TARA SINGH, BHAI, the eighteenthcentury Sikh martyr, was a Buttar Jatt of the village Van, popularly known as DallVan because of its proximity to another village called Dall, in presentday Amri tsar district of the Punjab. His father, Gurdas Singh, had received the rites of the Khalsa in the time of Guru Gobind Singh, and had taken part in the battle ofAmritsar (6 April 1709), in which Bhai Mani Singh led the Sikhs and in which Har Sahai, a revenue official of Patti, was killed at his (Gurdas Singh's) hands. Tara Singh, the eldest of the five sons of Gurdas Singh, was born around 1702. Receiving the rites of initiation from Bhai Mani Singh, he grew up to be a devout Sikh, skilled in the martial arts. As persistent persecution drove the Sikhs out of their homes to seek shelter in hills and