sikh

SRI GURU UPKAR PRACHARNI SABHA, i.e. an association for the propagation of the Guru`s deeds of compassion and charity was formed by a group of Sikh youth at Amritsar during the opening years of the twentieth century, with Bhai (also known as Pandit, being a learned scholar of religion) Ganda Singh as president. The aims and objects of the society were, like those of the Singh Sabhas in general, to propagate gurmator the principles of Sikh religion and culture and to restore to the Sikh people their religious identity. More specifically, the Sabha concerned itself with counteracting the attacks of the Arya Kumar Sabha of Amritsar against the Sikh religion.

SUNDARI, by Bhai Vir Singh, first published in 1898, is commonly acknowledged to be the first novel written in the Punjabi language. The story, set in the eighteenth century, depicts the trials and heroism of an imaginary character, Sundar Kaur (Sundari for short) who, born in a Punjabi Khatri Hindu family, embraces the Sikh faith in unusual circumstances and spends her short, eventful life in prayer and service of the crusading Khalsa. Sundari`s tribulations begin with her catching the local Mughal chief`s attention as the latter, out hunting with a body of retainers one day, passes through her village.

TAPIYA SINGH, MAHANT (1892-1980), was a master of the Sikh scholarly texts besides being learned in Ayurveda and Sanskrit grammar. He was born into a Saraojatt family of Lehal Kalan in Sangrur district. He was a descendant of ^ Baba Ark who had been blessed by Guru Tegh Bahadur himself. One of his ancestors, Bhai Mall Singh, was the founder Mahant of Dhamtan Sahib also known as the Deori (gateway) of Hazur Sahib, Nanded. 

TEJA SINGH, BABU (1867-1933), leader of the Bhasaur school of fundamentalism, was born on 20 January 1867, the son of`Subadar Sudh Singh and Jion Kaur of the village of Bhasaur in present day Sangrur district of the Punjab. His original name was Narain Singh. Having received his preliminary education in Punjabi and gurbam or the Sikh sacred texts under Baba Fateh Singh Virakt of Bhasaur (d. 1875), he studied in Government Primary School, Lang, near Patiala, and matriculated from City High School, Patiala, in 1882.

UDASI, an ascetical sect of the Sikhs founded by Sri Chand (1494-1629), the elder son of Guru Nanak. Udasi is derived from the Sanskrit word udasin, i.e. one who is indifferent to or disregardful of worldly attachments, a stoic, or a mendicant. In Sikh tradition, the term iidasi has also been used for each of the four preaching tours of Guru Nanak ; in this sense, udasi meant a prolonged absence from home. Some scholars, including many Udasis, trace the origin of the sect back to the Puranic age, but, historically speaking, Sri Chand was the founder.

VERKA, township 9 km northeast of Amritsar (31°38`N, 74°53`E), is sacred to Guru Nanak (1469-1539) who once came and stayed here near a pond, west of the village. The pond so consecrated came to be known as Nanaksar, Nanak`s pool. The pond was converted into a sarovarin 1899 with funds donated by a Sindhi lady, Birji Bai of Shikarpur. The building of Gurdwara Nanaksar, marking the spot where the Guru had stayed, reconstructed in 1926, was replaced in 1973 by the present complex within a walled compound. It includes a threestoreyed structure topped by a lotus dome and a goldplated pinnacle.

ZORAWAR SINGH (1786-1841), military general who conquered Ladakh and Baltistan in the Sikh times and carried the Khalsa flag as far as the interior of Tibet. About Zorawar Singh\'s place of birth authorities differ. Major G. Carmichael Smyth, A Reigning Family of Lahore, says that he was a native of Kussal, near Riasi, now in Jammu and Kashmir state. Hutchison and Vogel have recorded that he was a native of Kahlur (Bilaspur) state, now in Himachal Pradesh. A modern writer Narsing Das Nargis, on the basis of information supplied to him by a great grandson of Zorawar Singh, stales in his book Zorawar Singh that he was born in a Rajput family about AD 1786 in the village of Ansora, in Kangra district.

AHWAL-I-DINA BEG KHAN , Persian manuscript of unknown authorship, gives biographical details about Adina Beg Khan, faujdar of Jalandhar. The manuscript forms part of the collection of Persian Manuscripts, Sir H.Elliot\'s Papers, Additional MS. 30780 (ff. 2152-92), Extracts relating to India, vol. VIII. 1 , preserved in British Library, London. Copies of the manuscript are also held by Panjab University Library, Lahore, Sikh Historical Research Department, Khalsa College, Amritsar, and Dr Ganda Singh Collection at Punjabi University, Patiala (25 pages in neat and clear handwriting).

AMAR SINGH WASU (1884-1932), Akali activist and journalist, was born Ganga Ram at the village of Wasu, in Gujrat district, now in Pakistan, in 1884, the son of Ladha Mall and Lachhmi Devi. Under the influence of the Singh Sabha movement, the family went through the Sikh initiatory rites, Ganga Ram becoming Amar Singh Khalsa and his father Ram Singh. Amar Singh matriculated from the Mission High School, Gujranwala, and joined in 1902 the Khalsa College at Amritsar, passing the intermediate examination of the Panjab University, Lahore, in 1904.

ANGLOSIKH WAR I, 1845-46, resulting in the partial subjugation of the Sikh kingdom, was the outcome of British expansionism and the near anarchical conditions that overtook the Lahore court after the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in June 1839. The English, by then firmly installed in Firozpur on the Sikh frontier, about 70 km from Lahore, the Sikh capital, were watching the happenings across the border with more than a neighbour`s interest. The disorder that prevailed there promised them a good opportunity for direct intervention. Up to 1838, the British troops on the Sikh frontier had amounted to one regiment at Sabathu in the hills and two at Ludhiana, with six pieces of artillery, equalling in all about 2,500 men.