PAL SINGH ARIF, SANT (1873-1958), mystic and poet, was born on Maghar sudi 15, 1930 Bk/4 December 1873, the son of Gurdit Singh Sandhu and Sahib Kaur of the village of Paddhari, now in Amritsar district of the Punjab. He learnt to read and write Punjabi from the village granthi

ASA, one of the thirty one ragas or musical measures into which compositions comprising the Sikh holy book, Guru Granth Sahib, except the Japu, are cast and in which they are meant to be recited and sung. This raga is important in the Sikh system of music, and is said

NIHAL SINGH THAKUR (1808-1895), Sikh theologian and musician, was born at Amritsar on 7 Phagun 1864 Bk/17 February 1808 to Bhai Mahal Singh and Mata Basi. Bhai Mahal Singh lived in the village of Sayyid ki Sarai in Gujjarkhan tahsil of Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan, and had come to

MAHALA, traditionally pronounced mahalla, appears in Sikh Scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, as a special term to credit the authorship of the compositions of the Gurus recorded in it. Mahala here refers to the person of the Guru specified by a numeral following it which signifies his position in the

MANGA, BHAI, a musician by profession was among Guru Nanak`s leading disciples. He has been described by Bhai Gurdas, Varan, XI. 13, as a lover of gurbani or the Guru`s word.

GAJJA SINGH, MAHANT (c. 1850-1914), maestro of Sikh classical devotional music, was born in a Jatt Sikh family of Vandar, a village in Faridkot district of the Punjab. He had a sensitive ear for music from his early childhood. His father, a pious Sikh himself, apprenticed him for religious

SAMUND SINGH, BHAI (1901-1972), a leading Sikh musicologist of the twentieth century, trained in music under leading maestros of the art, Sikhs as well as Muslims, was born on 3 March 1901, at the village of Mulla Hamza, in Montgomery district, now in Pakistan. He started his training so young

GHARU, pronounced ghar, is a term used in the titles of many of the hymns in the Guru Granth Sahib. The final "u" is only of grammatical significance indicating masculine gender and singular number. Gharu appears after the name of the rdga (musical measure) and the indication with regard

SATTA, also called Satta Dum because he was a du/n or miraslby birth, a rababior rebeckplayer to Guru Arjan, and co-composer, with Rai Balvand, of Ramkall ki Var, included in the Guru Granth Sahib in the Ramkali musical measure.

GURMAT SANGIT or sacred music of the Sikhs. The founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak (1469-1539), composed his religious verse to settings of Indian ragas mostly from the classical tradition. Successive Gurus followed his example and considered divine worship through music the best means of attaining that state which

SHABAD (Sanskrit sabda, of obscure etymology) is generally rendered as sound, voice or tone. Another series of meanings includes word, utterance, speech. In distinctive Sikli usage shabad means a hymn or sacred work from the Guru Granth Sahib. In the theological sense, it stands for the `Word` revealed by

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