BELA, pronounced bella, means, in Punjabi usage, a jungle of tall grasses, reeds and assorted shrubbery along the banks of rivers and streams. The word also received a different connotation when an Udasi saint and preacher, Banakhandi, established in AD 1818 a preaching centre on an Island in the River

SANGAT, BHAI or Sangat Sahib, was an alias of Bhai Pheru (1640-1706), the well known ma.sand of Nakka region of the Punjab. He was the recipient of an Udasi bakhshish or bestowal from Guru Gobind Singh. Members of the Udasi sect founded by him are called Sangat Sahib Ke

BHAGAT BHAGVAN, recipient of one of the bakhshi`shs or seats of the Udasi sect, was a contemporary of Guru Har Rai (1630-61). His original name was Bhagvan Gir. Little is known about his early life except that, according to Udasi sources, he was born in a Brahman family at

SANTOKH DAS, an Udasi sant belonging to the Sangat Sahib Ke subsect, is remembered for the construction of the hansli, a water channel taken off the Shahi Nahar, an irrigation canal, for the regular supply of water for the sacred tanks in Amritsar. This feat he accomplished in collaboration

BHAI PHERU, GURDWARA (also called Gurdwara Sangat Sahib), named after its founder, the well known Udasi Sikh preacher Bhai Pherii (1640-1706), is located at Mien ki Maur, in Chuniari tahsil of Lahore district in Pakistan. During Sikh times, large endowments in land extending to about 2,750 acres were inscribed to

SRI CHAND, BABA (1494-1629), the elder son of Guru Nanak and the founder of the ascetic sect of Udasis, was born to Mata Sulakkhani on Bhadon sudi9, 1551 Bk/8 September 1494 at Sultanpur Lodhi, now in Kapurthala district of the Punjab. After Guru Nanak left home on his travels

DAKKHANI RAI (d. 1815), a sixth generation descendant of Baba Prithi Chand, the elder brother of Guru Arjan, who had founded an Udasi dera or preaching centre of the Udasi sect at Gharachon, a village in present day Sarigrur district of the Punjab. The rulers of Patiala granted him

DHUAN, Punjabi for smoke, is a term which is particularly used for seats of certain monkish orders where a fire is perennially kept alive. In the Sikh context it is employed for the four branches of Udasi Sikhs established by Baba Gurditta (1613-38), on whom the headship of the sect

ETAWAH (26° 47`N, 78° 58`E), a district town of Uttar Pradesh, 127 km southeast of Agra, has two Udasi Ashrams commemorating the visits of Guru Nanak and Baba Sri Chand. Sikh chronicles have not recorded these visits, but they do mention that Guru Tegh Bahadur while travelling to the

FARIDKOT TIKA, the earliest full scale exegesis or annotated version of the Guru Granth Sahib, was prepared under the patronage of the princely rulers of the state of Faridkot. Hence its popular name Faridkot Vala Tika or, for short, FaridkotTika. Its full title is Adi Sn Guru Granth Sahib