GURUJI KE SITFAN KI KATHA, lit. katha or story of the sutan or sons of Guru (Gobind Singh), by Bhai Dunna Singh Handuria, was preserved in manuscript form under MS. No. 6045 in the Sikh Reference Library at Amritsar until the Library perished in the army assault of 1984. The poem which, on the basis of internal evidence, was composed during 1`76065, comprised 122 chhands. The poet, Bhai Dunna Singh, had been with Guru Gobind Singh`s young sons and their grandmother since they crossed the River Sarsa after the evacuation of Anandpur in 1705. He accompanied, as says the poet, up to Chamkaur Sahib, where two Sikhs, Darbari and Dhuma, of the village of Saheri took custody of the family.
GURUMUKHI DIN PATRI, lit. a calendar or daily diary (patn) in Gurmukhi characters, is a manuscript reporting some of the events of Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s reign from AD 1805 onwards. The author is one Ram Singh, perhaps a resident of Amritsar, for he narrates events occurring at Amritsar in greater detail than those at other places. A photo copy of this manuscript, the original of which was at the Panjab University, Lahore, is preserved in the Khalsa College, Amritsar, under MS. No 1796. It contains 51 folios, i.e. 102 pages, each page comprising 14 lines.
GURUSAR, village 11 km northwest of Giddarbaha (30°12`N, 74°39`E) in Faridkot district of the Punjab, claims a historical shrine, Gurdwara Mariji Sahib, sacred to Guru Gobind Singh, who visited the place in 1706 on his way from Muktsar to Talvandi Sabo. The Gurdwara, situated on the bank of the village pond, comprises the old Mariji Sahib, a domed octagonal structure skirted by a covered circumambulatory passage, and an assembly hall, added more recently. The 50metre square sarovans also a later addition. The Gurdwara owns 25 acres of land and is managed by the ShiromanIT Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. Special divans are held to mark major anniversaries on the Sikh calendar.
GURUSAR PATSHAHI X, GURDWARA, lending its name to the village that has grown in its neighbourhood, stands near Saravan, a village 10 km south east of Kot Kapura (30°35`N, 74°49`E) in Faridkot district of the Punjab. It marks the site where Guru Gobind Singh put up on his way from Dina to Kot Kapura in December 1705. According to Sdkhl Pothi., residents ofBaihbal and Saravan villages took some of the Sikhs accompaning Guru Gobind Singh to their homes for meals. As they returned to the camp, Guru Gobind Singh asked each one of them what he had been given to eat.
GURUSAR SATLANI, GURDWARA, 1.5 km south of the railway station named after it, is within the revenue limits of Hoshiarnagar village in Amritsar district of the Punjab. The shrine marks the spot where Guru Hargobind (1595-1644), travelling from Lahore to Amritsar, made a night`s halt near a pond. According to local tradition, Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708) himself appointed one of his Sikhs, Bulaka Singh, as the custodian of this shrine. The shrine was richly endowed by Sikh rulers and chiefs during the first half of the nineteenth century.
GURUSHABAD RATANAKAR MAHAN KOSH, more popularly known by its shorter title Mahan Kosh, the great dictionary, by the celebrated man of letters and lexicographer, Bhai Kahn Singh, of Nabha, is a work unexcelled for its neatness and refinement of expression and monumental in its scope and size. It would indeed do justice to the title "Encyclopaedia." It is amazing how an individual conceived and planned a work of such a vast dimension and how he accomplished it single handed in a single lifetime.
GUTKA, a small sized missal or breviary containing chosen hymns or barns from Sikh Scriptures. The etymology of the term gutka may be traced back to Sanskrit gud (to guard, preserve) or gunth (to enclose, envelop, surround, cover) through Pali gutii (keeping, guarding). A late eighteenth century scholar of UdasI sect spelt the word as gudhka. It is obligatory for Sikhs to recite certain texts and prayers as part of their daily devotions.This led to the practice of writing them down in gutkas or pothis (larger in size than gutkas).
HADIABAD, village 1.5 km west of Phagwara (31°14`N, 75°46`E) in Kapurthala district of the Punjab, claims a historical...
HAFIZABAD (32°4`N, 73"41`E), a sub divisional town in Gujrariwala district of Pakistan, claimed a historical Sikh shrine commemorating the visit of Guru Hargobind, who stopped here briefly travelling back from Kashmir in 1620. Gurdwara Chhevih Patshahi, as it was known, remained affiliated to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee until 1947 when it was abandoned in the wake of the partition of the Punjab.
HAKIM RAI, DIWAN (1803-1868), whose forebears had served the Kanhaiya chiefs, was born the son of Kashi Ram in 1803. In 1824, he joined the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, but soon rose to the high civilian office of diwan. He became tutor to Karivar Nau Nihal Singh, the Maharaja`s grandson, and held charge of his estates. In 1834, after the annexation of Peshawar in which he took a leading part, he became the governor of Dera Ismail Khan, Torik, Bannu and `Isa Khel. He played a conspicuous role in the AngloSikh negotiations preparatory to the Afghan war of 1839.
Ham Hindu Nahin, by Bhai Kahn Singh, lit. "We, i.e. Sikhs, are not Hindus," is a clear-cut declaration of Sikh identity registered by a Sikh scholar and intellectual towards the close of the nineteenth century. The statement constitutes the basic dictum of the book which appeared under this challenging title in 1898. In the signed introduction to the work, the author puts down HB as his initials. Decoded, the initials stand for Kahn Singh. The book was registered under this title in the Punjab Gazette on 30 June 1899 at number 447. The author\'s name, Kahn Singh, started appearing in the book from 1907. The book recalled the days of long-drawn polemic between Hindus and Sikhs.
