GANGA RAM was one of the five sons of Bhai Sadhu and Bibi Viro, the daughter of Guru Hargobind, who formed part of Guru Gobind Singh`s retinue at Paonta, in present day Himachal Pradesh, when he was attacked by a combined force of some of the hill chiefs headed

KOHINUR ("Mountain of Light"), the peerless diamond which today lakes the pride of place among the British crown jewels, once belonged to Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last Sikh sovereign of the Punjab. Duleep Singh was made to surrender it to the British after the annexation of

PREMA BHAI, a Khatri of Talvandi. now called Talvandi Chaudharian, in Kapurthala district of the Punjab, was a devout Sikh of the time of Guru Amar Das. He was lame in the leg, yet he daily walked, on crutches, to Goindval, 8 km from his village across the River

SHAH ZAMAN, son of Taimur Shah and grandson of Ahmad Shah Durrani, became the ruler of Afghanistan in May 1793 at the age of 23. As soon as Shah Zaman came to the throne, he proclaimed his intention of reestablishing the Afghan sway in India. His first attempt to conquer

TODAR MALL, SETH, a wealthy merchant of Sirhind, according to tradition, performed the last rites for the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh martyred, on 12 December 1706, under the orders of Wazir Khan, faujdar of Sirhind, and of Mata Gujari, the Guru`s mother who died of the

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