MOTA SINGH, MASTER (1888-1960), patriot and revolutionary, was born the son of Gopal Singh on 28 February 1888 at Patara, a village 7 km east of Jalandhar. His grandfather, Sahib Singh, was a soldier in the Sikh army and had fought against the British. After passing the matriculation examination,

NANDPUR, commonly referred to as NandpurKalaur because of its proximity to the village by the name of Kalaur, is 9 km from Bassi Pathanan (30°42`N. 76°25`E) in Fatehgarh Sahib district. The historical shrine at Nandpur, Gurdwara Sahib Patshahi Nauviri, commemorates the visit of Guru Tegh Bahadur. The present building

ONKAR, generally written down as Oankar in Sikh Scriptural writings, is derived from the Upanisadic word Oankara (om+kara) originally signifying pronouncing or rendering into writing the syllable Om. Known as synonym of Om it has been used in the Vedic literature and, in particular in its religio philosophical texts known

PATH, from the Sanskrit pdtha which means reading or recitation, is, in the religious context, reading or recitation of the holy texts. In Sikhism, it implies daily repetition of scriptural texts from the Guru Granth Sahib. Reading of certain bdnis is part of a Sikh`s nitnem or daily religious regimen.

PITAMBAR PIR My hajj (pilgrimage) is performed on the bank of Gomati, where lives my Pitambar Pir (the Preceptor Krishna who wears yellow clothes) (Asa Kabir_ p. 4J8) Pitambar Pir and Pit Basan (see p. 1402) are the two epithets used for Krishna, who is said to be the

RAVIDAS, poet and mystic, was born to Raghu and Ghurbinia, who lived near the city of Varanasi. Not much biographical information about him is available, but, from what can be made out of his own compositions, he belonged to a lowcaste (Chamdr) family. He followed the family profession of

SAHIB SINGH, PROFESSOR (1892-1977), grammarian and theologian, was born on 16 February 1892 in a Hindu family of the village of Phattevali in Sialkot district of undivided Punjab. He was originally named Natthu Ram by his father, Hiranand, who kept a small shop in the village. Soon the family shifted

SARANG Kl VAR, in the Guru Granth Sahib, is of the composition of Guru Ram Das. It is set to be sung in Sarang raga and hence the tide Sarang ki Var. Nine of the 22 vars included in the Guru Granth Sahib are composed in the musical mode

SIRHALI KALAN, commonly pronouned Sarhali Kalan (31°l7`N, 74"56`E), a village 6 km east of Patti in Amritsar district of the Punjab, is sacred to Guru Aijan (1563-1606), who once stayed here for a while along with his family. Gurdwara Chubachcha Sahib commemorating the visit stands inside the village. Its

SUNDAR SINGH, SANT GIANI (1883-1930), teacher of the sacred texts and exegete from whose seat in his native village the Bhindrarivala school of Sikh learning derived its name, was born on 18 August 1883, the son of Khazan Singh and Mahitab Kaur alias Tab Kaur, a devoted couple of

TEJA SINGH HAZURIA, BHAI (1879-1922), also known as Babu Teja Singh Maingan, a noted Sikh preacher and social reformer, was the son of Bhai Lakhmi Das, a Sahajdhari Sikh of the village of Maingan in Jehlum district, now in Pakistan. After his early education in the village gurdwara, he

VADDA GHAR, village 19 km southwest of Moga (30"48`N, 75"10`E) in the Punjab, is sacred to Guru Hargobind, who arrived here from Darauli in 1634 staying here for five days before setting out on an extensive journey across the Malva region. A memorial platform was later constructed on the site