CHANDO RANI, MAI, mother in law of Guru Nanak. was married to Mul Chand of Batala. See MUL CHAND, BHAi
CHATAR SINGH ATARlVALA (d. 1855), commander and provincial governor under minor Maharaja Duleep Singh, was the son of Jodh Singh Atarivala. Jodh Singh had joined the service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1805 when he received large jagirs in the Pothohar country. On the death of his father in that year, Chatar Singh succeeded to the jagrrs, then amounting to over a lakh of rupees annually. He devoted most of his time to farming and kept generally aloof from state affairs during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. When after the assassination of his son, Maharaja Sher Singh, in September 1843, his daughter, Tej Kaur, was betrothed to Maharaja Duleep Singh, he came into prominence politically.
CHIKA, an old village in Kaithal district of Haryana, 26 km west of Pehova (29° 59`N, 76° 35`E), is sacred to Guru Hargobind and Guru Tegh Bahadur. The former passed through Chika at the time of his visit to Kurukshetra in 1638. Guru Tegh Bahadur arrived here from Samana en route to Delhi, in 1675, and stayed here for two days with Bhai Glaura, the masand of the Barigar area extending up to Hansi and Hissar. A low platform in a room on the first floor of an old house in the northeastern part of the village commemorated the visits of the holy Gurus.
Chitrakar, Ishwar Singh (1912 -1968), a noted painter and poet in Punjabi, was born in 1912 and died in 1968. His pen name, Chitrakar, indicates his penchant for painting and painting to him was as dear a medium of creativity as poetry was. Literary movements of his time did not fascinate him. He was lonely and forsaken but true to his innermost spirit of freedom and love. He is the author of two collections of essays entitled Kalam di Awaz (The Voice of the Pen) and Gal Bat (Conversation).
DALLA, BHAI (later Dall Singh), a Siddhu Jatt and chaudhari or landlord of Talvandi Sabo, enthusiastically received Guru Gobind Singh when he arrived there with his entourage early in 1706, and attended diligently to the needs and comforts of the daily growing sangat. According to Bhai Santokh Singh, Sn Gur Pratap Suraj Granth, Dalla maintained a private army of several hundred warriors of whom he was very proud. He more than once commiserated with Guru Gobind Singh on the events that had overtaken him, boastfully adding that had the Guru called him for help he would have joined him with his bold warriors and that he (the Guru) would have been saved much of the travail. Guru Gobind Singh every time dismissed the topic saying, "God`s will must prevail. It is useless to brood over the past. "
DECCAN KHALSA DIWAN, a philanthropic organization of the Sikhs, now nonexistent, was formed in Bombay on the eve of Indian Independence (August 1947), with Partap Singh as president and Hari Singh Shergill as general secretary. The DIwan`s main object was to provide help for the rehabilitation of persons uprooted from their homes in the north in the wake of inter communal rioting. It also offered its services to protect the old Sikh residents of Nanded in Hyderabad state, who were numerically a very small group and who felt apprehensive about the safety of their historic shrine in the town and of their own lives in the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, then held to ransom by the fanatical Qasim Rizvi.
DEVNO DEVl, RANI (d. 1839), daughter of a Chib Khatri of Dev Batala, in Jammu, was married to Maharaja Ranjit Singh. She immolated herself on the burning pyre of her husband on 28 June 1839.
DHAUNKAL SINGH (d. 1844), a drillnaik in the army of the East India Company who deserted the service of the British and joined the Sikh army about 1805. In 1807, Jamadar Khushal Singh, who had come to Lahore to seek his fortune and had eventually risen to the position of deohridar or chamberlain, was placed under Dhaunkal Singh. In 1828-29, when the Lahore army was reorganized, Dhaunkal Singh was given command of a regiment composed mainly of Purbia deserters from the East India Company and a few Sikhs. Subsequently, he was promoted general who took an important part in the military administration of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
DINA, village 15 km south of Nihalsinghvala (30° 35`N, 75° 16`E) in presentday Faridkot district of the Punjab, is sacred to Guru Gobind Singh, who, after evacuating Anandpur in December 1705, came here and stayed a few days. Chaudhari Shamir and Lakhmir, grandsons of the local chief, Rai Jodh, who had fought on the side of Guru Hargobind in the battle of Mahraj in December 1634, served the Guru with devotion. A few hundred warriors from the surrounding districts joined Guru Gobind Singh here.
DUGAR DAS, BHAI, Sarin Khatri of Takiar clan, received instruction from Guru Ram, Das and became a devoted Sikh. "Takiar the virtuous" is how Bhai Gurdas describes him in his Varan, XI. 17. See DHARAM DAS, BHAI
