RAMANANDA (1300-1410?), promoter of Vaisnav Bhakti in North India and founder of the Bairagi sect of anchorites, was born at Prayaga (Allahabad) in a Kanyakubja Brahman family. He studied in Kasi (Banaras), the ancient seat of learning, and it was here that he became a disciple of Raghavananda, the

REGIONAL FORMULA, one of the several schemes devised to solve the language problem in the Punjab without recasting the state on linguistic lines, was announced by the Indian government in March 1956 following a series of parleys between the Akali Dal leaders and the Central Government. It provided for amalgamation

SIKH HANDBILL COMMITTEE, a small body consisting of 11 members formed under the Chief Khalsa Diwan to further social and religious reform among the Sikh.s, was set up at Lahore on 22 December 1907. Its task was to bring out leaflets to propagate Sikh principles, and to influence the Sikh

SUMER SINGH, BAVA (1847-1903), cleric and school man, was born on 17 August 1847 at Nizamabad, a small town in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh. His family, originally from Goindval in the Punjab, traced its ancestry to Guru Amar Das, third in spiritual descent from Guru Nanak. Sumer Singh`s

Singh, Harbhajan, born on 18th August 1920 and died on 20th November 2002, was an eminent Punjabi poet, critic, scholar and translator. An M.A. (English and Hindi), Gyani and a Ph.D. (on A critical Study of Medieval Hindi Poetry Preserved in Gurmukhi Scripts), he has been at different stages

DEVI DAS, PANDIT, one of the numerous poets and scholars who kept company with Guru Gobind Singh (See Bavanja Kavi), was born in a Chhibbar Brahman family who had been followers of the Gurus. His father, Hardayal, was the younger brother of Bhai Gavaldas who, according to the Bhatt

KARKHE PATSHAH DASVEN KE. The term "karkhe" is the plural from of`karkha" which is the name of a poetic form, mostly used in war poetry in old Hindi. The Karkhe Pats hah Dasven Ke consists of two such poems, desciribng the battles of Guru Gobind Singh. The poet goes by

MORCHA, in Persian murchah or murchal meaning entrenchments, fortification or battlefront, has, apart from its usage in military strategy, entered Indian political vocabulary via the Gurdwara Reform or Akali movement of the early 1920`s. In that prolonged agitation for the liberation of Sikh historical shrines from the control of a

NAMDEV (1270-1350), saint of Maharashtra who composed poetry of fervent devotion in Marathi as well as in Hindi. His Hindi verse and his extended visit to the Punjab carried his fame far beyond the borders of Maharashtra. Sixty-one of his hymns in fact came to be included in Sikh Scripture,