NIHAL SINGH THAKUR (1808-1895), Sikh theologian and musician, was born at Amritsar on 7 Phagun 1864 Bk/17 February 1808 to Bhai Mahal Singh and Mata Basi. Bhai Mahal Singh lived in the village of Sayyid ki Sarai in Gujjarkhan tahsil of Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan, and had come to

ATAR SINGH ATLEVALE, SANT (d. 1937), Sikh holy man and preacher, born in early fifties of the nineteenth century, was the eldest son of Bhai Kishan Singh and Mai Naraini, a devoted couple of Mirpur, in Jammu and Kashmir state. Atar Singh, originally known as Hari Singh, was adopted by

AVTAR SINGH VAHIRIA, polemicist and scholar of Sikh texts, was born on 12 June 1848 at Thoha Khalsa, a village in Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan. As a small boy, he learnt to recite the Sikh psalms from his mother and maternal uncle, Prem Singh. After he had learnt

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

JASWANT SINGH, BHAGAT (1881-1967), prominent in the Gurdwara Reform movement of 1920-25, was born at Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan, on 15 Poh 1938 Bk/27 December 1881, the son of Chaudhari Sayan Singh. After matriculating from Mission School, Rawalpindi, he passed his B.A. examination from Gordon College, Rawalpindi. In 1921,

MILKHA SINGH THEHPURIA (d. 1804), a powerful Sikh chief during the latter half of the eighteenth century, who, abandoning his native place, Kaleke, near Kasur, founded the village of Thehpur in Lahore district and took possession of a number of villages in its vicinity and in Gujrat and Gujrariwala

MOHAN SINGH, SARDAR BAHADUR (1897-1961), aesthete, philanthropist and privy counsellor, was born on 6 June 1897 at Rawalpindi in a family of note founded by Sadhu Singh (d. 1798), who under Sardar Milkha Singh Thehpuria, founder of present town of Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan), was entrusted with the duty of

NIRANKARIS, a sect of the Sikhs born of a reform movement which arose in northwest Punjab in the middle of the nineteenth century aiming to restore the purity of Sikh belief and custom. Its founder, Baba Dayal (1783-1855), was a contemporary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. A man of humble

POTHOHAR, a distinct lingual and cultural region in northwest Punjab (now in Pakistan), comprising a part of the Rawalpindi district, including the entire Gujjar Khan tahsil (subdivision) barring the hilly tract in the east along the River Jehlum, southeastern part of Rawalpindi tahsil and Kallar circle of Kahuta tahsil.

RAGHBIR SINGH DUGAL (1897-1957), a medical practitioner and leader of the Sikh community in Burma, was born in 1897, the son of Sobha Singh, at the village of Sayyid Kasrari, in Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan. He had his early education at his village and in Rawalpindi, and in 1911