HIRA SINGH, SANT (d. 1949). head priest of Takht Sachkhand Sri Hazur Sahib Abchal Nagar, Nandcd, in Maharashtra, was born the son of Bhai Karam Singh of Schna, in Sarigrur district of the Punjab. He received his early education and religious instruction in his village and this allowed him to read the Guru Grantli Sahib felicitously. As he grew up, lie went to Nandcd and settled there for good, serving at the Takht Sahib as a scripturereader.
HISAB I AFWAJ MAHARAJA RANJIT SINGH, Persian MS. No. 622, in the Oriental Public (Khuda Bux) Library, Patna, is a manual of the accounts of Maharaja Ranjit Singh\'s army. It is a highly illuminated manuscript with gold ruled borders, size 12"x 71/s" 477 folios, written in mixed shikasld and nasta fiq, with equivalents of essential details, especially the figures, given in Gurmukhi. The anonymous author gives no date of its completion. The work provides information concerning Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s military administration recruitment, equipment, scales of pay, organization and composition of the different branches of the Sikh army and its accounts.
HISTORY OF THE PUNJAB (and of the Rise, Progress and Present Condition of the Sect and Nation of the Sikhs) is an anonymous work in two volumes ascribed variously to T.H. Thornlon (Catalogue of the Sikh Reference Library, Amritsar), H.T. Prinsep (Catalogue of the Khalsa College, Amritsar), and William Murray (Catalogue of Dwarka Dass Library, Chandigarh). Completed on 11 May 1846 and first published in 1846 by Alien and Co., London, and reprinted in 1970 by the Languages Department, Punjab, Patiala, the book is the first detailed history of the Punjab and the Sikhs.
HOBHOUSE, SIRJOHN CAM (1786-1869), later Lord Brought on, an English writer and statesman, was the eldest son of Sir Benjamin Hob house. Born at Red land, near Bristol, England, on 27 June 1786, he was elected to the House of Commons from Westminster in 1820. He served in Lord Grey`s government (1832-34), in Melbourne ministry (1837-38), and Lord John Russell`s cabinet (1846-52). As president of the Board of Control, Hob house directed the Home Government`s policy towards the Punjab and the Sikhs for nearly 15 years.
HOLA MAHALLA or simply Hola, a Sikh festival, takes place on the first of the lunar month of Chef which usually falls in March. This follows the Hindu festival of Holi. The name Hola is the masculine form of the feminine sounding Holi. Mahalla, derived from the Arabic root hal (alighting, descending), is a Punjabi word signifying an organized procession in the form of an army column accompanied by wardrums and standard bearers and proceeding to a given spot or moving in state from one gurudwara to another. The custom originated in the time of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708) who held first such march at Anandpur on Chef vadi 1, 1757 Bk/22 February 1701.
GURDWARA HOLGARH SAHIB stands on the site of Holgarh Fort, one and a half km north-west of the town across the Charan Gariga rivulet. It was here that Guru Gobind Singh introduced in the spring of 1701, the cel-ebration of hola on the day following the Hindu festival of colour-throwing, holi. Unlike the playful sprinkling of colours as is done during holi, the Guru made hola an occasion for Sikhs to demonstrate skills-al-arms in simulated battle. Hola or Hola Mahalla, became thereafter an annual tour-ney of warlike sports in Anaiidpur as long as the Guru stayed there.
HOLKAR, JASVANT RAO (d. 1811), Maratha chief of Indore, who, defeated at Dig and Fatehgarh in 1804 by the British, moved northwards to obtain succour from the cissutlej Sikh rulers and from Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Accompanied by his Ruhila ally, Amir Khan, he arrived in 1805 at Patiala, where he received assurances of help from the Sikh chiefs assembled there. Meanwhile, Lord Lake`s army came in hot pursuit of the Maratha refugee. On hearing the news of Lake`s arrival at Panipat, he crossed over into the Jalandhar Doab and ultimately reached Amritsar. Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who was then camping near Multan, hastily came to see him.
HOLMES, JOHN (d. 1848), a Eurasian soldier of fortune, who started his career as a trumpeter in tlic Bengal Horse Artillery. In September 1829, lie left the British, and joined Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s army as a gunner, eventually rising to the rank of colonel. He took part in the battle of Peshawar (1834) and the battle ofJamrud (1837). He accompanied General Vcntura on his hill campaign of 1840-41, and helped the British in forcing their way through the Khaibar Pass in 1842. He had also served in a civilian capacity as kdrddr (revenue officer) of Gujrat for two years (1835-36).
HOME MISCELLANEOUS SERIES is a manuscript series of records in the India Office Library, London. It is not chronologically arranged, and seems to have been classified to absorb surplus or duplicate copies of records which could not be included in the regular series. Many of the papers in this series relate to Sikh affairs and they include private letters of Captain Mathews, the Deputy Commissar of Ordnance at Fatehabad to the Acting Adjutant General, C.F. Falgan. Captain Mathews, who visited Lahore in his private capacity, was treated with much consideration by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
HONIGBERGER, DOCTORJOHN MARTIN (17951-865), physician to the court of Lahore from 1829 to 1849 and known to his Sikh contemporaries as Martin Sahib, was a Transylvanian born at Kronstadt in 1795. He combined with his medical knowledge an ardent spirit of enquiry and adventure. He had a great fascination for the East. He left his home in 1815, and wandering through Europe, Russia, Turkey, Syria and Jerusalem, reached Cairo, where he joined the Turkish military medical service. In 1822, he heard about an outbreak of plague in Syria and resigned his post to study the disease in which he became a specialist.
History Lasara, about 19 km north of Jaijon, also has a stone temple stated to date back to...
