AFGHAN SIKH RELATIONS spanning the years 1748 to 1849 go back to the first invasion of India by Ahmad Shah Durrani, although he must have heard of the Sikhs when in 1739 he accompanied Nadir Shah, the Iranian invader, as a young staff officer. Having occupied Lahore after a minor

ASRARISAMADI, a Persian chronicle by an anonymous writer who is now identified as Munshi Jot Prakash attached to the court of Nawab Abd us Samad Khan, the governor of Lahore from 1713 to 1726. Written around 1728, the work. which the author claims to be an eyewitness account of

ATMA SINGH, also remembered as Atma Ram, was a faqir of Shuja`bad, near Multan, who received the Sikh rites under the influence of Baba Khuda Singh. Before his initiation into the Sikh faith, he lived in a dharamsala at Shuja`bad which received a grant of Rs 100 from the

AUCKLAND PAPERS, comprising private correspondence and letters of Lord Auckland, governor general of India (1836-42), now available in the British Library and Museum, London, provide interesting sidelights on political affairs in the Punjab (1836-1841), Sindh and Afghanistan, and also furnish useful information on the military power of the Sikhs,

FATEH KHAN (d. 1818), son of Painda Khan, the Barakzai chief, who overthrew Shah Zaman, the king of Afghanistan (1793-1800), and placed his half-brother Shah Mahmud on the throne of Afghanistan, himself becoming prime minister. Shah Mahmud was dethroned in 1803 and was succeeded by Shah Shuja`. Fateh Khan expelled

JAHANDAD KHAN, one of the many sons of Painda Khan and a half brother of Fatch Khan Wazir, was appointed governor of Attock by Shah Shuja`, the king of Afghanistan. In 1809, Fatch Khan dethroned Shah Shuja`, placed Shah Mahmud on the throne and himself became prime minister. Shah

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

SHAH SHUJA (1780-1842) or Shuja`ulMulk, the King of Kabul, was the youngest son of Taimur Shah and grandson of Ahmad Shah Durrani. Shah Zaman, his elder brother, appointed him governor of Peshawar. In 1800, Shah Zaman was defeated and dethroned by his half brother, Shah Mahmud, but Shah Shuja`

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

WAFA BEGAM, the senior wife of Shah Shuja, the king of Kabul, who after the dethronement of her husband came in February 1810 to Lahore where the Sikh sovereign, Ranjit Singh, made arrangements for her reception and accommodation suiting her status. In 1812, Shah Shuja fell into the hands