CHANNAN SINGH, SANT (1907-1972), elected president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, successively from 1962 till his death in 1972, was born in 1907 to Tarlok Singh and Prem Kaur, a peasant couple of modest means, belonging to the village of Mullanpur, in Ludhiana district of the Punjab. As a small boy, he attended the Nirmala monastery located in his village where he learnt to read and write Gurmukhi and made his early acquaintance with Sikh scriptural texts.
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 Pakistan Punjab. Nishchal Singh lost his father at the age of five and was brought up under the care of his eldest brother, Mahitab Singh. Mahitab Singh, himself a devoted Sevapanthi saint, led Nishchal Singh to take to the same path. He sent him to Varanasi for higher learning.
DALIP SINGH, SANT (1883-1948), son of Ishar Singh and Har Kaur, was born in 1883 at the village ofLahri, in Hoshiarpur district. He was hardly five years old, when his father died. He was brought up by his maternal grandfather, Nihal Singh, at his village Dumeli. He received his early education from a local Sikh priest, who also trained him in the singing of gurbani. Dalip Singh was a child with peculiar traits.
DEVA SINGH NAROTAM, PANDIT (d. 1924), Nirmala scholar, was the son of Mahitab Singh of the village of Janetpura, 13 km north of Jagraori (30° 47`N, 75° 28`E), in Ludhiana district of the Punjab. He received his early lessons in the Sikh texts at the hands of Bhai Gurdit Singh and then left home to continue his studies under Sant Nattha Singh of Gurdwara Tapiana Sahib at Khadur Sahib, in Amritsar district, and later under Sant Mahna Singh (d. 1890) at the Nirmala dera or monastery at Khandur, near Mullaripur, in Ludhiana district. He accompanied Sant Mahna Singh to Bhai Rupa, a village 18 km north of Rampura Phul in Bathinda district, to join the Nirmala monastery called Dera Khuharivala. Here, Deva Singh, already reputed enough as a scholar to be known as pandit (lit. learned scholar), was put by his mentor through a course of comparative study of gurbani in the light of his knowledge of Sanskrit and Vedanta.
DHAKAULI, a village in Patiala district, 14 km east of Chandigarh (30° 44`N, 76° 46`E), is famous for Gurdwara Baoli Sahib, dedicated to Guru Gobind Singh. According to local tradition, the Guru, on his way back from Paonta to Anandpur in November 1688 decided to encamp on this site. He was told by the villagers that the nearest source of water was the stream Sukhna which was 2 km away.
