Golden TempleThe Golden Temple (also known as the Harimandir Sahib (abode of God, ɦəɾəmən̪d̪əɾə saːɦ(ɪ)bə), or the Darbār Sahib, 'exalted court', d̪əɾəbaːɾə saːɦ(ɪ)bə or Suvaran Mandir) is a gurdwara located in the city of Amritsar, Punjab, India. It is the preeminent spiritual site of Sikhism. It is one of the holiest sites in Sikhism, alongside the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Kartarpur, and Gurdwara Janam Asthan in Nankana Sahib. The man-made pool on the site of the temple was completed by the fourth Sikh Guru, Guru Ram Das, in 1577.
AroraArora is a community of Punjab, comprising both Hindus and Sikhs. The name is derived from their native place Aror. In 712, the Arora people left Aror and started to settle in the cities of Punjab. Historically, the Arora section of the Khatri community had been principally found in West Punjab, in the districts to the south and west of Lahore. Scott Cameron Levi, believes that they are a "sub-caste of the Khatris". After Partition of India, Punjabis who migrated from erstwhile West Punjab were mostly Khatris and Aroras.
JatsThe Jat people (ਜੱਟ, d͡ʒəʈːə; जाट, d͡ʒaːʈ; جاٽ) are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and subsequently into the Delhi Territory, northeastern Rajputana, and the western Gangetic Plain in the 17th and 18th centuries. Of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh faiths, they are now found mostly in the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and the Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Punjab.
Punjab, IndiaPunjab (pʌnˈdʒɑːb; pənˈdʒɑːb) is a state in northern India. Forming part of the larger Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, the state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the north and northeast, Haryana to the south and southeast, and Rajasthan to the southwest; by the Indian union territories of Chandigarh to the east and Jammu and Kashmir to the north. It shares an international border with Punjab, a province of Pakistan to the west. The state covers an area of 50,362 square kilometres (19,445 square miles), which is 1.
Gill (name)Gill may be a surname or given name, derived from a number of unrelated sources. In Europe, various cultures use the name, examples being: the Dutch form of the given name Giles in English, Gill may be a hypocorism of a number of given names, including Giles, Julian, William (Guillaume), Gillian, Gilbert in Northern English, Scots and Norwegian, it may be a topographic name, ultimately derived from Old Norse gil 'ravine'; for example: Lord Gill as a surname, an anglicization of the Scottish or Irish patronymic McGill (or Mac Gille, Mac An Ghoill and variants), also derived from the origins of the same English name.
Caste system in IndiaThe caste system in India is the paradigmatic ethnographic instance of social classification based on castes. It has its origins in ancient India, and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, especially the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. It is today the basis of affirmative action programmes in India as enforced through its constitution. The caste system consists of two different concepts, varna and jati, which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system.
Punjabi Suba movementThe Punjabi Suba movement was a long-drawn political agitation, launched by Punjabi speaking people (mostly Sikhs) demanding the creation of autonomous Punjabi Suba, or Punjabi-speaking state, in the post-independence Indian state of East Punjab. The movement is defined as the forerunner of Khalistan movement. Borrowing from the pre-partition demands for a Sikh country, this movement demanded a fundamental constitutional autonomous state within India. Led by the Akali Dal, it resulted in the formation of the state of Punjab.
SidhuSidhu (ਸਿੱਧੂ) is a Punjabi Jat clan found in Punjab. Most people of the clan follow Sikhism, while some follow Hinduism and Islam. The people inhabiting Sidhmukh Mountain, Rajasthan, were called Sidhu (सीधू), while the present population resides in Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Pakistan. According to oral history, the clan descends from a Bhatti Rajput progenitor named Sidhu Rao, whom had wed a woman from a Gill Jat background. Their descendants are thus the Sidhu Jats.
KhatriKhatri is a caste/clan of the Indian subcontinent that is predominantly found in India, but also in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the subcontinent, they were mostly engaged in mercantilistic professions such as banking and trade. They were the dominant commercial and financial administration class of Late-Medieval India, some in Punjab often belonged to hereditary agriculturalist land-holding lineages, while others were engaged in artisanal occupations such as silk production and weaving and some were scribes learned in Sanskrit or Persian.
MislThe Misls (derived from the Arabic word مِثْل meaning 'equal'; sometimes spelt as Misal) were the twelve sovereign states of the Sikh Confederacy, which rose during the 18th century in the Punjab region in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent and is cited as one of the causes of the weakening of the Mughal Empire prior to Nader Shah's invasion of India in 1738–1740. In order to withstand the persecution of Shah Jahan and other Mughal rulers, several of the later Sikh Gurus established military forces and fought the Mughal Empire and Hindu hill chiefs in the early and middle Mughal-Sikh Wars.
