attendants. Ratan Singh was a great favourite and had had jagirs of over one lakh rupees granted to him. His son Thakur Singh had in