Ranjit Singh (redirected from Lion of the Punjab)

Ranjit Singh (rŭn`jĭt sĭng), 1780–1839, Indian maharaja, ruler of the Sikhs. Seizing Lahore (1799) and Amritsar (1809), he established himself as the leading Sikh chieftain. In 1809 he made a treaty with the British, by which he agreed not to expand his domain south of the Sutlej River. However, he built up a formidable army with the help of European officers and rapidly expanded his holdings to the north and west. By the time of his death he controlled all of the Punjab north of the Sutlej as well as Kashmir. At the end (1849) of the Sikh Wars most of his kingdom fell to Great Britain.

---

Ranjit Singh

(born Nov. 13, 1780, Budrukhan or Gujranwala, India—died June 27, 1839, Lahore) Founder and maharaja (1801–39) of the Sikh kingdom of the Punjab. He became chief of the Shukerchakias (a Sikh group located in what is now Pakistan) on the death of his father in 1792. In 1799 he seized Lahore, the capital of the Punjab (and now in Pakistan), and in 1801 he proclaimed himself maharaja of the Punjab. In 1802 he captured Amritsar, a city sacred to the Sikhs, and by 1820 he had consolidated his rule over the whole of Punjab between the Sutlej and the Indus rivers. The Sikh state he created, which had included Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus in both the army and the cabinet, collapsed soon after his death.

---

Ranjit Singh

called the Lion of the Punjab. 1780--1839; founder of the Sikh kingdom in the Punjab

---

Ranjit Singh 

Born Nov. 13, 1780, in Budrukhan, or Nov. 2, 1780, in Gujranwala; died June 27, 1839, in Lahore. Ruler of the Punjab state from 1799 to 1839.

The ruler of a small Sikh principality, Ranjit Singh began a struggle to unify Punjab lands in the 18th century. In 1799 he took possession of Lahore, the economic and cultural center of Punjab, and assumed the title of maharaja. He completed the unification of Punjab in 1810 and 1811 and created a strong centralized feudal state, which lasted until Punjab was annexed by the British after the Sikh Wars (1849).

Ranjit Singh carried out a series of internal reforms aimed at centralizing the government. His military reforms were especially significant: the army was reorganized along European lines and placed under the command of the maharaja himself, with the traditional detachments of jagirdars playing a secondary role. The military reforms allowed Ranjit Singh to conduct an active policy of conquest and to retain the obedience of regional vicegerents.

REFERENCE

Semenova, N. I. Gosudarstvo sikkhov. Moscow, 1958.