BHUPINDER SINGH, LIEUTENANTGENERAL MAHARAJA SIR (1891-1931), Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire, Knight of the Order of the British Empire, ruler of the Sikh state of Patiala, was one of the most colourful and

BISHAN SINGH (d. 1868) was like his father, Sultan Singh, in the Ghorcharha regiment of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In Maharaja Sher Singh`s time, he was placed in charge of the artillery park at Lahore. After the annexation of the Punjab by the British, Bishan Singh joined the 2nd Punjab

BUDDHA There are many Siddhas, Buddhas and Nathas..... (Japu, p. 7) The word Buddha seems to have been used for Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.Mythologically, he was accepted in Hinduism as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu. His great success as a religious teacher seerns to have induced the

DEVA SINGH, SARDAR BAHADUR(d. 1872), son of Fateh Singh and a great grandson of Savan Singh, cousin of Sarigat Singh, the leader of the Nishanavali misi, came of a Shergil Jatt family of Mansurval, in Firozpur district. Deva Singh joined service under Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1816 at a

GAYA The visits to Ganga, Gaya and Godavari are only worldly works. (Basant Namdev, p. 1196) He goes to Gaya and offers rice-balls. (Gond Namdev, p. 873) It is one of the seven sacred puris (places of religious merit) of Hindus. It is a famous pilgrim station not only

HUKAM, Arabic hukm for command, order, decree, law, has acquired in Sikh usage a metaphysical shade connoting the Divine Law or Order, regulating the entire universe. Its importance in Sikh theology is indicated by its occurrence at the very beginning of the Adi Granth (Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh

JAHANGIR, NUR LJDDIN MUHAMMAD (1569-1627), fourth Mughal emperor of Delhi. Born SalTm, he assumed at his accession the title of Jahangir, Conqueror of the World. During his father`s Dcc^an campaign of 1598-99, he had planned a rebellion, but in 1604 the father and son were reconciled, and the latter was

NIHAL SINGH SODHI (d. 1859), son of Megh Singh, entered Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s army in 1819, and was, five years later, made commandant of 100 horsemen in the Charyari corps. He fought for Maharaja Sher Singh during the siege of Lahore in January 1841. Under Sher Singh`s successor, Nihal

PANJAB SINGH, RISALDAR MAJOR (d. 1869), soldier in the Sikh army and, upon the occupation of the Punjab in 1849, in the army of the British, was the grandson of Jodh Singh (d. 1837), a jdgirddr or feudatory of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and the grandfather of Sardar Sir Jogendra

PHERU, BHAI (1640-1706), an Udasi Sikh preacher, was born the son of Bhai Binna Uppal of Amb Man in parganah Mien ki Maur in Lahore district (now in Pakistan). His original name was Sarigat. As he grew up, he adopted peddling as a profession and earned the nickname of

RAVANA Rama has gone and Ravana has gone, who had a big family; the world is a dream and nothing is stable, saith Nanak. (Shalok M. 9, p. 1428) Ravana, who had one lakh sons and lakh and a quarter grandsons; there is not even a lamp and a

SRI GURU GRANTH PRAYAY, a glossary of the Guru Granth Sahib, is an anonymous and undated manuscript preserved in the Khalsa College at Amritsar under catalogue No. 1473. It comprises 147 folios, 24 cms x 16 cms, with 21 lines to a page, and is possibly a late eighteenth century