DEVINDER SINGH, RAJA (1822-1865), was born on 5 September 1822, the son of Raja Jasvant Singh of Nabha. He ascended the throne of Nabha on 5 October 1840 at the age of eighteen. During the first AngloSikh war of 184546, Devinder Singh whose sympathy was with the Lahore Darbar

KAHN SINGH (d. 1846), son of Panjab Singh of Gharjakh, in Gujranwala district, joined Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s army and was sent to Pindi Gheb in command of 500 horse. He remained there for nine years when he was recalled and placed under General Hari Singh Nalva. Kahn Singh accompanied

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

DHANNA SINGH, BHAI (d. 1935), an indefatigable Sikh pilgrim, was born about 1893, the son of Sundar Singh, a ChahalJatt of the village Ghanauri in Sarigrur district of the Punjab. His original name was Lal Singh. His father died when he was barely tan years old, and he and his

KARSEVA, voluntary contribution of physical labour towards cleaning and construction operations at sacred tanks and temples, holds a special significance in the Sikh tradition. Sevd, altruistic service, was preached by the Gurus as a means to God realization. "One who renders selfless service attains to the Lord`s presence," says

SANKARNATH, PANDIT (1789-1858), astrologer and diplomat, belonging to the village of Karivallur, in north Kerala, was a celebrated scholar of ancient lore. His reputation especially as an astrologer spread far beyond the confines of his native Kerala and he was in 1816 invited by Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra

DULEEP SINGH, MAHARAJA (1838-1893), the last Sikh sovereign of the Punjab, was born at Lahore on 6 September 1838, the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. On 18 September 1843, at the age of five, he was, after the murder of Maharaja Sher Singh, proclaimed Maharaja of the Punjab

KHUDA SINGH, BABA, alias JASVANT SINGH (1777-1861), a policeman turned saint, son of Bhai Nattha Singh, who cultivated a small piece of land in the village of Syamgarh, near Kurukshetra, was born in August 1777. The child was barely four days old when the village was attacked by dacoits,

SHAH DAULA (158 IP1676), a renowned Muslim divine of his time, was the son of `Abd urRahim Khan Lodhi, a descendant of Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi and Niamat Khatun, a scion of the chiefs of Gakkhar tribe of western Punjab, though the Gu^jars of Gujrat, now in Pakistan, claim him

GILLOT or Quilette, a Frenchman, who had served in the French navy before joining the Khalsa army in 1842. He was entrusted with the task of training artillery recruits. He secured his discharge after two years` stay in Lahore.

KHUIASAT UTTWARIKH, a chronicle in Persian by Munshi Sujan Rai Bhandari of Batala, completed in the 40th year of Aurarigzib`s reign (A.H. 1107/AU 1695-96), edited by Zafar Hasan and published at Delhi in 1918. Sujan Rai was a professional munshi and had served as such under various Mughal nazims or

SIKH CALENDAR or system of reckoning chronology or dates of events in Sikh history is generally based on the Vikrami Samvat (Bikrami Sammat, in Punjabi), a system mostly in vogue in northern India, although other systems the Hijri during the Muslim period and Christian since the advent of the