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

PANTH, from Sanskrit patha, pathin, or pantham, means literally a way, passage or path and, figuratively, away of life, religious creed or cult. In Sikh terminology, the word panth stands for the Sikh faith as well as for the Sikh people as a whole. It represents the invisible mystic body

KALGIDHAR DlWAN MALAYA, a socioreligious body of the Sikhs in Malaya (Malaysia), and an offshoot of Khalsa Diwan Malaya, was first formed in January 1918 as Khalsa Diwan, Sclangor (3"20`N, 101°15`E), by those elements of the Khalsa Diwan Malaya who were dissatisfied with the parent body`s affiliation witli the Chief

KAPUR DEV, BHAI, a prominent masand of the time of Guru Arjan, once expressed his desire to see a model Sikh. The Guru, says Bhai Mani Singh, Sikhdn di Bhagai Mala, asked him to go and see Bhai Samman, who lived at Shahbazpur. When Kapur Dev reached Samman`s house, he

KAPUR SINGH, BHAI (d. 1924), one of the martyrs of Jaito, was born around the turn of the century, the son of Bhat Variam Singh Brar and Mat Nand Kaur, a peasant couple of village Land in the present Faridkot district of the Punjab. He took pdhul of the Khalsa

KHAGATANA Khagatana (the body of a bird), Meentana (the body of a fish), Mrtgatana (the body of a deer) and Brabatana (the body of a boar), were all emancipated in the company of the saint (Guru). (Malar M. 5, p. 1269) The personage in the body of a bird

LAKKHI SHAH OR LAKKHI RAI (d. 1680), son of Godhu Ram, a Yadobansi Rajput of the Barhtia clan, belonged to village of Khairpur in the present Muzaffargarh district of Pakistan. Also described as a banjara or roving trader, he was an affluent man with a permanent residence in Delhi.

MAN or mana, from Skt. manas (mind or psyche), is one of the major operational con cepts in Indian thought involved in the process of apprehending facts and reacting to situations and stimuli, as also the cause of bandh (bondage/attachment). `Mind` is the nearest English rendering of `man`, though

MARDANA, BHAI (1459-1534), Guru Nanak`s longtime Muslim companion throughout his extensive journeys across the country and abroad, was born the son of a Mirasi (a caste of hereditary minstrels and genealogists) couple, Badra and Lakkho, of Talvandi Rai Bhoe, now Nankana Sahib, in Shcikhupura district of Pakistan. Guru Nanak

JIVANMUKTA, in Sikhism the ideal and aim or objective of man`s spiritual life. The term is derived from jivanmukti {j`tvan=`ife; mukli=recasc, liberation, emancipation, freedom from bondage), and means one who has attained liberation from human bondage or one who has attained to the highest spiritual slate of being in tune

SIKH COSMOLOGY. From the very beginning man has been curious to know about the structure and constitution of the Universe and its origin. To locate the stable base of this universe and to fix his own place in it have been the subjects of his constant search and speculation for

SLOKAS OF SHAIKH FARID. Baba Shaikh Farid GanjiShakar (1173-1264), the famous Sufi saint born in the Punjab, some of whose compositions are included in the Guru Granth Sahib, was a poet whose Punjabi verses form the first recorded poetry in the Punjabi language. Guru Nanak himself seems to have