sikh

PATNA (25° 37`N, 85°10`E), ancient Pataliputra, now capital of Bihar state, is one of the most sacred places of pilgrimage for Sikhs. It is the birthplace of their Tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, and one of their seats of high religious authority. For this reason it is designated a takht, i.e. throne. It is called Patna Sahib, with sahib suffixed to the name as a title of dignity and honour. The old Patna city railway station has now been officially renamed Patna Sahib. Several historical shrines are located in the city.

PREM SINGH HOTI, BABA (1882-1954), historian and biographer, was born on 2 November 1882 at Hoti, near Mardan, in North-West Frontier Province, now part of Pakistan. His father Ganda Singh, a man of means, traced his ancestry back to Bhalla family of Goindval, in Amritsar district, to which noted Sikh savant Bhai Gurdas belonged. One of his ancestors, Baba Kahn Singh, had moved to the western frontier during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who had granted jdgirs to his soldiers in that turbulent Pathan territory. When this northwestern region was finally annexed by the British in 1849, the jdgir which Baba Prem Singh`s father had inherited from his forefathers was confiscated.

RAHIT MARYADA, traditions and rules which govern the distinctive Sikh way of life and determine Sikh belief and practice. Rahit, from the Punjabi verb rahind (to live, to remain), means mode of living while maryada is a Sanskrit word composed of marya (limit, boundary, mark) and add (to give to oneself, to accept, to undertake), meaning bounds or limits of morality and propriety, rule or custom. Guru Nanak, who founded the Sikh faith, and his nine successors who nurtured the community during the first two centuries of its existence, not only set for their followers a strict moral standard, but also a distinctive pattern of personal appearance and social behaviour. The tenets of Sikh faith and rules of conduct are not set in any formal treatise, but are scattered in their Scripture and other religious texts and in their historical records.

RANG DAS, BHAI. a Bhandari Khatri of Gharuan, an old village in Ropar district of the Punjab, was a prominent Sikh of the time of Guru Amar Das. He had been a follower of Bairagi sddhus until he met Bhai Paro, whose example led him to embrace the Sikh faith. Bhai Rang Das is also said to have held charge of a manji or preaching district.

SADHU JAN, a Punjabi poet of the seventeenth century who wrote verses on mythical and spiritual themes. His identity is not clearly established. While Gurbilas Chhevin Patshahi (1718) identifies him as Bhai Sadhu who married in 1629 Bibi Viro, daughter of Guru Hargobind, Sarup Das Bhalla, Mahima Prakash, part II, describes him as a young poet who came to Guru Arjan with Chhajju Bhagat, Shah Hussain and a Bairagi in 1603-04 with the hope of having their compositions included in the scripture being compiled by the Guru. The Guru addressed him as Sadhu Jan and this is how he came to be known. Whatever the case, Sadhu Jan was a prolific poet, with a good knowledge of musicology.

SAMPAT PATH is a variation of akhand path in which the reading of every single complete hymn of the Guru Granth Sahib is followed by the reading of a predetermined sabda or sJoka ( from the Guru Granth. Sahib itself) which is thus repeated throughout the recitation. The path is performed in a curtained cabin so that the reading is audible outside the cabin but the path! (reader) and the Scripture are not in the view of the audience. In the Hindu tradition, a mantra, prefixed and suffixed by another mystic word or mantra, is called sampat mantra.

SARDUL SINGH GIANI, BHAI (d. 1913), the eldest son of Giani Gian Singh of Amritsar and a grandson ofGiani Bishan Singh, was a noted Sikh scholar of his time. The family lived near Chowk Baba Atal in a street still known as Gall Gianian, the street of the Giants. Bishan Singh`s samadh used to be behind Gurdwara Baba Atal of which shrine he is believed to have been officially a priest. The adjunct Giani, meaning a priest as well as an expounder of sacred texts, thus passed on to the names of the male members of the family.

SHAM SINGH, SANT (1803-1926), holy man who was also an accomplished musician, was born in 1803 to Bhai Darbari and Krishan Kaur, a couple of humble means belonging to the Sevapanthi sect of the Sikhs and inhabitants of Shahpur, in Sargodha district of Pakistan. His father died when he was barely five year old. Sant Ram Singh, a Sevapanthi preacher originally belonging to Mirpur, in Jammu and Kashmir region, took him under his care and moved, along with his young ward, to Amritsar where he stayed at Dharamsala of Addanshahis another name for Sevapanthis. After his preliminary training in scripture reading, Sham Singh studied Sikh theology and history successively under the guidance of Pandit Atma Singh and the Nirmala scholar, Thakur Dayal Singh.

SIKH GURDWARAS ACT, 1925, legislation passed by the Punjab Legislative Council which marked the culmination of the struggle of the Sikh people from 1920-1925 to wrest control of their places of worship from the mab-ants or priests into whose hands they had passed during the eighteenth century when the Khalsa were driven from their homes to seek safety in remote hills and deserts. When they later established their sway in Punjab, the Sikhs rebuilt their shrines endowing them with large jagirs and estates.The management, however, remained with the priests, belonging mainly to the Udasi sect, who, after the advent of the British in 1849, began to consider the shrines and lands attached to them as their personal properties and to appropriating the income accruing from them to their private use. Some of them alienated or sold gurdwara properties at will.

SINGHPURA, a village 5 km south of Baramula (34"13`N, 74"23`E) in Kashmir valley, claims a historical shrine, Gurdwara Chhevin Patshahl Tharha Sahib, dedicated to Guru Hargobind (1595-1644), whose visit it commemorates. According to local tradition, a Muslim Faqir, Bahlol, served the Guru here and received his blessing. A memorial platform (tharha, in Punjabi) established here was later developed into a gurdwara.