BUDDHA DAL and Taruna Dal, names now appropriated by two sections of the Nihang Sikhs, were the popular designations of the two divisions of Dal Khalsa, the confederated army of the Sikhs during the eighteenth century. With the execution of Banda Singh Bahadur in 1716, the Sikhs were deprived of a unified command. Moreover, losses suffered by the Sikhs during the anti Banda Singh campaign around Gurdaspur and the relentless persecution that followed at the hands of `Abd usSamad Khan, governor of Lahore, made it impossible for Sikhs to continue large scale combined operations.
DIP SINGH SHAHID. BABA (1682-1757). founder of the Shahid misi or principality as well as of the Damdami Taksal or Damdama school of Sikh learning, was born in 1682, the son of Bhai Bhagata and Mai Jiuni. a Sikh couple living in Pahuvind, a village 40 km southwest of Amritsar. He received the vows of the Khalsa at Anandpur where he stayed for some time to study the sacred texts under Bhai Mani Singh. He rejoined Guru Gobind Singh at Talvandi Sabo in 1706 and, after the latter`s departure for the South, stayed on there to look after the sacred shrine, Damdama Sahib.
GOPAL, RAJA (Raj Singh according to some sources), of Guler, mentioned in Sikh chronicles as well as in Guru Gobind Singh`s Bachitra Ndtak, was one of the hill chieftains who fought against the Guru in the battle of Bharigam in 1688. After the defeat of the rajas, Gopal seems to have sought peace and friendship with Guru Gobind Singh. When Husain Khan was despatched in 1696 by Dilawar Khan, the Mughal chief, towards the hills to chastise the recalcitrant princes, Raja Gopal, not being able to pay the heavy tribute levied upon him, prepared to fight.
NIRANKARIS, a sect of the Sikhs born of a reform movement which arose in northwest Punjab in the middle of the nineteenth century aiming to restore the purity of Sikh belief and custom. Its founder, Baba Dayal (1783-1855), was a contemporary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. A man of humble origin, he cavilled at the shortcomings of the mighty and assailed the rites and observances which had perverted the Sikh way of life. His main target was the worship of images against which he preached vigorously.
