RAM SINGH BEDI, BABA (d. 1797), a Nihang warrior, was the son of Bhai Faqir Chand, of the village of Kotia Faqir Chand, in Sialkot district, now in Pakistan. The family claimed direct descent from Guru Nanak. Ram Singh took khande di pahul or vows by the double edged sword,

LAKHNAUR, 10 km south of Ambala City (30"23`N, 76"47`E), was the ancestral village of Mata Gujari, mother of Guru Gobind Singh. Returning in 1670 to Patna after his long eastern journey, Guru Tegh Bahadur asked his family to travel straight to Lakhnaur, while he himself made a detour and went

SAMMAN BURJ, also called Musamman Burj, an octagonal tower commanding a wide range of buildings within the Lahore Fort, was built by Emperor Akbar, who made the city his capital for some time. Within the Fort was situated the royal palace which was enlarged by Jahangir and,

BENGAL AND INDIA SECRET LETTERS, also known as Letters received from India and Bengal or merely Secret Letters to the Secret Committee, preserved at the India Office Library, London. This correspondence is arranged in two series: the first covers the period 1778-1859 and the second 1817-1857. Relevant Enclosures to

GANGUSHAHIS, a Sikh missionary order which owed its origin to Gangu Shah. Gangu Shah, also known as Ganga Das, was born in a Basi Khatri family of Garh shankar, in Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab, and was a disciple of Guru Amar Das, the third Guru or prophet preceptor of

LAHINA SINGH (d. 1797), one of the triumvirate who ruled over Lahore for more than 30 years before its occupation by Ranjit Singh, was the son of Dargaha and was adopted by Gurbakhsh Singh Roranvala, a Sikh chief of note belonging to the Bhangi misl, after whose death in

RAHIRA and Kup, two villages, 4 km apart from each other and jointly known in Sikh history as KupR.ihIra, in Sangrur district of the Punjab, were the scene of a fierce battle between the Sikhs and the combined forces of Ahmad Shah Durrani and his vassals in Sirhind and

SHIHAN, Dhir Mall`s masand, desperately supported his patron who had set himself up at Bakala as one of the several claimants to the guruship following the death of Guru Har Krishan in March 1664. He enticed the Sikhs to his patron`s presence telling them that he was the late

TRIPARTITE TREATY (June 1838). As the rumours of Russian infiltration into Persia and Afghanistan spread in the late thirties of the nineteenth century, the Governor General, Lord Auckland, despatched Captain Alexander Burnes to Kabul to make an alliance with Amir Dost Muhammad. The Afghan ruler made Peshawar the price of

BHANGlAN Dl TOP or the gun belonging to the Bhangi misl, known as Zamzama, is a massive, heavyweight gun, 80 pounder, 14 ft. 41/2 inches in length, with bore aperture 91/2 inches, cast in Lahore in copper and brass by Shah Nazir at the orders of Shah Wall Khan, the

GARHIA, BHAI, a devout Sikh who received blessing from Guru Hargobind. The Guru sent him to preach in Kashmir on a special request from the sahgat of that area. Bhai Garhia met on the way a Muslim divine, Shah Daula, near Gujrat, now in Pakistan, and engaged in a

LAHORE (31°35`N, 74°20`E), pronounced Lahaur, provincial capital of West Punjab in Pakistan, lies on the left bank of the River Ravi. Hindu tradition attributes its founding to Lava, son of Lord Rama, but it is neither mentioned in the Greek accounts of Alexander`s invasion (326 BC) nor described by