Alphabetical Index

JAMAL, MIAN (d. 1650), a pious Muslim was an admirer of Guru Arjan. His name appears in Guru Arjan`s composition Chaubole, addressed to four devotees, namely Samman, Musan, Jamal and Patarig. The Guru exhorts Jamal to sec what beauty emerges from humility. In the mud in the low pit grows the handsome lotus. Likewise, says the line, a truly humble heart gives birth to noble action.

JAMBAR KAIAN, a village in Lahore district, liad a historical gurudwara in memory of Guru Arjan, who once halted here during his travels in the region. Gurdwara Dukh Nivaran, as it was popularly known, had 165 acres of land attached to it and was administered by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. It was, however, abandoned in 1947 in the wake of partition.

JAMES (d. 1825), in Sikh records known as James Sahib Feringhee, was an Englishman from Yorkshire. A deserter from the British army, he had taken up service under Raja Sansar Chand of Karigra. In 1820, he left Sansar Chand and joined Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s army as a gunner. In the Lahore Darbar records, he is also mentioned as Jackson. He died at Lahore in 1825.

JAMIAT RAI alias Jit Mall, a jhwar or water bearer on the domestic establishment of Maharaja Duleep Singh during his stay at Fatehgarh. He belonged to Shahgharib, in Shakargarh tahsil of Gurdaspur district (now in Pakistan). In 1885, he received a letter from the Maharaja then living in England, regretting that pension had not been paid to him for long and enclosing in compensation a cheque for four thousand rupees. The letter also carried the news that the Maharaja was returning to India to live quietly in Delhi and stated that he was firm in his Sikh faith.

JAMIAT SINGH, a water supplier by caste from the village of Mahimari Kaharari, in Amritsar district, was the son of Ratan Singh, a personal attendant of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Jamiat Singh continued in the service of Maharaja Duleep Singh as well and remained with him even after his deposition. He was in Maharaja Duleep Singh`s train when he left for England, but died on the way at Calcutta.

JAMRUD or Jamraud, a village at the eastern approach to Khaibar Pass in the North-West Frontier Province of...

JAMSHAID KHAN (d. 1708), Ruhila Afghan, was hired by Nawab Wazir Khan, faujddr of Sirhind, to assassinate Guru Gobind Singh, whose friendly relations with Emperor Bahadur Shah I were perceived by the faujddr as a danger to his own position. Jamshaid Khan with another accomplice caught up with the Guru at Nanded, in the South. Jamshaid Khan started attending morning and evening services and one day during the first week of October 1708, as the Guru lay in his chamber resting after the evening prayer, he fell upon him and stabbed him on the left side near the heart. But before he could repeat the blow, the Guru struck him down with his sabre.

JAMU and Jodha, both Dhatts, received instruction at the hands of Guru Arjan. Both admitted that their minds were not in their control. They were told that since initially they were not familiar with the nature of their minds they missed their object. Now that they were beginning to understand they must persevere. They persevered and gained what they desired. They in the end won the object of their hearts. See Bhai Gurdas, Varan, XI. 23.

JAMUNA (YAMUNA) Ganga, Jamuna, Godavari and Sarasvati make effort to touch the dust of the feet of saints. (Malar M. 4, p. 1263) It is the Guru (Ramdas), who assumed the birth and work of Machh (fish incarnation), Kachh (tortoise incamation) and Baraha (boar incarnation) and who (as Krishna) played the game of ball on the bank of Jamuna. (Swayye Mahle Chauthe Ke, p. 1403) The river Yamuna is described in the Puranas as the daughter of the sun (Surya). For sometime Krishna played on its banks. It is said that Krishna\'s elder brother Balarama compelled the river to change its course.

JAN MUHAMMAD CHATTHA (d. 1798), son of Ghulam Muhammad Chattha, fled to Kabul on the eve of the conquest of the tort of Manchar in 1790 by Mahari Singh Sukkarchakkia. He accompanied Shah Zaman to India in 1797 and recovered his possessions on the River Chenab in Gujranwala district with the aid of the Afghans, but this was a short lived gain, for Ranjit Singh attacked his headquarters, Rasulnagar, after the Shah`s return to Afghanistan. The besieged Chatt has, under Jan Muhammad, made a gallant resistance. However, they lost footing gradually. Jan Muhammad was killed by a cannon shot and the fort surrendered (1798). Ranjit Sihgh granted small jdgirs or estates to the sons of Jan Muhammad and employed them in the irregular cavalry.

JAN SAHIB (as the name is recorded in Sikh documents), a Frenchman, originally employed by the Barakzai sarddrs of Kabul. He left them in 1824 and entered Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s service.

JANAKA You are the incarnation of king Janaka..... (Swayye Mahle Dooje Ke, p. 1391) Do not be led astray by castes. Suka, the Brahmin, meditated while sitting at the feet of the Kshatriya king Janaka. (Kanra M. 4, p. 1309) Janaka was the king of Mithila and father of Sita. He had a great bow of Shiva with him. He had announced that any prince who would bend that bow, would be married to his daughter. It was Rama, who performed this feat and •was thus married to Sita.

JANAM SAKHI derives its name from the number attached to the manuscript in the catalogue of the India Office Library, London (MS. Panj B40). It consists of a unique collection of sakhis or anecdotes concerning the life of Guru Nanak, and, although it sliares common sources with the Puratan and Adi Sakhian traditions, it constructs a different sakhi sequence and incorporates a substantial block of stories which are to be found in none of the other major traditions. This cluster of anecdotes was evidently drawn from the oral tradition of the compiler`s own area and includes all the principal janam sakhi forms such as narrative anecdote, narrative discourse, didactic discourse, and lieterodox discourse.

JANAM SAKHI, i.e. life story, is the term used to designate traditional narratives of the life of Guru Nanak. Although the compound is occasionally applied to narratives concerning later Gurus or other religious teachers too, it is normally confined to those which relate in anecdotal prose the life and teachings of the First Master. Several janam sdkhi traditions have evolved, particularly during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

JANAM SAKHI SRI GUR NANAKU SAH KI by Sant Das Chhibbar is a versified biography of Guru Nanak (1469-1539), founder of the Sikh faith, based primarily on Janam Sakhi Bhai Raid. A manuscript copy of the work is preserved in the Central Public Library, Patiala, under MS. No. 2737. This script is dated 1838 Bk/AD 1781. Two more manuscripts were preserved in the Sikh Reference Library, Amritsar, until it perished in the aimy action in 1984.A published version of the work, based on all the three manuscripts then available, has been brought out by Punjabi University, Patiala, in 1985.

JANAMASTHAN BEBE NANAKI, GURUDWARA at Dera Chahal Distt Lahore The village called Dera Chahal is in the jurisdiction of P.S. Burki of district Lahore. This village is at a distance of 35 km from Lahore while going to Ghawindi. There is a shrine of Jagat Guru Nanak Dev Ji in this village and Gurdwara is also called Janamasthan Baybay (Mother) Nanaki. Guru Nanak Dev Ji visited this village many a time because his maternal grand parents were from this village. It was here that Bebe Nanaki , the elder sister of the Guru, was born in Samvat 1524.