Alphabetical Index

HEMA KAPAHI, BHAI, was a resident of Sultanpur Lodhi in the present Kapurthala district of the Punjab. He...

HEMA KAPAHI, BHAI, was a resident of Sultanpur Lodhi in the present Kapurthala district of the Punjab. He was in cotton (kapdh) trade for which reason he was known as Kapahi. He embraced the Sikh faith in the time of Guru Amar Das and also received instruction from Guru Arjan. He was known for the spiritual enlightenment he had achieved. The name figures among the leading Sikhs of the times of Guru Amar Das (Varan, XI. 21).

HEMA, BHAI, a devout Sikh of Khanpur, a village now known as Khan Chhapn, 8 km west of Goindval (30°22`N, 75"9`E) in Amritsar district of the Punjab, who would extend the hospitality of his humble thatched hut, chhapn`m Punjabi, to any Sikh or holy man. Once, during the winter season, Guru Arjan, while travelling through the countryside with a few attendants, was suddently caught in rain and storm near Khanpur. As records the author of the Gurbilds Pdtshdhi Chhevin, his attendants knocked at the doors of several wellbuilt mansions, but none opened to give them shelter. The Guru then took them to Bhai Hema`s hut. It was an unexpected delight for Hema to receive and serve the Guru.

HEMA, BHAI, a devout Sikh of Guru Tegh Bahadur, along with his brother (Nagahia) and father (Lakkhi Shah) and another person by the name of Naik, son of Kahna, brought the headless body of Guru Tegh Bahadur, after he was executed at Delhi`s Chandni Chowk under imperial orders, to his home at Raislna (Delhi). Since cremation in the open would not have been possible, they brought the body into the house, which they put aflame. This happened on Maghar sudi 6, 1732 Bk/AD 1675.

HEMU SOINI, BHAI, a Sikh resident of Shahdara, 5 km north of Lahore, once visited Guru Arjan. He was accompanied by Bhai Rama and Bhai Jattu, both from Shahdara. They supplicated with folded hands: "0 True King! We regularly hear kirtan and religious discourses, but we retain not what we hear. Be kind to tell us how we shall be saved." The Guru, according to Bhai Mani Singh, Sikhdn di Bhagal Maid, said, "Retention depends upon a combination of hearing, believing, repeated reflection and practising what one hears, believes and reflects upon.

HEST, a Greek national, who, before joing the Sikh army in 1843, was the commandant of Hyderabad artillery. According to Carmichael Smyth, he was killed at Lahore.

HIKAYAT is the title given to the eleven tales, in Persian verse but in Gurmukhi letters, in the Dasam Granth, immediately after the Zafamamah. The title `Hikayat` does not occur in the actual text, but most of the tales have a verse, coming after two or three invocational lines in the beginning, which contains the phrase ` hikdyat shumdem` (we have heard the story of...). Hikdyat, being the plural of Hikdyat (story, tale), is adopted as the title for these tales. Each tale is meant to emphasize a moral lesson. The subject matter of the tales is in keeping with the literary taste and style of medieval India and ranges from the romantic and chivalrous to the fantastic and the macabre.

HIMMAT SINGH JALLEVALIA (d. 1829), son of Chaudhan Gulab Rai, a Bairis Jatt of Mahalpur, in present day Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab, joined the Sikh forces which conquered Sirhind province in 1764, and secured for himself the village of Jalla, whence the family derived its cognomen of Jallevalia. He later acknowledging the supremacy of the Nabha chief joined his service. He represented the Nabha ruler at the negotiations which led to the cis Sutlej chiefs being taken under British protection in 1809. In 1812, he was induced by Maharaja Ranjit Singh to leave Nabha and become his waur which office he held until his death in 1829.

HIMMAT SINGH, BHAI (1661-1705), one of the Parij Piare, or the Five Beloved, celebrated in Sikh history, was born in 1661 at Jagannath in a low caste family of water suppliers. He came to Anandpur at the young age of 17, and attached himself to the service of Guru Gobind Singh. Bhat Himmat, as he was called before his initiation, was one of the five Sikhs who one by one offered to lay down their heads in response to the Guru`s successive calls made at an assembly of the Sikhs especially summoned on the occasion of Baisakhi of 1756 Bk corresponding to 30 March 1699.

HINDAL (HANDAL), BHAI (d. 1648), a prominent Sikh of the time of Guru Ram Das, was the son of Gaji, a resident of Jandiala, 19 km east of Amritsar. His mother`s name was Sukkhi. He was married to Uttami, daughter of Hamza, a Chahal Jatt. He received initiation at the hands of Guru Amar Das and continued to be in attendance upon his successor, Guru Ram Das. He spoke but little, and remained absorbed in devotion. As he once sat kneading flour in the Guru ka Langar, Guru Ram Das suddenly stepped in.

HIRA SINGH (c. 1706-1767), founder of the Nakai mislor chief ship, was a Sandhu Jatt of the village of Bahirval, near Chuniari, in Lahore district, now in Pakistan. He was born the son of Chaudhari Hem Raj, headman of the village. In 1731, he received the initiatory rites of the Khalsa at the hands of the celebrated Bhal Mani Singh, and took to the adventurous and daring way of life of the Sikhs of those days. A number of young men of neighbouring villages joined him in his exploits, and he collected a lot of goods and many cattle, camels and horses. When the Sikhs sacked Kasur in 1763 and conquered Sirhind in 1764, Hira Singh occupied Bahirval, Chunian, Dipalpur, Jambar, Jelhupur, Kariganval and Khudlan.

HIRA SINGH DARD, GIANI (1889-1965), journalist and author, who in his early youth began writing religious and patriotic poetry in Punjabi under the pseudonym of "Dard", later absorbed into his name, was born on 30 September 1889 in the village of Ghaghrot, in Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan. His father Hari Singh, who belonged to a Brahman family of Punchh, had come to settle in Rawalpindi and embraced the Sikh faith. Hira Singh attended the Christian Mission School at Rawalpindi and was in 1907 appointed an octroi clerk in the local Municipal Committee which employment he resigned to become a teacher at the Singh Sabha school at Chakk No 73J.B., in Lyallpur district.

HIRA SINGH DOGRA (1816-1844), prime minister of the Sikh kingdom of Lahore from 17 September 1843 to 21 December 1844, was born the eldest son of Raja Dhian Singh in 1816 at Ramgarh, about 25 km from Jammu. Dhian Singh, an influential courtier, introduced his son to his patron Maharaja Ranjit Singh who took very favourably to the young boy. He treated him with great generosity from the very beginning, bestowing upon him the title of Raja in 1828 and, then, proclaiming him FarzandiKhas, i.e. the favoured son. He granted him numerous jdgirs which totally amounted to nearly five lakh of rupees annually. When after the assassination of Maharaja Sher Singh and Raja Dhian Singh, Ranjit Singh`s five year old son, Duleep Singh, was proclaimed Maharaja of the Punjab on 17 September 1843, Hira Singh assumed the office of prime minister.

HIRA SINGH KALAL, of Pasrur in Sialkot district, went in company with Thakur Singh Sandharivalia travelling to England in 1884 to meet Maharaja Dulccp Singh. On his return to India, he is said to have acted as an intermediary between the Raja of Kashmir, Baba Khem Singh Bedi and Maharaja Dulecp Singh. In November 1885, the Maharaja wrote to him to engage 20 servants for him and bring them to Bombay. In April 1886, Hira Singh received a telegram from Dulecp Singh intimating that the latter had started from England. Hira Singh engaged a batch of servants and took them to Bombay. On receiving the news of the Maharaja`s detention at Aden, he returned to the Punjab, the Maharaja`s bankers at Bombay defraying the travel expenses.

HIRA SINGH RAGI, BHAI (1879-1926), eminent exponent of Sikh devotional music, was born in 1879 at Faruka, in Shahpur district, now in Pakistan. His father`s name was Bhai Bhag Singh and mother`s Satbharai. Bhag Singh was well versed in classical music and played string instruments such as sdraizgi and tails. Hira Singh joined the middle school at Sahival, but soon left it to study the religious texts with Bhai Mahna Singh of  Faruka. He learnt music from his father who performed kirtan in the village gurudwara.

HIRA SINGH, BHAI ( 1880-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was the eldest of the four sons of Bhai Buta Singh and Mat Bhagan, farmers of modest means living in village Taungarivali in Gujranwala district (now in Pakistan). Under the influence of Bhai Varyam Singh, Hira Singh turned an Akali and was drawn into the movement for the reform of Gurdwara management. He went through the rites of Khalsa initiation and attended the Akali conference at Dharovali on 13 October 1920.