Contents: Preface. Introduction/Himadri Banerjee. 1. A personal reading of Sikh history/Jogendra Singh. 2. Institution of the Khalsa/J.S. Grewal. 3. The Khalsa of Guru Gobind Singh: its soldiers and their arms/Iqtidar Alam Khan. 4. Maharaja Ala Singh’s relations with the Marathas, 1758-61/Kirpal Singh. 5. Origin of Sikh territorial chieftainships, 1748-59/H.R. Gupta. 6. The Maratha-Sikh treaty of 1785/Ganda Singh. 7. The Sikhs in the South/B.A. Saletore. 8. Maharaja Ranjit Singh : the man, his achievements and ideals/N.C. Banerjee. 9. Diplomatic code of Maharaja Ranjit Singh/Fauja Singh. 10. A note on general ventura’s Jagir/S.N. Sen. 11. Khalsa ideology and politics: Banda Bahadur to Ranjit Singh/Indu Banga. 12. The Kashmir rebellion and the trial of Raja Lal Singh/Indubhushan Banerjee. 13. Three letters of Maharani Jind Kaur/Ganda Singh. 14. Evidence for sixteenth-century agrarian conditions in the Guru Granth Sahib/Irfan Habib. 15. Sikh painting: an appraisal/S.P. Verma. Index.

"The Khalsa and the Punjab : Studies in Sikh History, to the 19 Century is the third in a series of volumes published to mark the tercentenary of the Khalsa, the previous two being History and Ideology: The Khalsa over 300 years (1999) and Sikh History from Persian Sources (2001).

"This volume comprises some of the papers presented at the panel on the Khalsa at the 60 session of the Indian History Congress along with others from earlier proceedings of the Congress. Covering different areas of Sikh studies, the fifteen essays contained here are an attempt at introducing the Sikh past to a wide readership." (jacket)