BAGHDAD (33° 20\'N, 44° 30\'E), capital of Iraq, situated on the banks of Dajala (Tigris) River, has a historical shrine dedicated to Guru Nanak, who visited here on his way back from Mecca and Madina early in the sixteenth century. Here he held discourses with some local

BAHORA, BHAI, a goldsmith, who once came to Goindval to see Guru Arjan and seek his blessing. He confessed to the Guru that he cheated his customers skimping their gold, and asked what other calling he should turn to. The Guru said, "Do not cheat, do not steal and

SAMARTH RAMDAS (1608-1681), Maharashtrian saint remembered as the religious preceptor of the Maratha hero Chhatrapati Shivaji (1627-80), was born, in 1608, the son of Suryaji Pant and Ranubai, a Brahman couple of the village of Jamb, near Aurangabad, in Maharashtra. His original name was Narayana. His father died when

BALA JANAM SAKHI. The Janam Sakhis of the Bala tradition owe both their name and their reputation to Bhai Bala, a SandhuJa^ from Guru Nanak`s village of Talvandi. According to the tradition`s own claims, Bala was a near contemporary of Guru Nanak who accompanied him during his period in

SANT, commonly translated as saint though not very exactly, for the English term, used in the adjectival sense `saintly` for a person of great holiness, virtue or benevolence, has a formal connotation in the Western culture, is a modified form of sat meaning lasting, real, wise and venerable. Sat

BARNA, village in Kurukshetra district of Haryana, about 20 km southwest of Kurukshetra (29° 58`N, 76° 50`E), is sacred to Guru Tegh Bahadur who once stopped here while journeying from Kaithal to Kurukshetra. Local tradition recalls the story of a peasant who waited upon him and to survey whose

SANT TRADITION comprises those medieval monotheistic and devout personalities belonging to different shades of Indian society who are supposed to have been quiet, tranquil nonsectarian, opposed to Brahmanical ritualism, piously tired of the duplicity of the world but otherwise deeply conscious and critical of the outrageous anamolies professed by certain

CHABBA, a village 10 km south of Amritsar (31° 38`N, 74° 52`E) along AmritsarTarn Taran road, has a historical shrine called Gurdwara Sangrana Sahib. The Gurdwara itself is so named because, according to local tradition, one of the battles (sangram in Hindi and Punjabi) of Amritsar between Guru Hargobind

SARBATT DA BHALA, literally. Weal to all... Weal to everyone. This is the concluding line which marks the finale or arc/as or supplicatory prayer, with which every Sikh service or ceremony concludes. The full couplet reads : Nanak nam charhdikala tere bhane sarbatt da bhala (May God`s Name, may the

CHARPAT NATH, one of the yogis whom, according to the Miharban Janam Sakhi, Guru Nanak met on Mount Sumer, was a Gorakhpanthi recluse. Guru Nanak himself mentions his name twice in his compositions in the Guru Granth Sahib in his Si`dh Gosti and in another hymn in Raga Ramkali.

SIKH TRADITION (HISTORIOGRAPHY) begins with Janam Sakhis, the life stories of Guru Nanak (1469-1539). There is hardly any evidence of the tradition of history writing in ancient India, though in modern times attempts have been made at different levels to show the existence of somewhat vague historio graphic elements particularly