LAKHNAUR, 10 km south of Ambala City (30"23`N, 76"47`E), was the ancestral village of Mata Gujari, mother of Guru Gobind Singh. Returning in 1670 to Patna after his long eastern journey, Guru Tegh Bahadur asked his family to travel straight to Lakhnaur, while he himself made a detour and went

BIDAR (17° 55`N, 77° 32`E) is a district town in Karnataka. It is a railway station on the VikarabadParliVaijnath section of the South Central Railway. It is also connected by road with Nanded. GURDWARA SRi NANAK JHiRA SAHIB at Bidar honours the memory of Guru Nanak. At the time

PANJA SAHIB, GURDWARA, at Hasan Abdal (33° 48`N, 72° 44`E) in Attock (or Campbellpore) district of Pakistan Punjab, is sacred to Guru Nanak, who briefly stopped here on his way back to the Punjab from his western uddsi or journey which took him as far West as Mecca and

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.

PRITAM DAS, MAHANT (1752-1831), an Udasi saint, was born in 1752, according to some sources in 1722, in a Sarsvat Brahman family of Hoshiarpur district of the Punjab. His original name was Karam Chand. His early education was limited to preliminary Urdu. He left his home at the age

GONDA, CHAUDHARI, one of the headmen of the village of Muloval, now in Sarigrur district of the Punjab, was converted to the Sikh faith by Guru Tegh Bahadur. According to local tradition supported by old chronicles, when Guru Tegh Bahadur visited Muloval, he stopped near the village well to

SANHER, 8 km southeast of Zira (30° 58`N, 74° 59 ° E), in Firozpur district, is sacred to Guru Hargobind, who visited the village on his way from Amritsar to Darauli. The Gurdwara Patshahl`Chhevin was in the control of Udasi priests before it came under the administration of the

GURMANTRA, Punjabi Gurmantar, is that esoteric formula or term significant of the Supreme Being or the deity which the master or teacher confides to the neophyte to meditate on when initiating him into his spiritual discipline. The concept of mantra goes back to the pre-Vedic non Aryan tradition and to

SANTOKH DAS, an Udasi sant belonging to the Sangat Sahib Ke subsect, is remembered for the construction of the hansli, a water channel taken off the Shahi Nahar, an irrigation canal, for the regular supply of water for the sacred tanks in Amritsar. This feat he accomplished in collaboration

JITOJI, MATA, the first wife of Guru Gobind Singh who died in 1700, was the daughter of Bhai Hari Jas, a Subhikkhi Khatn of Lahore. The betrothal had taken place in 1673. The father in law had desired that the bridegroom should come at the head of a marriage

TARAPUR, a village 5 km east of Anandpur (310 14N, 760 31`E) in Ropar district of the Punjab, is sacred to Guru Gobind Singh, who constructed a fortress here after his return from Paonta in 1688. He also had a baoli (open well with steps leading down to water