BHAG SINGH, SANT (1766-1839), of Kuri. a holy man widely respected in his time, was born the son of Bhai Hans Rai in 1766 at Qadirabad, a village in Gujrat district (now in Pakistan), where his grandfather, Gurbakhsh Singh, said to have been in the retinue of Guru Gobind Singh, settled after the Guru`s passing away at Nanded, in the Deccan. Bhag Singh learnt to read Gurmukhi letters and the Guru Granth Sahib at the village gurdwara. As he grew up, he made a pilgrimage to Nanded. Returning to the north, he visited Una, now in Himachal Pradesh, where he became a disciple of Baba Sahib Singh Bedi, a descendant of Guru Nanak in direct line.
DAKKHANI SIKHS or Sikhs of the Deccan, a distinctive ethnic community scattered in parts of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka, are the descendants of Punjabi Sikhs who went to the South during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries and permanently settled in what was then the princely state of Hyderabad. The first Punjabi Sikhs to travel to the South comprised the 300strong contingent which arrived at Nanded in 1708 in the train of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708).
DHARAM SINGH, BHAI (1666-1708), one of the Pan] Piare or the Five Beloved, the forerunners of Khalsa, came of farming stock. He was the son of Bhai Sant Ram and Mai Sabho, of Hastinapur, an ancient town on the right bank of the Ganges, 35 km northeast of Meerut (29°N, 77° 45`E). Dharam Das, as he was originally named, was born around 1666. As a young man, he fell into the company of a Sikh who introduced him to the teachings of the Gurus. He left home at the age of thirty in quest of further instruction. At the Sikh shrine ofNanak Piau, dedicated to Guru Nanak, he was advised to go to Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur, where he arrived in 1698.
NIDHAN SINGH, SANT (1882-1947), holy man popularly known as Hazur Sahibvale, was born the son of Bhai Uttam Singh of the village of Nidalori in Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab. He received religious instruction at the hands of Sant Divan Singh, popular in the area for his holiness. He left his home at the age of 20 and enlisted in the 5th Probyn`s Horse, a cavalry regiment of the Indian army, atJharisi. But he resigned within a year and set out on pilgrimage to Takhl Sachkhand Sri Hazur Sahib, Nanded, where he took up his permanent abode and found his calling in work in Guru ka Larigar.
