SAROVAR, a tank, pool or lake, especially at a sacred place or by a holy shrine used for sacramental ablutions and other religious ceremonies. Sanskrit synonyms are sar, sarvar, tarag and vapl. Another word is puskar or puskarini which usually means a pond full of lotus

BALAK SINGH, BABA (1785-1862), mentor of Baba Ram Singh, acknowledged to be the forerunner of the Namdhari movement, was born in 1841 Bk/AD 1785 to Dial Singh and Mata Bhag Bhari, in an Arora family of village Chhoi in Attock district, in Rawalpindi division, now in Pakistan. Balak Singh

GURMAT (gurmat, mat, Sanskrit mati, i.e. counsel or tenets of the Guru, more specifically the religious principles laid down by the Guru) is a term which may in its essential sense be taken to be synonymous with Sikhism itself. It covers doctrinal, prescriptive and directional aspects of Sikh faith and

PANTH, from Sanskrit patha, pathin, or pantham, means literally a way, passage or path and, figuratively, away of life, religious creed or cult. In Sikh terminology, the word panth stands for the Sikh faith as well as for the Sikh people as a whole. It represents the invisible mystic body

SKETCH OF THE SIKHS, subtitled "A Singular Nation who inhabit the Province of the Punjab situated between the Rivers Jumna and Indus," by Lt.Col. John Malcolm, was originally published in the Asiatick Researches in 1810, and was published in book form in 1812 and reprinted in 1981 by Vinay

BAZIGARS or acrobats, a counterpart of nats outside the Punjab, are a nomadic people travelling from one place to the other, using camels and donkeys as pack animals. Earlier they had been an occupational group performing bazi, i.e. acrobatic feats, in the form of various types of jumps and other

Ham Hindu Nahin, by Bhai Kahn Singh, lit. "We, i.e. Sikhs, are not Hindus," is a clear-cut declaration of Sikh identity registered by a Sikh scholar and intellectual towards the close of the nineteenth century. The statement constitutes the basic dictum of the book which appeared under this challenging title

PAPA (Sanskrit and Pali papa, Prakrit pdva). The word stands for one of the basic concepts of the Indian religious tradition. This concept relates to what is considered religiously and morally evil, an act of body, mind, or speech opposed to what is considered religiously and morally good. In

SOHAN SINGH, SANT (1902-1972), born Ude Singh, was the youngest of the four children of Pahjab Singh and Prem Kaur who lived at the village of Phul in the former princely state of Nabha. The family moved to Chatthevala, near Damdama Sahib (Talvandi Sabo), during the influenza epidemic of 1918-19.

BRAHMO SAMAJ. The expression "Brahmo Samaj" (correct transcription, "Brahma Samaja") literally stands for a society of the worshippers of Brahman, the Supreme Reality, according to Hindu philosophy. It is the name of the Theistic Church founded by Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833), in Calcutta on 20 August 1828. The history

JAVALA SINGH, SANT (1878-1938), a pious and learned Sikh who also worked as a royal tutor for a time, was born at the village of Dham Tari Kalari, in Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab, on 26 October 1878. He learnt to read GurmukhT and the Sikh Scripture at the hands

PATIT, an adjective formed from patan meaning fall, decline or degradation, with its roots in Sanskrit pat which means, variously, "to fall, sink, descend; to fall in the moral sense; to lose caste, rank or position," usually denotes one who is morally fallen, wicked, degraded or out caste. It is