ANJUMANIPANJAB, founded in Lahore on 21 January 1865 by the distinguished linguist, Dr Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, who became successively the first principal of the Government College at Lahore and the first registrar of the University of the Panjab, was a voluntary society which aimed at the development of "vernacular literature"

GANGUSHAHIS, a Sikh missionary order which owed its origin to Gangu Shah. Gangu Shah, also known as Ganga Das, was born in a Basi Khatri family of Garh shankar, in Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab, and was a disciple of Guru Amar Das, the third Guru or prophet preceptor of

DEV SAMAJ, a religious and social reform society, was founded on 16 February 1887 in Lahore by Pandit Shiv Narayan Agnihotri (1850-1929). The story of the Dev Samaj is in essence the story of its founder. Pandit Agnihotri was born in the village of Akbarpur, in Uttar Pradesh, on 20

BELA, pronounced bella, means, in Punjabi usage, a jungle of tall grasses, reeds and assorted shrubbery along the banks of rivers and streams. The word also received a different connotation when an Udasi saint and preacher, Banakhandi, established in AD 1818 a preaching centre on an Island in the River

SHIROMANI KHALSA DlWAN, NORTHWEST FRONTIER PROVINCE, a sociopolitical organization of the Sikhs of the frontier province (now in Pakistan), was founded in the 1920`s by Sardar Jagat Singh Narag of Peshawar, a businessman, later a member of the provincial legislative assembly. The Sikh population of the North-West Frontier Province was

KHALSA UPDESHAK MAHAVIDYALA, GHARJAKH, a training institution for Sikh preachers, was established in 1901 by Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Gujrariwala, now in Pakistan. The Gujrariwala Singh Sabha, formed in 1888 and affiliated to the Khalsa Diwan Lahore, played an important role in the educational and social awakening of Punjabi

CHIEF KHALSA DIWAN. Until the emergence of more radical platforms such as the Sikh League (1919), Shiromam Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (1920) and Shiromani Akali Dal (1920), the Chief Khalsa Diwan, established on 30 October 1902, was the main council of the Sikhs, controlling their religious and educational affairs and raising

GIANI SAMPRADAI is one of three major schools of Sikhs theologians and expositors of the Sikh scripture, the other two being the Udasis and the Nirmalas. Giani, the Punjabi form of Sanskrit jndni from the rootjnd (to know), originally meant a scholar of high learning. In Sikh tradition, a gidmis

GURU KA BAGH MORCHA, one of the major compaigns in the Sikhs` agitation in the early 1920`s for the reformation of their holy places. Guru ka Bagh in Ghukkevali village, about 20 km from Amritsar, has two historic gurudwaras close to each other, commemorating the visits respectively of Guru Arjan

BHASAUR SINGH SABHA, or to give its full name Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Bhasaur, was established in 1893 twenty years after the first Singh Sabha came into existence in Amritsar at the village of Bhasaur in the then princely state of Patiala. The Singh Sabha, a powerful

ABCHAL NAGAR, more correctly spelt Abichalnagar (abichal, lit. firmly fixed, unshakably rooted), i.e. City Everlasting, is the name Sikh tradition lias given Nanded, a district town in Maharashtra. The place is sacred to Guru Gobind Singh, who passed away here on 7 October 1708. The shrine honouring his memory is

KIRTI KISAN SABHA, a sabha, i.e. society or party, of the kirtis (workers) and kisans (peasants), fostered and, to some extent, funded by the Ghadr Party, was established on 12 April 1928 with a view to organizing small agriculturists and industrial workers and other lowpaid urban labour, for revolutionary