sikh

BIKRAM SINGH, RAJA (1842-1898). born in January 1842, succeeded his father, Wazir Singh, to the throne of Faridkot state in 1874. A dominant figure in Faridkot history, Raja Bikram Singh modernized the state administration. He employed retired British officials of experience and in 1875 set up offices and courts on the British model and adopted British law. Schools and charitable hospitals were opened and dharamsalas and rest houses for travellers constructed. Sadavarats or free kitchens were established at Faridkot, Thanesar and Amritsar. Sanskrit pathshalas, or schools were started where free food was served to the students.

BURHANPUR (21°18`N, 76°14`E), a medieval walled town on the banks of the River Tapti, is in East Nimar (Khandwa) district of Madhya Pradesh. It is a railway station, on the main DelhiItarsiBombay section of the Central Railway. There are two historical Sikh shrines in the town. GURDWARA SANGAT RAJGHAT PATSHAHI PAHILI, situated on the bank of the Tapti, perpetuates the memory of the sangat established in the wake of Guru Nanak`s visit in the early sixteenth century.

CHALI MUKTE, lit. forty (chalf) liberated ones (mukte), is how a band of 40 brave Sikhs who laid down their lives fighting near the dhab or lake of Khidrana, also called Isharsar, on 29 December 1705 against a Mughal force in chase of Guru Gobind Singh are remembered in Sikh history and daily in the Sikh ardas or supplicatory prayer offered individually or at gatherings at the end of all religious services. Guru Gobind Singh, who had watched the battle from a nearby mound praised the martyrs` valour and blessed them as Chali Mukte, the Forty Immortals. After them Khidrana became Muktsar the Pool of Liberation.

CUNNINGHAM, JOSEPH DAVEY (1812-1851), the first British historian of the Sikhs (his A History of the Sikhs was published in London in 1849), was the eldest of the five sons of Allan Cunningham, a noted poet and playwright. Born at Lambeth on 9 June 1812, Joseph had his early education in private schools in London where he showed such a marked aptitude for mathematics that his father was advised to send him to Cambridge. But as the young boy was more keen on becoming a soldier, a cadetship in the East India Company`s service was procured him through the good offices of Sir Walter Scott.

DELHI, also called Dilli (28° 40`N. 77° 13`E), the capital of India, is also connected with Sikh history. The first, sixth, eighth, ninth and tenth Gurus visited it. Mata Sundari and Mata Sahib Devari, consorts of Guru Gobind Singh, stayed here for a long time before and after the death of the Guru. A Sikh sangat existed in what came to be known as Kucha Dilvali Singhari in Old Delhi.

DIP SINGH SHAHID. BABA (1682-1757). founder of the Shahid misi or principality as well as of the Damdami Taksal or Damdama school of Sikh learning, was born in 1682, the son of Bhai Bhagata and Mai Jiuni. a Sikh couple living in Pahuvind, a village 40 km southwest of Amritsar. He received the vows of the Khalsa at Anandpur where he stayed for some time to study the sacred texts under Bhai Mani Singh. He rejoined Guru Gobind Singh at Talvandi Sabo in 1706 and, after the latter`s departure for the South, stayed on there to look after the sacred shrine, Damdama Sahib.

DAYA (usually spelt data in Punjabi), from Skt. Day meaning to sympathize with, to have pity on, stands for compassion, sympathy. It means `suffering in the suffering of all beings.` It is deeper and more positive in sentiment than sympathy. Daya, cognitively, observes alien pain; affectively, it gets touched by it and moves with affectional responses for the sufferer; and co-natively, it moves one to act mercifully, pityingly, with kindness and forgiveness.

FATEH SINGH (d. 1875), son of Nidhan Singh Hathu, was a soldier in the Sikh army and was attached to his father`s contingent wherein he remained until 1827 when he was placed in the Ghorcharha Kalan regiment. In 1834, he accompanied Maharaja Ranjit Singh to Peshawar and, in 1840, he was sent, under Arjan Singh Ranghar Nanglia, to Mandi and Kullu where a rebellion had broken out. After the death of Raja Hira Singh in December 1844, Fateh Singh was ordered to Rajauri and Punchh to put down an insurrection there.

GIAN (Skt.jnana), knowledge, understanding or consciousness, is what differentiates human beings from the animal world and establishes the superiority of homo sapiens over the other species. Nature has not only provided man with a qualitatively superior brain but has also endowed human mind with a dynamic inner stimulus called jagiasa (Skt. jijnasa}, desire to know, inquisitiveness. Perhaps it is on account of this urge for knowledge and the consequent exercise that human brain or mind (psyche or soul for the ancients) gradually developed over the millenia.

GULABDASIAS, a sect subscribing to epicurean ethics, were the followers of one Pritam Das, originally an Udasi sddhu. Pritam Das`s principal disciple was Gulab Das after whom the members of the sect came to be known as Gulabdasias. Gulab Das, son of Hamira, was born in 1809 at the village of Rataul, near Tarn Taran, in Amritsar district. He had served as a trooper in the army of Maharaja Sher Singh. On the abrogation of the Sikh rule, he became a follower of Pritam Das, succeeding him on his death as the head of the sect.