SOBHA SINGH (1901-1986), painter, famous especially for his portraits of the Gurus, was born on 29 November 1901 in a Ramgarhia family of Sri Hargobindpur, in Gurdaspur district of the Punjab. His father, Deva Singh, had been in the Indian cavalry. At the age of 15, Sobha

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

RENUNCIATION means the giving up of the style of living dominated by worldly ambition and craving and discarding the love of possessions for the sake of achieving the ultimate goal of religious life. The theistic traditions hold that when one is united with God, all else loses its significance. In

KHALSA NAMAH, by Bakht Mall, a Persian manuscript prepared during 1810-14, is a history of the Sikhs from the time of Guru Nanak (1469-1539) to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Copies of the script, unpublished so far, are preserved in British Library; Royal Asiatic Society, London; Panjab University, Lahore;

MAHIMA PRAKASH, by Sarup Das Bhalla, is a versified account, in Gurmukhi script, of the lives of the ten Gurus, completed according to inner evidence, in 1833 Bk/AD 1776. Three copies of the manuscript, are still extant: one (No. 176) in the Languages Department, Punjab, Patiala, the second (No. 792)

MAHIMA PRAKASH, known as Mahima Prakash Vartak (prose) to distinguish it from another work, in verse, bearing the same title, Sarup Das Bhalla\'s Mahima Prakash, is an unpublished manuscript containing anecdotes from the lives of the Gurus. The manuscript, copies of which are now available in the Khalsa College at

MAYYA, BHAI, a Khullar Khatri, is mentioned among the prominent Sikhs of the time of Guru Ram Das. According to Bhai Mani Singh, Sikhdn di Bhagat Maid, Bhai Mayya along with Bhai Japa and Bhai Nayya, both of the Khullar clan, and Bhai Tulsa, a Vohra Khatri, once waited

MELI, lit. attached or companion, appears in the Sikh Scripture in different connotations usually as a verb form, past indefinite of melana (to attach, join, bring together), in the feminine form (GG, 54, 63, 90, 243, 379, 389, 584 et al.); as an adjective meaning loving, attached (GG, 4243); and

PARCHI (plural parchtdn), Punjabized form of the Sanskrit noun parichaya which means introduction, evidence or an anecdote bearing witness to the miraculous powers of a prophet or seer. The term was applied to the form of Punjabi writing developed in the seventeenth century to present the life stories of the

PARCHIAN SEVA DAS, variously titled as Sdkhidn Sevd Dds Udasi, Mahaldn Dasdn kidn Sdkhidn, Sdkhidn Dasdn Pdtshdhidn Kidn or Parchidn Pdtshdhi 10, is an eighteenth century collection of 50 sdkhis or anecdotes from the lives of the Ten Gurus. Only one sakhl each relates to the first eight Gurus;

RAHIT MARYADA, traditions and rules which govern the distinctive Sikh way of life and determine Sikh belief and practice. Rahit, from the Punjabi verb rahind (to live, to remain), means mode of living while maryada is a Sanskrit word composed of marya (limit, boundary, mark) and add (to give