RAMRAIAS, originally a splinter sect of the Sikhs, now comprise an independent group more akin to the Udasis. The sect owes its origin to Baba Ram Rai, whose name it bears. Ram Rai, who was the elder son of Guru Har Rai (1630-61), the seventh Guru, and who had

SHAHID GANJ BHAI MANI SINGH, LAHORE The place where Bhai Mani Singh was martyred is situated inside the Masti Gate which is behind the Lahore Fort. Bhai Mani Singh was born in a pious and dedicated Gursikh faimly which was devoted to the Gurus. Bhai Mani Singh had the rare

SIKANDARBALDEV SINGH PACT is the name popularly given to the rapprochement arrived at in 1942 between the Akalis and the Muslim dominated Unionist Party, then ruling the pre partition province of the Punjab, as a result of which the Akali nominee, Baldev Singh, joined the Unionist Cabinet under Sir Sikandar

SINGH SABHA MOVEMENT, a reform movement among the Sikhs which assuming a critical turn in the seventies of the nineteenth century, became a vitally rejuvenating force at a time when Sikhism was fast losing its distinctive identity. Following closely upon the two successive movements, Nirankari and Namdhari, it was an

TURK, a word standing in Sikh tradition usually for a Muslim, is really the name of a race of people which orginating probably in Central Asia established itself in Asia Minor and southeastern Europe in the west and in India in the east. The earliest references to Turks connect them

WADE, SIR CLAUDE MARTINE (1794-1861), soldier and diplomat, son of Lt.Col Joseph Wade of the Bengal army, was born on 3 April 1794. He joined the Bengal army in 1809 and was promoted lieutenant in 1815. He served in operations against Scindia and Holkar, and the Pindaris (1815-19) and officiated

ABD USSAMAD KHAN (d. 1737), governor of Lahore from 1713 to 1726, a descendant of the Naqashbandi saint `Abdulla Ahrar, a great grandson of Khwaja Baki of Baghdad, was born at Agra when his father, Khwaja `Abd ul-Karim Ansari, had come out with his family from Samarkand on a tour

AMAR DAS, GURU (1479-1574), the third of the ten Gurus of the Sikh faith, was born into a Bhalla Khatri family on Baisakh sudi 14, 1536 Bk, corresponding to 5 May 1479, at Basarke, a village in present day Amritsar district of the Punjab. His father\'s name was Tej Bhan

AKAL BUNGA SAHIB GURUDWARA, ANANDPUR This Gurdwara is situated exact opposite to Gurdwara Sis Ganj. Here, Guru Sahib addressed the Sikhs after the cremation of the head of Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib. Guru Sahib asked the Sikhs to bow before the Will of the Almighty. He told them to be

BEDAVA, lit. disclaimer (be=without + dava = claim). The term came to be used by Sikh chroniclers in reference to an episode Kelating to the last days of Guru Gobind Singh *s battle at Anandpur during the winter of 1705. As, in consequence of the protracted siege of Anandpur,

BIR GURU, by Rabindranath Tagore, is a life sketch in Bengali of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), the last of the Ten Gurus of the Sikh faith, emphasizing especially how he had prepared Sikhs to stand up to oppression and injustice. This is Tagore`s first writing on Guru Gobind Singh published