HUKAMNAMA, a compound of two Persian words hukm, meaning command or order, and ndmah, meaning letter, refers in the Sikh tradition to letters sent by the Gurus to their Sikhs or sangats in different parts of the country. Currently, the word applies to edicts issued from time to time from

NAND RAM, one of the poets who kept Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708) company, was the son of a well known Siift poet, Vali Ram. He had been in the service of Dara Shukoh, who, having lost the struggle for succession to his father`s throne, was executed by his brother,

PARAS BHAG is an adaptation into Sadh Bhakha, in Gurmukhi script, of Abu Hamid Muhammad al Ghazzali`s Kimid iSa`ddat, an abridged edition in Urdu of his Ihyd ul Ulum, in Arabic. The work was first published in 1876. Several of the manuscript copies prior to that date are still in

PARCHI (plural parchtdn), Punjabized form of the Sanskrit noun parichaya which means introduction, evidence or an anecdote bearing witness to the miraculous powers of a prophet or seer. The term was applied to the form of Punjabi writing developed in the seventeenth century to present the life stories of the

PARCHI BHAI SEVA RAM is a biographical sketch, in Punjabi verse, of Bhai Seva Ram who led the Sevapanthi sect after the death of its founder Bhai Kanhaiya, a disciple of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708). Written by Bhai Sahaj Ram, himself a renowned Sevapanthi saint, the book was edited by