| Lakhi Jungle | |
|---|---|
 Detail of the Lakhi Jungle tract from a sketch map of the country northwest of Delhi to the southern bank of the Ravi River, including the districts of Haryana and Bikaner, by William Francklin, June 1802 | |
| Geography | |
| Location | Punjab, India |
Lakhi Jungle was a historical jungle located in present-day Punjab, India. It should not be confused with the historical Machhiwara jungle. [1]
A jungle formed in this area due to the shifting course of the Sutlej river. [2] A Bhatti chief, named Rana Lakhi, is said to have settled in the area of the Lakhi Jungle around the turn of the millennium between the 10th and 11th centuries. [2] The ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Teg Bahadur and tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh visited this place. [3] During the time period of Guru Gobind Singh and later, the area of the later Firozpur division was covered by a dense forest which stretched from Bathinda to Kotkapura. [4] [5] The Lakhi Jungle Darbar was based in the Lakhi Jungle tract. [6] After the evacuation of Anandpur, the Guru held a poetic court (Kavi Darbar) within the Lakhi Jungle. [7] According to Piara Singh Padam, it was attended by Behari, Lal Das Khiali, Adha, Jado Rai, Fat Mal, Keso, and Bhagtu. [7]
In the 18th century, the Sikhs used the surrounding jungle (from which the village takes its name) as a hideout from persecution by the Mughal Empire and the Duranni Empire. [8] During Ahmad Shah Durrani's seventh invasion of India between 1764 and 1765, the Sikhs used the jungle as a hideout. [9] The area was known for its horse traders, which may have partly attracted Sikh refugees to the area. [10] Historian Muzaffar Alam notes that the Sikhs of the 18th century used the jungle as a place of safety from state oppression and as a staging ground to launch attacks on plundering neighbouring villages and extracting tribute from zamindars . [11] Abdus-samad Khan crushed a rebellion by local Bhatti zamindars of the Lakhi Jungle in the 18th century. [12] The area was well-renowned for horse-breeding and its oxen all the way up till the 19th century. [2] The jungle itself has mostly since been deforested.
Guru Gobind Singh was the tenth and last human Sikh Guru. He was a warrior, poet, and philosopher. In 1675, at the age of nine he was formally installed as the leader of the Sikhs after his father Guru Tegh Bahadur was executed by Emperor Aurangzeb. His father was the ninth Sikh Guru. His four biological sons died during his lifetime – two in battle and two executed by the Mughal governor Wazir Khan.
The term Khalsa refers to both a community that considers Sikhism as its faith, as well as a special group of initiated Sikhs. The Khalsa tradition was initiated in 1699 by the Tenth Guru of Sikhism, Guru Gobind Singh. Its formation was a key event in the history of Sikhism. The founding of Khalsa is celebrated by Sikhs during the festival of Vaisakhi.
The Sikh Empire was a regional power based in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. It existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, to 1849, when it was defeated and conquered by the British East India Company in the Second Anglo-Sikh War. It was forged on the foundations of the Khalsa from a collection of autonomous misls. At its peak in the 19th century, the empire extended from Gilgit and Tibet in the north to the deserts of Sindh in the south and from the Khyber Pass in the west to the Sutlej in the east as far as Oudh. It was divided into four provinces: Lahore, which became the Sikh capital; Multan; Peshawar; and Kashmir from 1799 to 1849. Religiously diverse, with an estimated population of 4.5 million in 1831, it was the last major region of the Indian subcontinent to be annexed by the British Empire.
Dal Khalsa was the name of the combined military forces of 11 Sikh misls that operated in the 18th century (1748–1799) in the Punjab region. It was established by Nawab Kapur Singh in late 1740s.
Anandpur Sahib, also referred simply as Anandpur, is a city in Rupnagar district (Ropar), on the edge of Shivalik Hills, in the Indian state of Punjab. Located near the Sutlej River, the city is one of the most sacred religious places in Sikhism, being the place where the last two Sikh Gurus, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh, lived. It is also the place where Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa Panth in 1699. The city is home to Takhat Sri Kesgarh Sahib, the third of the five Takhts in Sikhism.
The Takht Sri Darbar Sahib Damdama Sahib, is one of the five takhts or Seat of Temporal Authority of Sikhism, located in Talwandi Sabo, near the city of Bathinda in Bathinda district of Punjab, India. At this place Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, prepared the full version of the Sikh scriptures called Sri Guru Granth Sahib in 1705. The other four Takhts are the Akal Takht, Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib, Takht Sri Patna Sahib and Takht Sri Hazur Sahib.
Kesgarh Qila or Takht Kesgarh Sahib, alternatively spelt as Keshgarh Qila, is one of the five takhts of the Sikhs located in Anandpur Sahib in Rupnagar district of Punjab, India. It is located just 40 km from Rupnagar city, the district headquarters and 78 km from state capital Chandigarh. The fort is also called Takhat Keshgarh Sahib. This Gurdwara was one of the forts constructed by Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur Sahib for the defense of the Sikhs. He spent his 25 years at Anandpur Sahib and, to protect the Sikhs from the Rajas of the Hill States and Mughals, began the construction of five defensive Qilas (forts) all around the town.
Fatehgarh Sahib is a city and a sacred pilgrimage site of Sikhism in the north west Indian state of Punjab. It is the headquarters of Fatehgarh Sahib district, located about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) north of Sirhind. Fatehgarh Sahib is named after Fateh Singh, the 7-year-old son of Guru Gobind Singh, who was seized and buried alive, along with his 9-year-old brother Zoravar Singh, by the Mughals under the orders of governor Wazir Khan during the ongoing Mughal-Sikh wars of the early 18th century. The town experienced major historical events after the martyrdom of the sons in 1705, with frequent changes of control between the Sikhs and Mughals.
Moga district is one of the twenty-two districts in the state of Punjab, India. It became the 17th district of Punjab State on 24 November 1995 cut from Faridkot district. Moga District is among the largest producers of wheat and rice in Punjab, India. People from Moga City and Moga District belong to the Malwa culture. The district is noted for being the homeland for a high proportion of Indian Punjabi expatriates who emigrated abroad and their descendents, which has given it the nickname of "NRI district".
The Tat Khalsa, also romanised as Tatt Khalsa, known as the Akal Purkhias during the 18th century, was a Sikh faction that arose from the schism following the passing of Guru Gobind Singh in 1708, led by his widow Mata Sundari, opposed to the religious innovations of Banda Singh Bahadur and his followers. The roots of the Tat Khalsa lies in the official formalization and sanctification of the Khalsa order by the tenth Guru in 1699.
Guru Nanak founded the Sikh religion in the Punjab region of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent in the 15th century and opposed many traditional practices like fasting, Upanayana, idolatry, caste system, ascetism, azan, economic materialism, and gender discrimination.
Baba Amar Singh Nibbar Khemkaran was an important figure in 18th century Bandai Sikhism.
Machhiwara Sahib is one of the developing cities in the Ludhiana district of the Indian state of Punjab. Machhiwara Sahib is famous for Gurudwara Sri Charan Kanwal Sahib associated with Guru Gobind Singh ji and named after the Guru's feet that are compared to the lotus flower.
Rehat refers to the rules and traditions which govern the unique Sikh lifestyle and determines correct Sikh orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The Sikh Rehit Maryada is a code of conduct and conventions for Sikhism. The final version of the Rehat Maryada was controversially approved by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Amritsar in 1945. The Rehat Maryada was created to provide guidance to Sikhs on practical and functional aspects of daily life, including the operations of Sikh Gurdwaras, and religious practices to foster cohesion throughout the community. Rehitnāma is a Punjabi term that refers to a genre of Sikh religious literature which expounds upon specifying an approved way of life for a Sikh.
Chhota Ghallughara was a massacre of a significant proportion of the Sikh population by the Mughal Empire in 1746. The Mughal Army killed an estimated 7,000 Sikhs in these attacks while an additional 3,000 Sikhs were taken captive. Chhōtā Ghallūghārā is distinguished from the Vaddā Ghallūghārā, the greater massacre of 1762.
Manuke is a village on Guru Gobind Singh Marg (highway) in district Ludhiana, state of Punjab, India. It is one of the largest village in Jagraon block. The world-famous Gurdwara Mehdiana Sahib is situated outside the village on the west. The village is populated mostly by Sandhu families. It has two main Gurdwara's, Shivdwala, and a Maseet. One of the Gurdwaras, Patshahi Dasvee, is believed to have been visited by Guru Gobind Singh himself while he was en-route to the Lakhi Jungle. The village has built a state of the art modern funeral home.
The Jathedar of the Akal Takht is the head of the Akal Takht and head of the Sikhs worldwide. The jathedar has the de facto power as the supreme spokesperson of the Khalsa to summon, trial and sentence any person who identifies as a Sikh from the Akal Takht.
The Khalsa Fauj were the military forces of the Khalsa order of the Sikhs, established by the tenth guru, Guru Gobind Singh, in 1699. It replaced the Akal Sena that had been established by the sixth guru, Guru Hargobind.
Kavi Darbar is a term that refers to historical Sikh durbars (courts) composed of congregations of poets, litterateurs, artists, and scholars that were established and had flourished during the guruship period of Guru Gobind Singh in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. These establishments served as Sikh centres of learning and scholarship. They played a pivotal role in the history of Sikh literature.
Machhiwara, also spelled Macchivara, was a historical jungle located in the Punjab region near the bank of the Sutlej river near the present-day Ludhiana district in Punjab, India. The Machhiwara jungle should not be confused with the Lakhi Jungle that existed near Bathinda.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)According to local tradition, one of the Bhatti chiefs, Rana Lakhi, settled in the Lakhi Jungle, the extensive jungle produced by the ever shifting Sutlej, in the reign of Mahmud of Ghazni (998-1030). He subsequently became a Muslim and founded 300 villages. He also procured a great number of Iranian horses and ordered his subjects to begin horse-breeding. Other evidence also confirms the high quality of the local horse breed, a standard that was kept up by the foreign horses that staged the perennial invasions from the north-west. Sultan Balban (1266-87), being cut off from foreign sources, procured most of his cavalry horses in the Bhatti area. The whole of the eastern Punjab, but the Lakhi Jungle in particular, remained a major horse-breeding area up to the nineteenth century,
The Guru camped in Lakhi jungle, a forest between the towns of Bhatinda and Kotkapura, for a while, and then moved on to Talwandi Sabo, where he was greeted with great warmth by Bhai Dalla, the landlord.
LAKHI JUNGLE. A wasteland south of Firozpur where the Khalsa sheltered during periods of persecution in the 18th century. The sheltering likely had to do with the fact that the area was a well-known ground of horse traders.