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

PRASADI HATHI, an elephant trained to perform several unusual feats, was among the presents brought to Guru Gobind Singh by an Assamese chief, Ratan Rai. According to Sikh chronicles, Ratan Rai`s father. Ram Rai had served Guru Tegh Bahadur during his travels across Assam in the mid1660s and received his

JIVAN SINGH, BHAI (1649-1705), Bhai Jaila before he had received the rites of initiation at the hands of Guru Gobind Singh in 1699, was a Sikh belonging to the scavenger caste who was given by Guru Gobind Singh the epithet of `Rarigharcta Guru Ka Beta` (the young man of

JOGA SINGH. a Sikh youth from Peshawar, who had lived in the presence of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708) at Anandpur for many years and served him with devotion. One day as his parents, eager to see him married, arrived to escort him back home, the Guru permitted him to

KANHAIYA, BHAI (1648-1718), founder of the Sevapanthi or Addanshahi sect of the Sikhs, was born in a Dhamman Khatri family of Sodhara near Waxirabad in Sialkot district (now in Pakistan). His father was a wealthy trader, but he himself being of a religious bent of mind left home when

KESARI CHAND, Raja of Jasvan, a tiny hill state situated in the foothills of the Sivaliks. Besides being a close relation, he was a confidant and ally of Raja Bhim Chand of Kahlur, who once deputed him to Anandpur to seek from Guru Gobind Singh the loan of an

KIRPA RAM, PANDIT or Kripa Ram (d. 1705), was the son of Bhai Aru Ram, a Sarasvat Brahman of Matan, 65 km east of Srinagar, in Kashmir. Aru Ram had met Guru Har Rai and sought his blessing at the time of the latter`s visit to Kashmir in 1660. In

MADAN SINGH, BHAI (d. 1705), one of the martyrs of Chamkaur (7 December 1705), was, according to local tradition popular in and around Bhagrana in Fatehgarh Sahib district of the Punjab, the son of Bhai Diala, a weaver of that village. Bhai Diala had received instruction from Guru Tegh Bahadur

MATA JIT KAUR SAHIB GURUDWARA, ANANDPUR Guru Gobind Singh Sahib\'s first wife Mata Jit Kaur died at Anandpur Sahib on December 5,1700. She was cremated in the outskirts of Chakk-Nanaki in the boundary of the village of Agamgarh. Some one constructed a platform at the site where she had

NABHA, in Patiala district. 15 km south of Chandigarh (30° 44`N. 76° 46`E), has a historical gurudwara dedicated to Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh. The shrine, called Gurdwara Sis Asthan Patshahi IX ate Puja Asthan Patshahi X or simply, Gurdwara Nabha Sahib, is situated 200 metres south

NAND LAL, BHAI (c. 1633-1713), poet famous in the Sikh tradition and favourite disciple of Guru Gobind Singh. His poetry, all in Persian except for Joti Bigds, which is in Punjabi, forms part of the approved Sikh canon and can be recited along with scriptural verse at Sikh religious