CHOHLA, village 4.5 km southeast of Sirhali Kalari (31° 16`N, 74° 56`E) in Amritsar district of the Punjab, is sacred to Guru Arjan (1563-1606). The village was called Bhaini when the Guru visited here. A housewife served him a delicious dish of chohia, broken bread mixed with sugar and butter. Guru Arjan was pleased and blessed her. He also uttered a hymn of thanks giving with the refrain: "The Lord is our life and soul ; He cares for us every where in every respect." Its last line was: "God is our wealth, His Name is our food; this, 0 Nanak, is our chohia."
BHANA MALLAN, BHAI, and Bhai Rekh Rao, storekeepers of the Mughal governor at Kabul, were pious and devoted Sikhs of the time of Guru Arjan. Whatever they earned, they spent on feeding the needy Sikhs and others. Jealous of their generous hospitality, someone complained to the governor charging them with dishonesty. It was said that they used short weights and misappropriated the provisions in the stores. Bhai Mani Singh, Sikhan di Bhagat Mala, records that the weights were in fact short, though Bhai Bhana and Bhai Rekh Rao did not know.
DABISTANIMAZAHIB, a seventeenth century work in Persian, is a unique study of different religious creeds and systems, including early Sikhism. It first attracted wide notice when it was translated into English by David Shea and Anthony Troyer and was published by Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, London, in 1843. The section on Nanakpanthis, i.e. Sikhs, was first translated into English by Sardar Umrao Singh Majithia, and into English and Punjabi by Dr Ganda Singh.
