VARYAM SINGH, PANDIT (1864-1953), religious scholar and preacher, was born the son of Dhanna Singh, a peasant of moderate means living in the village of Jabboval, now in the Kapurthala district of the Punjab. Losing his father at the age of 14, he took up his ancestral profession of

TARA SINGH NAROTAM, PANDIT (1822-1891), a renowned scholar of the Nirmala school, was born in the village of Kalma, near Qadian, in Gurdaspur district of the Punjab. Very little is known about his early life except that, under the influence of his father, who was a devout Sikh, he

SAT SABHA, a religious and social reform society founded at Lahore in 1866 by a group of Bengalis and Punjabis. Babu Novin Chandra Rai and S.P. Bhattacharjee of the Bengali Community along with two Punjabis, Pandit Bhanu Datta Basant Ram and Lala Behari Lal Puri, established this new society.

SADHU SINGH, PANDIT (1840-1907), a school man of the Nirmala order, was born in the village of Saraliari, in Amritsar district, in 1840. From his very childhood, he developed an inclination for the company of holy men. This was cause of concern for his father, Sobha Singh, and mother,

SADDA SINGH, PANDIT, was a Nirmala scholar, who read Sanskrit with Pandit Chet Singh of Kashi. He attained such mastery of Sanskrit learning that his teacher made over to him his school before he died. The Pandits of Kashi honored him with the highest scholarly rank of Dandipad, after

RAM TIRATH, SVAMI (1897-1977), also known as Dandi Sannyasi (different from Rama Tirtha, Svami), was a recluse who after a prolonged spiritual quest turned to the Guru Granth Sahib. Born on 31 August 1897 to Pandit Balak Ram and Hari Devi, a Gaur Brahman family of the village of

RADHA KISHAN, PANDIT (d. 1875), son of Pandit Madhusudan, was appointed in 1824 by Maharaja Ranjit Singh to take charge of the education of Hira Singh Dogra, who studied both Sanskrit and Persian. Later, he was appointed tutor to the minor Maharaja Duleep Singh. He also performed the duties

PATTI, lit. a wooden tablet on which children learn to write the alphabet, is the name given to two hymns, in the Guru Granth Sahib, composed in the form of an acrostic, employing letters of the Gurmukhi alphabet. Pattt by Guru Nanak titled Rdgu Asd Mahald IPatfiLikhi comprises thirty-five

PANJAB ON THE EVE OF FIRST SIKH WAR, edited by Hari Ram Gupta, comprises abstracts of letters written daily by British intelligencers mainly from Lahore during the period 30 December 1843 to 31 October 1844. These newsletters constitute an important primary source on the period they pertain to. Maharaja Duleep

NISHCHAL SINGH, PANDIT SANT (1882-1978), widely respected holy man, preacher of Sikhism and head of the Sevapanthi sect of the Sikhs (1950-78), was born on 18 April 1882, the son of Bhai Amir Singh and Mat Piar Kaur, a pious couple of Mittha Tiwana in Shahpur (Sargodha) district of