BENET, a Frenchma n, was one of the European physicians at the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He arrived at Lahore in 1838, and was given employment as a personal physician to the Maharaja and surgeon general to the Khalsa army on a monthly salary of Rs 1,000. After the Maharaja`s death, Benet left Lahore. He shifted to Ludhiana and started practice as a physician. He had some trouble with the British there and was forced to return to his native France.
DEVA SINGH NAROTAM, PANDIT (d. 1924), Nirmala scholar, was the son of Mahitab Singh of the village of Janetpura, 13 km north of Jagraori (30° 47`N, 75° 28`E), in Ludhiana district of the Punjab. He received his early lessons in the Sikh texts at the hands of Bhai Gurdit Singh and then left home to continue his studies under Sant Nattha Singh of Gurdwara Tapiana Sahib at Khadur Sahib, in Amritsar district, and later under Sant Mahna Singh (d. 1890) at the Nirmala dera or monastery at Khandur, near Mullaripur, in Ludhiana district. He accompanied Sant Mahna Singh to Bhai Rupa, a village 18 km north of Rampura Phul in Bathinda district, to join the Nirmala monastery called Dera Khuharivala. Here, Deva Singh, already reputed enough as a scholar to be known as pandit (lit. learned scholar), was put by his mentor through a course of comparative study of gurbani in the light of his knowledge of Sanskrit and Vedanta.
DHARAM SINGH, a cousin of the celebrated Tara Singh Ghaiba of the Dallevalia Misi, participated in the campaigns of the Khalsa, fighting against Mughals and Afghans in the second half of the eighteenth century. He figured in the conquest of Sirhind and partition of the territory by Sikhs in January 1764 when he occupied a cluster of villages and founded amid them his own Dharamsinghvala.
DUBUIGNON, ROBERT WALTER, DE TALBOT (1809-1868), a French adventurer in the employ of Begam Samaru of Sardhana, who came to Lahore to seek better prospects. He obtained employment in the Sikh court through the good offices of General Ventura, and was assigned to General Allard as aide decamp. He left the service after about a year to go into business, exporting goods from Kashmir to France in exchange for French merchandise. He died at Ludhiana in 1868.