KHALSA, from Arabic khalis (lit. pure, unsullied) and Perso Arabic khalisah (lit. pure; office of revenue department; lands directly under government management), is used collectively for the community of baptized Sikhs. The term khalisah was used during the Muslim rule in India for crown lands administered directly by the

VAHIGURU SHABDARTH TIKA (Vahiguru= Sikh term for God ; 6abdarth=sabda or word+arth or meaning), by Pandit Tara Singh Narotam, is small tract which traces the origin of the word Vahigurii, its meanings and its usage in Sikh scriptures. The tract has been published as part of the author`s Gurmat Nirnaya

VAHIGURU JI KA KHALSA VAHIGURU JI KI FATEH, form of Sikh salutation, was made current among the Sikhs by command of Guru Gobind Singh at the time of the manifestation of the Khalsa in 1699. The salutation used in the days of Guru Nanak was Sati Kartar (Hail the

SATNAMI. The word satnami is derived from satnam, lit. the True Name , a term used in some religious traditions including Sikhism to denote the Supreme Being. Literally, a Satnami is one who believes in and worships only the True Being and as such every Sikh is a Satnami.

SANT TRADITION comprises those medieval monotheistic and devout personalities belonging to different shades of Indian society who are supposed to have been quiet, tranquil nonsectarian, opposed to Brahmanical ritualism, piously tired of the duplicity of the world but otherwise deeply conscious and critical of the outrageous anamolies professed by certain

SANT, commonly translated as saint though not very exactly, for the English term, used in the adjectival sense `saintly` for a person of great holiness, virtue or benevolence, has a formal connotation in the Western culture, is a modified form of sat meaning lasting, real, wise and venerable. Sat

QUDRAT (spelled qudrati in gurbani), a term adopted by Guru Nanak from the Arabic and given a philosophical signification and connotation which, to some extent but with different shades of sense, had till then been conveyed by the milenniaold Indian words prakriti and mdyd. Qudrat, in Arabic, literally means power,

PHUNHK, plural of phunha, a word derived from the Sanskrit punha meaning `again`, is the name of a poetic metre in which a particular term or phrase occurs repeatedly in each chhand or may be in each verse of a poem; in the Guru Granth Sahib it is the title

MARTYRDOM or voluntarily laying down of one`s life for one`s faith or principles, considered a noble death in any society, is especially prized in Sikhism which has a long and continuous tradition of such adherence to religious belief and sacrifice for it. Etymologically, "martyr" is derived from the Greek

MANMUKH, the ego guided person, as opposed to gurmukh`who is Guru guided. The gurmukhmanmukh bipolarity represents the personality typology employed in the Sikh sacred literature. Basically it opposes and contrasts the ocentric and egocentric personality types. The word manmukh is compounded of man (mind, lower self) and mukh (face):

MAHANT, originally the superior of a math or any other similar religious establishment. In the Punjab of early Sikhism, its characteristic usage referred to the leaders of Nath deras. The term acquired a distinctive Sikh application during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, period during which many Sikh gurdwaras passed into

AKAL, lit. timeless, immortal, non temporal, is a term integral to Sikh tradition and philosophy. It is extensively used in the Dasam Granth hymns by Guru Gobind Singh, who titled one of his poetic compositions Akal Ustati, i.e. In Praise (ustati) of the Timeless One (akal). However, the concept of