sikh

DIVALI, festival of lights (from Sanskrit dipamala or dipavali meaning row of lamps or nocturnal illumination), is observed all over India on amavasya, the last day of the dark half of the lunar month of Kartika (October-November). Like other seasonal festivals, Divali has been celebrated since time immemorial. In its earliest form, it was regarded as a means to ward off, expel or appease the malignant spirits of darkness and ill luck. The festival is usually linked with the return to Ayodhya of Lord Rama at the end of his fourteen year exile. For the Hindus it is also an occasion for the worship of Laksmi, the goddess of good fortune, beauty and wealth.

DOST MUHAMMAD KHAN. AMIR (1791-1863), ruler of Kabul and Qandahar, was the son of Painda Khan (executed 1799), the Barakzai chief. Dost Muhammad`s first engagement with the Sikhs was at Attock, the Afghan citadel, which had fallen into the hands of the Sikhs in June 1813. In the conflict which lasted three months, Dost Muhammad Khan, who himself led the attack in the battle of Haidru, 8 km from Attock, was badly mauled by the Sikh force commanded by Diwan Mohkam Chand. As a result of the fighting among the members of the Durrani and Barakzai families, Dost Muhammad finally established himself in 1823 in Kabul, Kashmir having been lost to the Sikhs in 1819.

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 original connotations but also on the basis of contemporary categories of understanding; secondly, to discriminate between genuine symbolism and piny post hoc interpretations which later times may have imposed on things originally having little symbolic relevance. A symbol is generally defined as something that stands for, represents or denotes something else, especially a material object representing or taken to represent something immaterial or abstract, as being an idea, quality or condition. Words, phrases and sentences, for instance, represent various beings, ideas, qualities or conditions.

GULAB SINGH GHOLIA, SANT (1853-1936), Sikh saint and scholar, was born in 1853 to Bhai Dal Singh and Dharam Kaur of Bhattivala, a village 6 km south of Bhavamgarh, in the present Sarigrur district of the Punjab. He received his early education in the village dharamsald, and then spent five years at the derd of Bhai Ram Singh, at Manuke, in Faridkot district, learning kirtan and studying the Sikh texts. Realizing that, to properly comprehend and interpret certain theological terms used in the Scripture, knowledge of Sanskrit was essential, he shifted, in 1873, to the village of Dhapali (now in Sarigrur district), where he apprenticed himself to Giani Anokh Singh. He studied Sanskrit and Vedanta with him for ten long years.

GURMAT SUDHAKAR (lit. Sikh principles explained and illustrated : Sudhdkar= the moon, i.e. the illuminator) is an anthology by Bhai Kahn Singh, of Nabha, of excerpts from old Sikh historical texts and manuals of stipulated conduct. The work, first published in 1899, is divided into sixteen chapters. The opening chapter comprises verses from Guru Gobind Singh, the second from Bhai Gurdas and the third passages from the Janam Sakhi of Bhai Bala. The fourth chapter is culled from Gurbilds Chhevin PdtshdJu. Chapters five is based on Var 1 from Bhai Gurdas.

HAFIZABAD (32°4`N, 73"41`E), a sub divisional town in Gujrariwala district of Pakistan, claimed a historical Sikh shrine commemorating the visit of Guru Hargobind, who stopped here briefly travelling back from Kashmir in 1620. Gurdwara Chhevih Patshahi, as it was known, remained affiliated to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee until 1947 when it was abandoned in the wake of the partition of the Punjab.

HEST, a Greek national, who, before joing the Sikh army in 1843, was the commandant of Hyderabad artillery. According to Carmichael Smyth, he was killed at Lahore.

ILAHI BAKHSH, an officer in Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s army who commanded the special artillery wing of FaujiK has and a portion of the artillery corps named DerahiIlahi Bakhsh. General Ilalu Bakhsh`s lopkhdnd look part in most of the military campaigns of the Maharaja. It was employed to great effect during the conquest of Multan in 1818, and, two years later, in the pacification of Hazara and Dera Gha/T Khan. The Maharaja often called upon General Ilahl Bakhsh to display, on ceremonial occasions, the skill and effectiveness of his batteries.

JANGNAMA, by Qazi Nur Muhammad, is an eyewitness account in Persian verse of Ahmad Shah Durrani`s seventh invasion of India, 1764-65, for which it is the only major source of information. A copy of the manuscript in the hand of one Khair Muhammad of Gunjaba was preserved at the District Gazetteer Office at Quetta in Baluchistan from where Karam Singh, state historian of Patiala, made a transcript which was utilized by Dr Ganda Singh in producing an edited version of the Persian text, with a preface and a brief summary in English. The work was published by the Sikh Historical Research Department, Khalsa College, Amritsar, in 1939.

KAHN SINGH MAJITHIA (d. 1853), son of Amar Singh Majithia, served as a general in the Sikh army in the second AngloSikh war. During Maharaja Ranjil Singh`s reign, Kahn Singh was a minor military officer when he is said to have killed a lion with his sword while out hunting with the Maharaja in 1831. In 1838 he was an officer in the Ghorchara Khas. He was commandant of the Sikh force at Peshawar in 1848 when his troops marched out of Peshawar to join Chatar Singh and Sher Singh; Kahn Singh fought the British both at Cheliarivala and Gujrat.