BENARES (BANARASA, VARANASI) .....They have rosaries around their necks and glittering jugs in their hands—they cannot be called the saints of Hari, they are the Thugs of Benares (Varanasi).(Asa Kabir, pp. 476) He lives on the bank of Asi rivulet in Benares (Varanasi). (Gond Namdev, p. 873) It is the sacred city of the Hindus, being a great religious centre. It is also called Kashi. After killing Kansa and restoring the throne of Mathura to Ugarsen, Krishna came to Kashi for higher education, because this city had been famous for higher religious education.
NIHAL SINGH, BAVA, resident of Sri Hargobindpur in Gurdaspur district, was originally an employee of the princely state of Kalsia serving in the police department. Later, he went over to Maharaja Bikram Singh of Faridkot. Bava Nihal Singh belonged to the Kuka or Namdhari sect and was the author of an Urdu book, Khurshid Khalsd, published in 1885, in which he extolled Baba Ram Singh Kuka as the eleventh Guru of the Sikhs.
