Dard, Hira Singh, an eminent story writer, wrote with a reformatory attitude. He indirectly preached certain reforms keeping in view the realistic side of life. His story \'Rakhri\'1 is of this nature. The character, of the quarrelsome, rude and unlettered Rukmani—the heroine—making her home a hell and over hen-pecked

MANGAL SINGH KIRPAN BAHADUR, BHAI (1895-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs was born in 1895, the son of Bhai Ratia and Mat Hukmi in the village of Uddokc, in Gurdaspur district. He lost both of his parents while yet a small child, and grew up in very adverse circumstances

SATNAMI. The word satnami is derived from satnam, lit. the True Name , a term used in some religious traditions including Sikhism to denote the Supreme Being. Literally, a Satnami is one who believes in and worships only the True Being and as such every Sikh is a Satnami.

ANDREWS, CHARLES FREER (1871-1940). Anglican missionary, scholar and educationist, was born to John Edwin Andrews on 12 February 1871 in NewcastleonTyne in Great Britain. His father was a minister of the Evangelical Anglican Church. Andrews grew up in an intense and emotional religious environment. A nearly fatal attack of rheumatic

FIVE SYMBOLS, a set of five distinctive features or elements of personal appearance or apparel that set off Sikhs from the followers of any other religious faith. Any study of religious symbols involves a dual task: first, to explain the meaning of symbols not only in terms of their

MANI SINGH, BHAI (d. 1737), scholar and martyr, came, according to Kesar Singh Chhibbar, his contemporary, of a Kamboj family, and according to some later chroniclers, following Giani Gian Singh, Panth Prakash, of a DullatJatt family of Kamboval village (now extinct), near Sunam (30°7`N, 75"48`E), in Sarigrur district of

SEVA SINGH KRIPAN BAHADUR (1890-1961), Akali activist and newspaper editor, was the son of Bhai Harnam Singh and Mai Prem Kaur of Bakhtgarh, village 18 km northwest of Barnala (30"22`N, 75"32`E), in Sangrur district of the Punjab. Born in 1890, he received lessons in Punjabi and in scripture reading in

ARDAMAN SINGH, BHAYEE (1899-1976), of pious lineage was born on 20 September 1899 (father: Bhayee Arjan Singh; mother: Devinder Kaur) at Bagarian, in present day Sarigrur district of the Punjab. The family traces its descent from Bhai Rup Chand, a devout Sikh of the time of Guru Hargobind (1595-1644)

GRANTHI, from the Sanskrit granthika (a relaier or narrator), is a person who reads the granih, Sanskrit grantha (composition, treatise, book, text). The terms are derived from the Sanskrit grath which means "to fasten, tie or string together, to compose (a literary work)." In Sikh usage, granih refers especially to

MIRIPIRI, compound of two words, both of Perso Arabic origin, adapted into the Sikh tradition to connote the close relationship within it between the temporal and the spiritual. The term represents for the Sikhs a basic principle which has influenced their religious and political thought and governed their societal structure

SHUDDHI SABHA, a society working in the closing years of the nineteenth century primarily for the reconversion to Sikhism of those proselytized into Christianity or Islam, was established in 1893. . Christian pro-selytization had started with the advent of British rule in the Punjab with official encouragement. Though the

ASAVARI See ASA ASCETICISM, derived from the Greek word askesis, connotes the `training` or `exercise` of the body and the mind. Asceticism or ascetic practices belong to the domain of religious culture, and fasts, pilgrimages, ablutions, purificatory rituals, vigils, abstinence from certain foods and drinks, primitive and strange dress, nudity,